Richard Allen

Hello, I’m Joe Pursch, and this is a Transforming Moment. It might surprise you to hear me say this, but some church splits can be good things. That’s right, sometimes even sincere Christians can get stuck in sinful patterns that God just has to break. Such was the case on a spring day in 1787, when evangelist Richard Allen had had enough. Allen was an African American evangelist in the Methodist Church in Pennsylvania. But when he saw that white Methodists insisted on separate seating for their black brothers and sisters in church, Allen started a new denomination. It’s known today as the African Methodist Episcopal Church or AME. With over 6000 churches and 2 million members, the AME Church is a pillar of hope in urban America. It might have had something to do with Allen’s intensity. He often said he would find himself waking up from sleep preaching because he believed time was short. I’ll bet nobody ever fell asleep in his services! I’m Joe Pursch, and this has been a Transforming Moment