Pastor: Society needs more prayer
The Rev. Terrence Griffith, pastor of the First African Baptist Church in Philadelphia, spoke at the World Meeting of Families workshop Concerns of the Urban Family where he addressed urban ills.
MORE GOD in the lives of urban American families may be the answer to their struggles to attain a better life, a Philadelphia-based pastor told a small audience at the World Meeting of Families yesterday.
"If we get people praying again, our society will become better," said the Rev. Terrence Griffith, the pastor of the 205-year-old First African Baptist Church, the oldest African-American Baptist Church in the state.
"If we want to heal our urban society, God must return. If we invite God to come and sit with us, then the place will become better," Griffith told an audience of about 100.
Griffith, a native of Grenada who has lived in Philadelphia for 27 years, spoke at the workshop "Concerns of the Urban Family" where he addressed the effect and impact of an array of issues urban families face.
"In our city, we find abject poverty," Griffith said, adding that citizens face problems such as homelessness, squalor, disease and violence.
"They feel powerless to deal with these issues," he said.
Tight spaces in urban area can lead to a number of maladies, he said. The air pollution that results from city traffic leads to health problems such as higher rates of respiratory illnesses, heart disease and mortality rates.
Griffith noted studies by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that found cities such as New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Chicago have higher clusters of respiratory diseases.
The subsequent health issues probably lead to more issues because respiratory medication "creates other problems," he said.
Homelessness is "a serious problem, particularly in this city," Griffith said, adding that the city's churches are on orders to refrain from feeding the homeless.
Griffith spoke about a three-pronged approach to improving children's lives in urban areas. He believes prayers and discipline should be a part of school and families need to attend their place of worship, whether that's a synagogue, mosque or church.
When he was growing up in Grenada, he said his mother told him, "If you don't go to church, you can't eat."
If it was not for his mother's insistence, "I believe in so many ways that I would have gone astray."
Evelina Ndilu, a pastorial coordinator in Our Lady of Guadalupe Church in Nairobi, Kenya, heard Griffith speak and agreed that God was key to the issues.
"I really enjoyed it. I learned a lot and I can't wait to get back to share with my own people the same spirit," Ndilu said.