Gamble and Chapman highlight church’s Prayer Breakfast

ORANGE, NJ — Ebenezer Baptist Church in Orange topped off its weeklong revival event by hosting its Men’s Ministry Prayer Breakfast at the church on Saturday, Sept. 10.

The spirit of Irvington was in the air at the event in the persons of East Ward Joint Block Association Vice President Glenn Gamble and the Rev. Angelo Chapman. Gamble works as a business teacher at Orange Preparatory Academy in addition to being a member of Ebenezer Baptist Church, where the Rev. Bill Rutherford III presides. Chapman was a guest preacher, in town from Virginia, for the he weeklong revival meeting that took place from Sept. 4 to 10.

Chapman, who serves as the pastor at Pilgrim Journey Baptist Church in Richmond, Va., and at Virginia Union University, a historically black college in Richmond, has also been a guest preacher for the past decade in Irvington at revivals at Greater New Point Baptist Church with the Rev. William Rutherford II, the father of Ebenezer’s minister.

Gamble said family is important, which is why he followed his mother to Ebenezer when she returned to the church after having switched to another church for a few years. Gamble was one of three guest speakers, along with Reggie Miller of the OPA Male Student Support Program and church Trustee Julian Roberts, chosen to speak at the Men’s Prayer Breakfast.

“This is my church and, today, is part of the men’s ministry. This is Men’s Month and Men’s Day will be (Sunday, Sept.) 25, so they had the prayer breakfast,” said Gamble on Saturday, Sept. 10. “I talked about unity, with my mind really focused on the scriptural aspect of unity.”

Gamble said he wants anyone who heard him speak at the Men’s Prayer Breakfast to think about “empowerment.” The longtime Irvington resident is also a member of the East Ward Joint Block Association, which operates in Irvington and focuses on quality-of-life issues in that area, including public safety.

“The community needs the village to come together,” he said. “There’s been a lot of crime here in Orange and it’s affected some of my students and I see what happens around here. I’m glad that my pastor’s out in front to bring about a change here in the city of Orange.”

Leadership is important, Gamble said, adding that he’s thankful the younger Rutherford leads his church and that, on the secular side of things, Mayor Tony Vauss is working to make Irvington clean and safe.

Chapman agreed that leadership is vital in the spiritual and corporeal world, and said he is glad to be connected to the Rutherford family.

“This is my 12th year coming up to this Newark, Irvington and Orange area,” said Chapman on Saturday, Sept. 10. “Both of the Rutherfords have a lot of fire in them; the dad is from Georgia, so he’s from that Old South; the son is from Orange. They both have the same fire and the same passion for the community and the love of people and heart for the people. I’m very excited for what this pastor at Ebenezer is going to do, impacting his community.”

Chapman said the future is bright for Ebenezer Baptist Church with the younger Rutherford, adding “he’s a chip off the block of his dad” and “you couldn’t have picked a better person for the time that we find ourselves in, for the time that this community finds itself in, even for the time that this church finds itself in to do the work, than Pastor (Bill) Rutherford.” He also praised the young pastor’s choice in selecting Gamble, Miller and Roberts to speak at the breakfast.

“I got picked, but I was a little surprised to be picked, to be honest,” said Roberts on Saturday, Sept. 10. “I’m a trustee and, usually, the deacons are the ones that speak, but I I’ve worked with pastor a lot over the last year. We’ve done a lot of ministry work together and I was very honored to speak and I was prepared for it and I was very excited about the opportunity to speak.

“I talked about family first, in terms of Orange. A lot of times, I think black families in Orange, we don’t talk enough about our families from the South. I wanted to explain how my family came to Orange. My grandfather is from Townsel, Ga., my grandmother is from Clarksville, Va. They met around 1930, married and my grandfather basically raised the entire family in Ebenezer.”

Miller said he’s glad Bill Rutherford III is in Orange and active in grassroots community activist groups such as the Not Orange anti-violence movement.

“A professional fighter has a purposeful walk; he walks upright and, even after he’s done with his workout and he’s run about 8 or 9 miles, hit the bag, when he walks out of that gym, he still walks out of the gym with a purposeful walk,” Miller said Saturday, Sept. 10. “When I heard that, I called my brother and said: ‘Wow, that’s what we have to do as men.’ God gave us the vision, but we’ve got to have a purposeful walk in life, because we’ve got certain situations where we’re going through things with our jobs and kids. We’re always going through something, but we’ve got to get through that fight and keep that purposeful walk. We’ve got to get that swagger.

“I love Orange. I’m from Orange and I’m proud to be from Orange. We are family here. And we’ve got to look out for ourselves and each other, because nobody else is going to do it for us.”

This was Chapman’s second visit to Orange to lead a revival for Rutherford, after having done the same for the elder Rutherford at Greater New Point Baptist Church in Irvington for a decade. Now he’s spreading the word of God in Orange for the son, as he did for the father in Irvington, he said.

The younger Rutherford said Chapman “is a storyteller and he brings out the characters, the situations, the history, the culture of the text and he makes it relevant to today.”

  Angelo Chapman, East Ward Joint Block Association, Ebenezer Baptist Church, Glenn Gamble, Julian Roberts, Orange Preparatory Academy, Reggie Miller, Rev. Bill Rutherford Jr.