Stained glass, steeples and financial sustainability

The formerly enslaved artisans who constructed First African Baptist Church in Beaufort, South Carolina, sometime after the Civil War didn’t use nails. Metal was expensive and often hard to come by for Black builders less than a generation from bondage.

The Rev. Alexander McBride, First African’s senior pastor, explained how the laborers built the church in Gothic Revival style, noted for its signature pointed arches and windows. The current building replaced an antebellum praise house, an open one-room clapboard space with little furniture so the enslaved could engage in a more mobile, joyful service removed from white surveillance and sit-quiet worship styles.

“They used the mortise-and-tenon method, where they interlock the wood. And this church has withstood every hurricane” that has rolled through the coastal city, said McBride, the 16th pastor at First African in its more than 150 years of existence.

And there have been many storms. An 1893 hurricane drowned many of the town’s Black residents, stranded in low-lying areas or swept to their deaths. But even that massive storm didn’t cause significant damage to the church, thanks to the unnamed craftsmen who may have lacked nails but had possessed the skill and wisdom to use the strongest joint known to woodworkers.

The church’s biggest current enemies are time, termites (which have eaten their way through some of the structure’s undercarriage) and moisture — largely unavoidable menaces for a century-old building in a humid seaside town.

Earlier this year, First African was among dozens of historically Black churches to win grants from the National Trust for Historic Preservation’s African American Cultural Heritage Action Fund. Those monies, through the Preserving Black Churches initiative — $4 million in this funding cycle — will support projects that recast their sites’ history through new interpretation or exhibits, grow capacity through staff hires and community outreach, and repair aging or damaged buildings.

Diversity of spaces

The grantees highlight the diversity of Black worship spaces and the history of how Black Americans have fought for religious freedom and built their own institutions amid racism and violence. They include institutions such as 16th Street Baptist Church in Birmingham, which just marked 60 years since the Ku Klux Klan bombing that killed four girls and damaged the church; the elegant Black-majority Basilica of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Norfolk, Virginia; one-room churches built by hand and heart; and churches in places with historically small Black populations, such as Alaska and West Virginia.

“Black churches are living testaments to the achievements and resiliency of generations in the face of a racialized, inequitable society,” said Tiffany Tolbert, the Action Fund’s senior director for preservation. “They’re foundational to our Black religious, political, economic and social life.”

In some places, a church is the only building that remains as an artifact of a Black community that no longer exists. Scotland AME Zion Church in Potomac, Maryland, not far from the nation’s capital, is one such example from a community swallowed by encroaching development and urban sprawl.

Religion scholar C. Eric Lincoln once described the Black church as the unchallenged “cultural womb of the Black community.” Fellowship halls and sanctuaries in Black churches have long functioned as multipurpose rooms, where worship and politics meet. Churches like Beaufort’s First African have been incubators for Black social enterprise; during Reconstruction, First African was the site of a school for freed people, hungry for the literacy denied them during slavery.

Numerous historically Black colleges, civil rights protests and social movements trace their origins to Black pulpits and pews. Preserving church spaces can thus have a multiplying effect, documenting as well the stories of Black communities at large and the work of Black architects, artisans and mutual aid.

Worthy of preservation

Powderpost beetles had chomped on the pews, spreading ruin with every bite. One of the church’s three stained-glass windows was missing altogether, and the others needed restoration. One is a poignant tribute to Edna, a church member’s child who had died in infancy. Such design features — with references to congregation members who fundraised for such elements — are tangible history, traces of people long gone and their efforts to build beloved community.

“It’s impossible to talk about American craftsmanship without talking about the Black and Indigenous hands that constructed it even before 1776,” said Brandon Bibby, a senior preservation architect with the Action Fund. “It’s important to preserve that aspect so that we as a society don’t forget. By preserving, we are saying, ‘This place matters in the whole context of the American landscape.’”

“What I want most is that through this project, Black congregations and communities will see the value and beauty in their places and see they are worthy of preservation,” he said.

Recognizable elements of church design can be particularly vulnerable to deterioration. Steeples are both symbolic and pragmatic communicators; their towering presence in a landscape announces where people can worship or seek shelter. Yet sitting aloft, largely inaccessible, placing strain on dramatic, heaven-pointed roofs and often channeling rainwater to places it shouldn’t go, steeples can be a source of problems that go unnoticed until a leak sprouts or cracks appear.

Many of the Preserving Black Churches grant recipients need steeple repair. When congregations are forced to choose among costly repairs, a steeple can sometimes take a back seat to high-traffic areas with more visible problems, such as the sanctuary itself.

Funding a range of needs

Declining church attendance has meant less coin in the collection plate and, in turn, fewer resources for maintenance and repairs. Black American church membership has dropped in recent years, from 78% in 1998-2000 to 59% in 2018-2020, though Black Americans remain one of the top populations most likely to be church members (along with conservatives and Republicans), according to a multiyear Gallup poll released in 2021.

A 2012 Kellogg Foundation report also found that Black people give more of their income to community-based causes than whites, in part because of a culture of mutual aid, lack of access to white-dominated institutional funding and traditions such as tithing. Even so, when an evangelical research firm surveyed church financial well-being, more Black pastors said their congregations had less than seven weeks of cash reserves — perhaps because they are dependent on a community with lower wealth in the first place. Getting money to repair churches can be particularly difficult.

Following the first grants that went to 35 churches across the country, recipients of another $4 million will be announced in January, Tolbert said, as part of a plan to distribute between $8 and $10 million, with support from Lilly Endowment Inc. In total, $20 million will be invested through Preserving Black Churches across all of its program goals.

“It is essential that these places are activated,” Tolbert said. “They are centers of worship, but also, they continue to serve the community.”

Action Fund executive director Brent Leggs told The Washington Post in an interview that Black churches are exceptional lenses through which to view Black and American history. “It’s amazing to see centuries of Black history told at historic Black churches. Some of the stories include formerly enslaved Africans moving through emancipation, beginning to form communities, … and some of the earliest buildings founded by African Americans in the United States [include] a Black church. These places are of exceptional significance. Their stories matter, and they are worthy of being preserved.”

“The Lord will guide you continually, and satisfy your needs in parched places, and make your bones strong; and you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.” Isaiah 58:11 (NRSV)

Having grown up in Texas, I am accustomed to parched land. When the weather radar gets colorful, I recognize the conditions that cause flash flooding. And now that I live in North Carolina, every year I expect a hurricane or two to dump inches of rain hundreds of miles inland, causing massive flooding and sinkholes and toppling trees older than I am.

When the ground is dry, you might think that a lot of rain would be a blessing. But the opposite can also be true.

The first half an inch or so might have time to soak into the dry earth, but when the rain falls faster than the land can absorb it, the water begins to accumulate, and gravity quickly pulls it to the lowest available spots. This process creates mudslides and erosion, robbing the land of its healthy topsoil; it overwhelms storm drains, floods buildings and stalls cars in swamped roads.

It is logical to think that water will fix or bring health to dry land. But the conditions of the water and the land determine whether it will bring nourishment or ruin.

The same is true for grants and institutions.

When an institution is operating in a scarcity mindset, it is logical to think that a windfall of money will bring immediate health, creating the conditions for growth and sustainability.

But Robert C. Saler, the executive director of the Center for Pastoral Excellence at Christian Theological Seminary, which administers Lilly Endowment’s Clergy Renewal Programs, notes the importance of giving “the right grant to the right institution at the right time.” These three markers are helpful in determining when and whether the conditions are present for a grant to promote health within an institution.

The right grant. Many funders have specific criteria — usually outlined clearly in their RFP (Request for Proposals) documents — that guide their decision making. These criteria, clues to the funders’ priorities, are developed from years of research, pilot programs and best practices. If you are looking for seed money for a startup, a grant program for writing one’s first book will not be the right fit. Similarly, if your organization needs a grant for strategic planning work, an application for a sabbatical grant will not be successful.

To discern whether a grant is right for you, consider the impact it might have. How might crafting the proposal and (eventually) administrating the grant project help move your organization toward health, sustainability and collaborative partnerships?

The right institution. Is your institution positioned to manage a grant? Is your church new, or do you have a long history? Do you have effective leadership in place so that the grant would contribute to the ongoing stability of your organization, or would a grant interrupt the balance of power and cause conflict? What makes your church, organization or community unique? In a stack of grant proposals, what details about your institution would heighten funders’ curiosity about your work?

Researching other institutions who have received similar grants, including reaching out to them directly, can be enlightening. Is your organization similar to or different from previous grantees? How might this information help you craft an application?

The right time. Is this the right time for a grant for your organization? Is there a major staff transition in the works? Is your institution experiencing growth or decline? Does your denominational status affect your sustainability? Writing a grant proposal is not an easy task. It requires research, time, reflection, planning, partnerships, vulnerability and patience. Finding an open application window that fits within your calendar is not the same as finding the right proposal to pursue.

Consult multiple calendars when considering submitting a grant proposal. Does your organization have the administrative and financial services professionals to handle the details of the funding? Is your staff in a position to take on the additional work of a grant program? Who has the time to maintain the relationship with the funder and complete the evaluations?

Let’s return to the image of rain and parched land.

Those who care for the land are intentional about cultivating the conditions for health in dry as well as rainy seasons. Healthy land contains multiple layers of soil capable of absorbing rain and storing it in underground wells for use in drier seasons. In an ecosystem of trees, grasses, weeds, flowers and shrubs, the roots intertwine to keep the soil in place and prevent erosion.

Funders pay particular attention to the potential impact, the institutional circumstances and the timing, because a grant is an investment. Much like in medicine, funders operate with a “first do no harm” mentality. Funders do not want to disrupt a community or organizational system. Typically, they want to come alongside institutions already doing good work and help them do it better. They are looking for grantees who are prepared for the next season of work.

What steps does your organization need to take to be like Isaiah’s “watered garden” so that it can perpetuate health and flourishing when an opportunity springs forth?