A Life Of Preaching

The Ann Arbor News, Saturday, March 9,1974 

Personality Portrait

A Life Of Preaching

(This is another in a series of personality portraits on area clergymen.)

By Glenn Gilbert

(News Religion Editor)

And it all started at funerals for chickens.

The Rev. John A. Woods, pastor of the Bethel AME Church, says that as far back as he can remember, he wanted to be a preacher.

“As a little fellow I always said I wanted to preach,” says the Rev. Mr. Woods. “I lived on a farm and when one of our chickens would die, I would get up on a tree stump and preach the funeral when we buried them!”

Raised a Presbyterian, the 60-year-old pastor of the church located at 900 Plum St. followed his interest in church work, was active in youth activities as a leader and became a ruling elder in the Presbyterian church at the age of 20.

A native of Statesville, N.C., the Rev. Mr. Woods has been pastor of the local church for 10 years. He succeeded the Rev. Lyman S. Parks here, who now is mayor of Grand Rapids and pastor of the First Community AME Church there.

“To help make the world a better place to live” is the primary role of the church, says the Rev. Mr. Woods. The church must “help the people get more out of life — to do more than just exist and have a meaning for life. I feel the church can give them this meaning and the right direction.”

The pastor’s “main function is to preach the word, not only from the pulpit, but in the life he leads himself in the community,” says the Rev. Mr. Woods.

Bethel AME has been meeting in its educational building since January of 1972. A new sanctuary which is being built at the site should be ready for use this June, says the pastor.

"We want a place where young people can go for recreation and discussions,” says the Rev, Mr. Woods. “Also, it will be a place where senior citizens can meet and others can find a place to function.

“We try to stimulate and educate the people so they will move out into the community and try to help people. We try to take the church to the people.”

Before coming to the church here, the Rev. Mr. Woods served as pastor of Bethel AME Church in Richmond, Ind. for seven years, pastor of the Lewis Chapel AME Church in Albion for three years and the Bethel Presbyterian Church in Detroit for eight years.

“Of the four churches I have pastored, three have been named Bethel.”

The Rev. Mr. Woods has been ordained both as a Presbyterian minister and as an African Methodist Epsicopal minister. He received his AB degree at St. Augustine’s College in Raleigh, N.C. and received a bachelor of divinity degree from Johnson C. Smith University, a Presbyterian institution in Charlotte, N.C.

He also has studied religious education at the Earlham School of Religion, a Quaker institution in Richmond, Ind., and has done graduate work at the U-M School of Social Work.

Bethel AME was first organized in 1855 as a community church. Two years later it became part of the African Methodist Episcopal Church. Until early 1972, the church met in a structure at 632 N. Fourth Ave., a building which had been constructed in 1891. This structure has been purchased by the Grace Apostolic Church.

During the depression the local church was for sale, but the father of the late Mrs. Lettie Harberd forfeited his house to save the church, according to church history.

The African Methodist Episcopal Church is the second largest Methodist denomination in the world, with over a million members.

The AME church was started in 1787 in Philadelphia, Pa. as a protest against the inhumane treatment of people of African descent by Richard Allen. There are two other black Methodist denominations, the AME Zion Church and the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church.

These three denominations and five other Protestant denominations are part of the Consultation on Church Union (COCU), which has been working for several years toward effecting a merger and has been termed the most ambitious of present ecumenical endeavors.

But the Rev. Woods says he sees formal unity for these eight denominations as a good ways off.

“The three black Methodist churches haven’t come together and I also see this as a long way off.”

The Rev. Mr. Woods and his wife, Juanita, live at the parsonage, 314 W. Summit St. Mrs. Woods is a teacher at Mack Elementary School. They have a son, John Jr., who is living in Statesville, and a daughter, Mrs. Renee Benon, who is living in Ann Arbor.