Home Christian News George Liele Legacy Undergirds Black Fellowship Church-Planting Initiative

George Liele Legacy Undergirds Black Fellowship Church-Planting Initiative

Robinson describes NAAF’s network of about 3,800 seasoned pastors nationwide as a benefit to emerging African American church planters.

Other pastors who helped launch the initiative are Jerome Coleman, senior pastor of First Baptist Church Crestmont in Willow Grove, Pa.; Richard Gaines, senior pastor of Consolidated Baptist Church in Lexington, Ky.; and Marshal Ausberry, senior pastor of Antioch Baptist Church in Fairfax Station, Va.

Pastors working in the initiative praise Liele’s church-planting legacy birthed in the 18th Century in the U.S. and expanded through his work in Jamaica.

“George Liele was really the start of it all,” Robinson said. “He was the first missionary from America. His legacy of planting churches and starting churches is the foundation for everything that we do.”

Kennedy sees rich lessons for the church in Liele’s work.

“George Liele helps us understand that difficulty does not block our vision or our momentum,” Kennedy said. “This man was born in slavery and still pastored a church, and still became a missionary in another country, despite the brutal and the demonically inspired North American slave trade which Christians helped perpetuate.”

But in the midst of “one of the saddest moments in church history,” Kennedy said, “white brothers helped him.

“There were some white brothers who followed the Word of God, who spoke out and made changes, who risked their lives to follow Jesus and do what was right, despite slavery.”

Editor’s note: Sunday, Feb. 5, was George Liele Church Planting, Evangelism and Missions Sunday in the Southern Baptist Convention.

This article originally appeared at Baptist Press.