From left, newly installed Bethel Baptist Church Pastor Darren Ferguson, his wife and the Rev. Calvin Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church in New York, stand together on Sunday, Oct. 14, during the church’s official pastoral installation ceremony.
ORANGE, NJ — The Bethel Baptist Church pastoral installation ceremony for the Rev. Darren Ferguson on Sunday, Oct. 14, was attended by A-list New York clergy members, including the Rev. Calvin O. Butts of Abyssinian Baptist Church in Harlem, N.Y.; the Rev. Daryl G. Bloodsaw of the Baptist Church of Crown Heights, N.Y.; Bishop Roger Ball of the Family Worship Center, Church of God of Prophecy; the Rev. Debra G. White of Mt. Carmel Baptist Church of Arverne, N.Y.; the Rev. Dale Irvin, president of the NY Theological Seminary; the Rev. Eboni Marshall-Turman, an associate professor of theology and African American religion at Yale Divinity School; and Bishop Kelvin C. Brooks, the founder and presiding bishop of Anglican Churches of Pentecost in Scotch Plains, among others.
“The first sermon I ever heard you preach was at Abyssinian Baptist Church, down in the Fellowship Hall, and it was about ‘Standing Your Post.’ You were telling the young people that you’ve got to keep standing because you’ve got to stand your post,” said Irvin on Sunday, Oct. 14. “Young people out on the street are often standing their post. You talked about that period of your life. Then you talked about people in the military standing their post. And you said God has posted you now to a new place and you’ve got to take a new stand and being in this place in a different way. God has posted you in a new place. Stand your post, but don’t stand it alone. Look around you and learn how to work and make sure you reach out to the rest of us, when you need some help standing your post.”
Marshall-Turman was assigned to present the official church hymnal to Ferguson during the installation service and she said that was appropriate, since she first met him when he was a youth pastor at the Abyssinian Baptist Church, hosting weekly musical events and gatherings.
“We would meet you on Friday nights for ‘Friday Night Flavor’ in the vestibule of the church, where we would always find you seated behind a keyboard, singing a song. Rev. Butts is right that indeed God has brought you a mighty, mighty long way,” said Marshall-Turman at the event.
“In those days, there was rarely a hymnal in sight though. We kept them tucked away in the Sunday School room, but that was OK, because you already had the song on your heart and the fact of the matter is that we, as the black church, are an oral and aural people, not because we wanted to be but because the base and racist illegality of black literacy preconditioned the birth of our church, invisible in the woods and in the bush and down by the river and in the slave quarters by night. We are an oral people, because of our restrictive access to the text. But we know that those who came before us knew that there is a word that transcends the book. A word that dwells in the flesh full of grace and truth, such that we know now like we knew at Flavor 20 years ago that the church … we can erect a church through the fellowship of the song. What a fellowship. What a joy.”
Marshall-Turman also told all in attendance that Ferguson had been called to Bethel Baptist Church and Orange because there is work for him to do in the church.
“Beloved here at Bethel, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for you is that you be saved. My heart’s desire and prayer especially for us is that we be saved,” said Butts on Friday, Oct. 12. “Now, when I came to Orange, I hadn’t been here in quite a while and (when) I turned a corner that indicated that I was in Orange, I was surprised because, when I would frequent Orange in days gone by, it looked a little different. And remember now, it’s been almost 50 years since I’ve been running up and down this road. I did not see in those days some of the deterioration that I see today. I did not see in those days some of the abandoned houses and business areas that I see today. And I did not see in those days some of the brothers and sisters that I saw even on a Sunday afternoon, even on a cloudy Sunday afternoon, loitering in areas that once sprouted lawns and houses and businesses that indicated the upward progress of the African-American community.
“And I said to Pastor Ferguson, I said: ‘Brother, you are in the ‘hood.’ A big smile rose up on his face and I know that this is something that he’s quite familiar with. And I know that he has come to serve God in this venue.”
Butts also said Ferguson has arrived at Bethel Baptist Church at precisely the right time to do God’s work and serve his people.
“Hear what I’m saying to you. I want us to be saved from deteriorating housing. I want us to be saved from alcoholism and drug abuse. I want us to be saved from poverty. I want us to be saved from domestic violence,” Butts said. “I want us to be saved from the abuse of our children. I want us to be saved from those things that destroy the ability of each one of us to achieve our full human potential. Saved from those things and saved for the development of the kingdom of God.”
Ferguson said he’s ready to do his work at Bethel Baptist Church and in the larger Orange community.
“As long as God gives me strength in my body and keeps me as the pastor of this church, I will uphold this great legacy and I will not let it fall,” said Ferguson on Sunday, Oct. 14. “I will hold up the blood-stained banner and all I need y’all to do is, when my arms get tired, just don’t let them go down.”
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