The Metropolitan New York Synod invites you to a Service of Holy Closure for Jehu's Table, a Synodically Authorized Worshipping Community in East New York, Brooklyn.
Planted on March 20, 2018, Jehu's Table emerged from the legacy of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of the Holy Redeemer and grew into a historically rooted African Descent community. Under the leadership of Rev. Lenny Duncan and Rev. Kelsey Brown, Jehu's Table became the first Reconciled in Christ SAWC in the Metropolitan New York Synod, advocated for working poor families, and partnered with organizations serving those in substance recovery and those experiencing homelessness.
The community was named after Rev. Jehu Jones, the first African American Lutheran pastor. Learn more about him below.
We give thanks to God for this community, for its ministry of Word and Sacrament, for its witness to radical inclusion, and for all who gathered around this table. Organizations hosted included 75th Precinct Community Meetings, Adopt-a-Teen, African Descent Lutheran Association, East New York Lions Clubs International, Girl Scouts, Lower East Side Ecology, Narcotics Annoymous, summer Bible camp, an after-school program, and congregational ministries including Redeemer's Harvest feeding program, as well as Young Adult and Women's Ministries.
Though this service marks the conclusion of Jehu's Table's ministry for the time being, the Metropolitan New York Synod will retain the property at 2424 Linden Boulevard and seeks to redevelop it for social mission and Word and Sacrament ministry. Of the closure, Deacon Denise Rutherford-Gill said: “There is a bitter sweetness about this closing. We knew the building was to be razed, but knowing and experiencing are two different things. But, we are so looking forward to the birthing of something at 2424 Linden that will honor God. As we who worship there have always claimed that land to be Holy Ground."
About Rev. Jehu Jones:
Jehu Jones was born to parents who were held in slavery on September 4th, 1786. When Jehu's parents were freed from slavery in 1798, Jehu Sr. applied his skills as a tailor and then built a business as an innkeeper in Charleston, South Carolina. When the local Lutheran church, St. John's desegregated, the Jones family was among the first to integrate the sanctuary. Soon after, the pastor there sensed a call on Jehu Jr's life and sent him to New York where he received training and was ordained to be a missionary to Liberia. He returned to South Carolina to travel by boat to Liberia, but was arrested by local officials, and told his choices were indefinite prison time or exile from South Carolina. He chose exile. Being unable to get to Liberia, some of his mentors suggested that Jehu begin a new congregation in the United States.
After several jurisdictions turned him away because of his race, he eventually found support and a calling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It was there, with the support of a coalition of multi-ethnic congregations that Jehu founded the first mission to African Americans in the United States, St. Paul's Lutheran Church. Although there was plenty of praise to go around for Jehu and his missionary efforts, the congregations he founded quickly found themselves in financial difficulty and were unable to find support from other Lutheran congregations in their areas. Ultimately, St. Paul's concluded its formal ministry just five years after it began. Jehu Jones continued to travel, visit, and preach in the Mid-atlantic region of the United States until, at 66 years old, he died in 1852.