Men's Breakfast Report, October 2007

 

The Men’s Breakfast Group met Saturday October 13 with Dr. Sandy K. White, pastor of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church. 

The first part of the session was taken up by Serena Andrews and Millicent Valek from Brazosport Community College.  They requested to be allowed to make a short presentation in support of the bonds in the upcoming bond election.  I had expected a ten to fifteen minute presentation but this turned out to take about forty minutes, which cut into the time with Sandy White. 

Sandy White was raised in the Midwest and attended college at Bishop College in Dallas. He later came down here and has been pastor of the New Jerusalem Baptist Church for several Years.  He used to reside in Freeport but now resides in Northwest Houston to be closer to his day job. 

The New Jerusalem Church has recently built a new church on Skinner Street since their old church in the East End of Freeport was sold to the Harbor District.  They had planned to build a church on Highway 288, but sold the land for a good profit.  The two sources of capital helped pay for the new church, but loans were still required.  The church consists of a sanctuary plus classrooms.  They did not build a multipurpose structure like many churches are now doing. 

The church has grown since they have moved to Skinner Street, with new members joining most weeks.  Many are from the local apartment complexes but there are people from surrounding towns such as Angleton.  The congregation is almost entirely black with a few Hispanics. 

A major outreach program is a tutoring program for school students.  This has also helped bring some members into the church.  In previous years there had been a mentoring program for high school youth, but this has fallen by the wayside.  There is hope that it can be revived.  

Sandy is active in the Black Ministerial Alliance.   Unfortunately there is little interaction between the Black and White alliances.  A major problem is that most of the black ministers have non-church jobs and are not able to meet on Thursday mornings when the white ministers meet.  The Black ministers meet on the third Saturday of each month.  Since the black ministers can not join the white ministers, Sandy was asked if the white ministers could join the black alliance.  He replied that there were some reorganization issues going on right now, but in a few months this might be useful. 

As usual the men had an informative meeting and a good breakfast.  The next meeting will be November 10 with Guy Nickum of the Salvation Army as the featured guest.