Bethel Ame

The Lord Peacefully called LAVENIA GARDNER home on Saturday, July 21, 2007. She is survived by daughters Alice Smith, Eleanor Jones, Trevor Smith and one son Tracy Smith and a host of other relatives and friends. The late Lavenia Gardner will lie instate on Friday July 27, from 3 p.m. to 7 p.m. at Ronald Taylor, II Funeral Home, 108 W. North Avenue, Baltimore, MD. A Wake will be held on Saturday, July 28, at 10:30 a.m. until time of service at 11 a.m. at Bethel A.M.E. Church, 1300 Druid Hill Avenue, Baltimore.

Bethel AME Church officials are moving forward with plans for a 3,000-seat church in western Baltimore County, despite continued protests from neighbors.Environmental and engineering studies show that the recently purchased 256-acre site in Granite is suitable for development, said Leronia A. Josey, Bethel's lawyer.The site, on Old Court Road near its intersection with Dogwood Road, was bought from William F. Chew of Freeland last week, nine months after church leaders found the site, she said.

A few of the five farmhouses along a dusty, unnamed lane off Old Court Road just east of Granite date back to 1899, and yesterday -- as American flags whipped proudly in the hot breeze -- neighbors prepared for front-porch lemonade socials.While some visitors to the area in rural Baltimore County were welcomed with smiles and nods, 800 visitors from Baltimore's Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church were greeted with cameras and video recorders.Bethel AME members plan to build a "mega-church" -- with a 3,000-seat sanctuary and a parking lot for some 1,500 cars -- on 256 acres the church purchased at the end of the lane.

Bethel A.M.E., brokers entertain city youthsNearly 500 Baltimore youths attended the second annual "Gift to the Community" project sponsored by the Maryland Association of Mortgage Brokers and Bethel A.M.E. Community Outreach Center Sunday at the 5th Regiment Armory.Participants at the party enjoyed dinner, entertainment, a gift and food certificate to help provide a holiday meal for their families.More than 100 volunteers from the mortgage brokers and Bethel worked at the event, which was funded by the MAMB.

After withdrawing one controversial expansion proposal in Baltimore County, Bethel AME Church -- among the city's largest and most influential congregations -- is to vote on a new suburban site for a church, school, family life center and broadcast station.But residents of Granite, a small community sandwiched between Randallstown and the Howard County border, say such a mega-church would forever change their rural community -- and lead to traffic headaches in the area."It would be a terrible problem for the whole community," said Baltimore County Council Chairman Stephen G. Sam Moxley, who noted that there is another large church in the area.

Betty Keys doesn't need a designated holiday to remember Martin Luther King Jr.Though it has been nearly three decades since the preacher and civil rights leader's murder, King's memory and legacy, his life and his death, still reverberate within her.She is constantly reminded not only of who King was, but what he stood for."As long as we remember him, he will never die," Keys said yesterday, before services at Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church.She said she was in labor with her daughter, Kimberly, on April 4, 1968, when she learned that King had been assassinated on a hotel balcony in Memphis, Tenn.

Members of Bethel AME Church -- one of Baltimore's largest and most influential congregations - have endorsed a plan to buy land in the rural community of Granite for a long-sought suburban expansion, church officials said yesterday.The decision to go ahead with a feasibility study on 256 acres of southwest Baltimore County farmland ` despite opposition from area residents - comes two weeks after a contract of sale was signed, William F. Chew, the property owner, said yesterday. He declined to give the purchase price.

Six months after members of Bethel AME Church voted to add a suburban site that would include a sanctuary, school, family life center and broadcast station, plans for the rural complex have only inched forward.Baltimore County officials say preliminary plans for Bethel's new complex in Granite, including a 90,000-square-foot church, fail to adequately address such issues as forest buffers, soil content, water quality and sewage capacity, said Kevin Koepenick, of the county Department of Environmental Protection and Resource Management.

BETHEL AME Church's proposal to move the bulk of its operations from West Baltimore to a planned complex in Baltimore County's rural Granite is the latest example of a land-use problem many jurisdictions have yet to confront.Under most zoning statutes, churches are allowed as a matter of right in residential and rural areas. But recently a new kind of church has evolved -- the "megachurch" -- which does not in any way resemble the place of worship lawmakers had in mind when they wrote the laws.

The alienation of African-American men from the churches of their communities is perhaps the single greatest tragedy facing black America."While 75 percent of the mosque is male, 75 percent of the black church is female," laments Jawanza Kunjufu, author of "Adam Where Are You?: Why Most Black Men Don't Go to Church." It wasn't always so: In earlier generations, black men were much more involved in the church, and their religious faith bolstered their commitment to families and neighborhoods.

Members of Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, forced out of their landmark Baltimore building, will take temporary refuge at Temple Oheb Shalom, the spiritual leaders of the two congregations said Wednesday. A week after lightning struck the steeple of the church on Druid Hill Avenue, the Rev. Frank M. Reid III and Rabbi Steven M. Fink announced that the Christian congregation would hold Sunday services at the Reform Jewish synagogue in Park Heights through Labor Day. Fink called Reid after learning of the July 1 fire to offer Oheb Shalom's 900-seat sanctuary to the church.

On March 11, 2009 ALICE JACKSON. The family will receive friends on Thursday at Bethel A.M.E. Church, 1300 Druid Hill Ave. at 11 a.m. Funeral Service will follow at 11:30 a.m.

Baltimore native, Army Sgt. Demond A. Johnson A memorial service will be held at Bethel AME Church, where he was a long time member. The funeral service was held with full military honors on Friday, February 13, in St. Luke AME Church. Fayetteville. Graveside services followed in Sandhills State Veterans Cemetery in Spring Lake. A memorial service will be held at Bethel AME Church, where he was a long time member, Tuesday, February 17th family hour at 10:30 A.M. followed by memorial at 11 A.M. Dr. Frank M. Reid, III is the pastor.

Baltimore Mayor Sheila Dixon said yesterday she will donate some of her 2.5 percent pay raise to Bethel AME Church, and another portion to YouthWorks, a program providing jobs to young adults. Dixon made the announcement at a City Hall news conference kicking off the YouthWorks jobs effort for next summer. She took no questions from reporters. "Despite the way some things are projected, I'm a huge contributor in many ways, financially, as well as others," Dixon said. "So I'm pledging to give a check from this raise, increase in living [cost]

On June 10, DEREK. Survived by family and friends. Friends may call at the Carlton C. Douglass Funeral Service, P.A., 1701 McCulloh St. on Monday, 1 to 9 p.m. Family will receive friends Tuesday, 10:00 to 10:30 a.m. at The Bethel A.M.E. Church, 1300 Druid Hill Avenue with Services following. Interment Woodlawn Cemetery.

The 31-year-old former music director of the influential West Baltimore Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church pleaded guilty yesterday to second-degree rape for having sex with a young female parishioner. Timothy D. Price III of Owings Mills admitted in Baltimore Circuit Court that he had sex with the female parishioner who was 12 at the time. He is scheduled to be sentenced Aug. 1. Prosecutors said they will seek a sentence of 20 years, with all but seven years suspended, and five years of probation.

On May 22, 2008, EVELYN; devoted wife of Raymond Grissett. Friends may visit the family owned MARCH FUNERAL HOME WEST, INC., 4300 Wabash Avenue, on Thursday after 8:30 a.m. where the family will receive friends from 5 to 7 p.m. The family will also receive friends on Friday at Bethel A.M.E. Church, 1300 Druid Hill Avenue, at 10:30 a.m. followed by funeral service at 11.

On April 3, 2008, VAUGHN THELMA WINFIELD. On Thursday, friends may call at VAUGHN C. GREENE FUNERAL SERVICES (RANDALLSTOWN) 8728 Liberty Road from 4-8 P.M. On Friday, Mrs. Winfield will lie in state at Bethel A.M.E., 1300 Druid Hill Avenue, where the family will receive friends form 10-11 A.M., with services to follow. Inquiries to (410) 655-0015.

On Monday, March 10, 2008 Rachel S. Roey, 83 retired Baltimore City Public School teacher died peacefully at Harbor Hospital. Beloved wife of the late Orville Roey. Rachel was a resident of Baltimore City and longtime member of Bethel AME Church. Rachel is survived by neices, Mary C. Wiggins and Bishop Janice Collins. Visitation at Chatman-Harris Funeral Home 5240 Reisterstown Road on Monday 5 PM-8PM and Tuesday 12- 8 PM. Funeral Services at Bethel AME Church, 1300 Druid Hill Avenue on Wednesday beginning at 10:30 AM. Arrangements by JOHN L. WILLIAMS FUNERAL DIRECTORS.

A week after Baltimore filed a lawsuit alleging predatory lending in black neighborhoods, the Rev. Jesse Jackson met with the city's religious leaders yesterday to urge action to save homeowners from foreclosure. Jackson encouraged the clergy to pressure banks to put a moratorium on foreclosures and to restructure loans so that homeowners can continue to meet payments and hold onto their homes. He said the effects of a massive number of foreclosures would ripple through the economy. "Whole cities are sinking beneath this poison pill ... because government allowed the [lending]