In Memoriam: For Reverend Darren McCarroll-Jones

Copyright 2011-All Rights Reserved


Reverend Darren McCarroll-Jones (May 20, 1963 - November 27, 2011):

Ordained Minister of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church
Pastor of Unity Fellowship Church, Detroit
1st Minister of Music for the Mass Choir of Unity Fellowship Movement
1st Musical Director and Minister of Music for Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, Los Angeles





Reverend Darren-McCarroll-Jones, Minister of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church


Darren McCarroll-Jones first heard about Unity Fellowship of Christ Church (Los Angeles) on Jefferson Boulevard from a friend back in the late 1980’s. Although Darren was directing the choir at his home church on Sundays, he managed to dash over to Unity a Couple of times to find out if what he’d heard about the church service was true.


One Sunday, he came for the entire service and was deeply moved by Archbishop Carl Bean’s healing words, as well as the termination of the small choir performing without musicians or a choral director. For a time thereafter, Darren would come from his church for the last half of service. All the while, he considered whether he should move his membership and offer to serve as Unity’s Musical Director. “It was not an easy decision,’” he admitted. The turning point came in January of 1990 when an associate pastor at his church preached a blistering sermon denouncing homosexuality. Shortly afterwards, Darren met with Archbishop Bean and offered to help with the choir because he had made the decision to move his church membership. Bean, a gospel singer in his own right, eagerly accepted the offer and Unity’s Music Department with Darren as Musical Director was born.

Under McCarroll-Jones’ guiding hand, many talented musicians, singers and choir directors emerged to share their gifts at the Los Angeles church as a part of the voices of Unity each Sunday, during his tenure at the Detroit church, as well as during the Movement’s Annual Fall Convocation. In addition, McCarroll-Jones directed the choir on the first L.I.F.E. Records CD, titled Right Now, recorded by the Los Angeles church, featuring the original music of Archbishop Carl Bean. http://www.glbtq.com/social-sciences/bean_c.html

In the early nineties in Los Angeles, Reverend McCarroll-Jones was a tireless worker in the field of AIDS at Unity’s Minority AIDS Project and the first to serve as Program Director for MAP’s Treatment Advocacy Program. In later years, in Detroit, he served as Unity, Detroit’s pastor, earned his J.D. degree, served as a consultant in the Detroit mayor’s office, taught as an Adjunct Professor in Paralegal Technology at Wayne County Community College District.

I was fortunate to know and work with Darren at MAP in Los Angeles in the late 1980’s through the early nineties. It was true heaven to sit in the audience of Unity, L.A. and listen on Sundays to the Voices of Unity under his musical talent and direction. He was a smart, dedicated, and talented man.

I will and do miss him.
 
End

Testimony- Part 4

Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved

I’ve been in Alcoholics Anonymous since June of 1988. Spirit stepped in and led me there too. Not just led me and dropped me off at the door, stayed with me throughout. The first months were terrifying; yet I knew I was not alone. For the first time in my life, I knew that Spirit is here with me always. I learned that recovery, like life, is a journey, not a destination. I have learned that more is revealed every moment in life if I am open to the revelation. I always say that both Unity and A.A. were and are the twin bedrocks of my recovery. At Unity, recovery work is encouraged and celebrated. What I found amazing early in my recovery was that Reverend Bean’s sermons and teachings mirrored, clarified and underscored the 12 steps. It was one more wondrous sign from Spirit that I was definitely supposed to be at Unity Fellowship Church.

What attracts me still to Unity is the fact that we are Progressive Christians. I still shy away from describing myself as a Christian because so many people use the label in a loose and trite way, and because so many who characterize themselves as Christians do things that give the label negative connotations. Too many people who name themselves Christians do it, I think, to be part of the crowd, or for the sake of religiosity—just to show off, or to justify their evil ways. Still, in these times, it’s necessary to draw the line in the sand and say that I am not of the Fundamentalist branch of Christianity.

I am a Progressive Christian. That means I embrace a dynamic, ever-expanding concept of God—not bound by an image of a White man with white hair and a white beard dressed in flowing robes. For why should God be a man—or a woman, for that matter, when Spirit is every thing? I embrace a dynamic concept of Spirit not bound by the limited knowledge of people and Biblical authors of the past. Nor am I bound by the text of sixty-six books which comprise a larger book called the Bible which was written, edited, and censored by people—not God. I am a member of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, and that means, among other things, that I am a questioner and an independent thinker. What I read in the Bible—like any other book I read—is subject to my critical scrutiny, interpretation, analysis, and evaluation. I am not a Biblical literalist or fundamentalist. I am a Liberation Theologist. That means I reject religious dogma, philosophy, teachings, and canon (religious principles) that oppress, limit, censor, and seek to have power over and control both people and ideas. That also means I am aware of and respect the many paths to spiritual enlightenment. I do not believe there is only one true religion. I do believe that Spirit is present in all things—to big to box into a single religious category or label with a single name. Spirit is ever expanding, waiting to be discovered anew each moment.

I am an African-American Lesbian and a Progressive Christian. One does not contradict the other. And no one can tell me it does. Because I stand on my life’s experiential journey as testimony that God loves and cares for me, no matter what my sexuality. My life is full of stories and experiences that testify to the truth of that. I thrive and flourish right now under the love and care of Spirit. I have not been crushed under foot because I am a Lesbian. Nor do I expect to be relegated to hell because of it when I make transition. My life is a journey. My experiences allow me to discover Spirit everywhere. God brought me to this place to learn more. And I must go on.

(end)

Testimony- Part 3

Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved

Eventually, I found Jewel’s Catch One—the premier West Coast bar for Black people who were “in the life”. At the Catch, for the first time, I saw Lesbian women and Gay men, and Transvestites gathered under one roof. And that was an eye-opener. For my experience, thus far, had never incorporated a whole culture of sexually diverse people—and even cultures within that culture. Put plainly, I had never seen groups, crowds, of Black folks like me in a public space who weren’t hiding their sexuality. It was a new and fascinating experience to be in the Catch. Evansville had nothing public like this—nor did Knoxville when I was growing up. In early 1987, it was Henry, a bartender at the Catch, who told me about this church for Gay people and that the minister was a Black, Gay man who was “out”. The name of the church, he said, was Unity Fellowship Church. An “out” Black, Gay minister? How daring could you get? I was intrigued.

And so I went. I went guided there by Spirit at the end of a long, long journey. And for the beginning of another one. When I walked into the Ebony Showcase Theater, I saw 20 or 30 people there seated on old, folding chairs; some I knew from the Catch. The place was bare-bones, tattered and worn. There was a small stage with dark curtains that looked a bit shabby. On the stage was a beaten-up podium. Angie Vaughn, who had been leading a ritual called “Testimony”, asked us to stand and welcome Reverend Carl Bean, the minister. He came out from behind the curtains and that was the first time I laid eyes on the person that Spirit had sent to change my life—and the lives of a whole lot of other people. He was wearing a plain black robe –a rather short man of indeterminate age, with a round face, whose eyes and mouth were smiling.

I can’t recall the details about that first church service, yet I remember the feeling I came away with. It was like coming home. It amazed me. And I went back the next Sunday and kept going back every Sunday because I knew without a doubt I had found a place where I didn’t have to hide who I was. I didn’t feel like an outcast, like an “odd duck”, or like I had to be perfect. An important part of the liturgy of the service was the Affirmation, and every week, Reverend Bean told me, and all of us, that God made us, loved, accepted and wanted us just as we were. That we were Spirit’s divine offspring. That we—whether Homosexual, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transgender, or Heterosexual—we were not a mistake—not some monstrous perversion, not some flawed piece of trash. That God is love and love is for everyone—not just a few. That God makes no difference between us and straight folks, or White folks, or rich folks. I found myself weeping silently during the Affirmation. It was like a healing balm to all of us, like a salve that helped to staunch the bleeding and close the wounds we harbored deep inside ourselves.

I was beyond excited. I just had to tell one of my friends back home about Reverend Bean, the church, the sense of belonging and community I had found. I told Judy that we didn’t have to feel shamed anymore because we were Lesbians. I told her that God loved us and we were not mistakes and that we didn’t have to be afraid of what other people thought about our sexuality. And I told her I was coming out to my other friends in Knoxville and my aunts (who were my late uncles’wives). Now that was going to take courage. But I wasn’t afraid anymore. And I didn’t want to hide any longer. When I told the aunts and the friends, they said it didn’t matter to them. You could’ve knocked me over with a feather. Here I was prepared to be berated and ostracized. I had steeled myself for it. What I got was a lot of love and acceptance. That taught me that you can’t predict outcomes and to trust Spirit’s guidance.

I looked forward to going back every week, not only for the Affirmation and sense of community, but for the sermons! Although I felt let out of the cage, I didn’t grasp, at first, that I had been oppressed through the theology of religion. I knew I was being set free when Reverend Ban challenged us to interpret and think about the ideas in the Bible. He was “teaching” us in his sermons. Really teaching us. That alone threw me into the heights of delight. Here was a preacher who actually taught something—not someone who just expected you to swallow his Sunday morning “lecture” without thought or question. Reverend Bean expected us to actually “read” the Bible verses along with him as he focused on them during the sermon. He exhorted us not to be intimidated by Fundamentalist, literal readings of the Bible, and he preached that we should not to be afraid to consider that the Bible was not inerrant. What’s more, he characterized Jesus as a rebel, a paradigm-shifter, and a radical thinker—and backed it up with evidence from the text. I didn’t know then that Unity was a church of Liberation Theology. I hadn’t a clue what that was; nor did I realize that I was hearing the ideas of Progressive Christianity, but I knew a rebel and a sure-nuff radical when I heard one in the pulpit. I was thrilled and I was smitten. Spirit had finally led me to what I was reaching for all those years ago in Baptism class. You couldn’t have pried me away. I decided to become a member and did so on July 19, 1987.

(end Part 3)

Testimony- Part 2

Copyright 2008-All Rights Reserved

I’m not going to say that being closeted and wearing a false face drove me into alcoholism. That leaves out too many pieces of the puzzle. What I do think is that wearing a false face was a big-time contributor to my drinking every day. Even without the drink, hiding who you really are drives up the stress level. I remember the Anita Bryant controversy broke in the news while I was living in Evansville. Everybody—meaning the men—at Allen’s Lounge (my every day water hole) endlessly voiced their sentiment that she was right to castigate gays. They took up the “party line” that gay people were degenerate perverts, and so on, and so on. It was painful to listen to and I weakly tried to put in my two cents worth of counterargument, but I was too scared of being found out. Some speculating rumors about my relationship with my roommate had already circulated in the community when I first moved there. I’d had to work hard to dispel them and I didn’t want them resurfacing. So I didn’t have the courage to defend myself and those like me.

I went on hiding out, playing the role, trying to tell myself that my life was okay, even though I knew it wasn’t. What kind of life is it to pretend every moment that you’re somebody else? What kind of life is it to drink every day to numb yourself? What kind of life is it to sense there’s so much more, but never have the courage to reach for it? I went on like that for 13 years until the spring of 1980 when the man I had been with for 10½ years was murdered and then, a month later, my father died. The double whammy almost did me in. It was a very bad time, but Spirit brought me through.

When these double deaths hit, I joined the Baptist church in Evansville that my late lover’s family belonged to. The minister’s eulogy had comforted me. I went back the following Sunday to hear his sermon. It appealed to me intellectually, but there was some element missing. The fact that his church was near empty every Sunday, and the lack of amens to what he was saying from the few in the audience said that he wasn’t reaching them. But I kept going back because I was searching for some spiritual something. Eventually, I joined even though I knew this was not the church or liturgy that satisfied me, but I figured a little bit of something was better than nothing. I wasn’t looking for the church to help me stop drinking. In fact, I had resigned myself to being a prisoner of the bottle for the rest of my life. I knew, by this time, that I had a “drinking problem”. I just didn’t know what to do about it. At any rate, my membership in the Baptist Church was short-lived because several months after joining, I knew I had to leave Evansville.

There was nothing there for me in a career path. And I had long been struggling to make myself fit into the small town outlook and life. It had always been hard for I was a rebel thinker and Evansville was a sea of conformity. Over the years, it had gotten harder, not easier. Now, since my lover—who was my crutch, as well as my “beard”—was dead, and since there was no more blood family in Knoxville or anywhere else, I was free to go. The idea of freedom scared me; yet, it fascinated me. I decided to go to Los Angeles where my friend, Ron lived. I knew he would help me with the move. When I made the decision to move, I was a full-blown alcoholic, and indecision was my usual state of mind. Generally speaking, the addiction to alcohol wouldn’t let me make decisions with ease or clarity. But I did with this one. In January of 1981, I decided, and by May 5th, I stepped off the plane at LAX. That move, I sincerely believe, was Spirit’s pulling me to Unity Fellowship Church.

It would be five years before Providence walked me through its doors. When I got to L.A., I did try three or four churches—a Presbyterian, a Christian Scientist, and a couple of other Protestant. They left me unmoved and bored. I gave up on church. On Sundays, you could find me drinking at home or at a bar.

(end Part 2)