5600894 ACR 21-31, New Hope Free Will Baptist Church 80th Anniversary Recognition Resolution of 2015

A CEREMONIAL RESOLUTION

 

21-31 

 

IN THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA

 

April 14, 2015

 

           

To acknowledge and honor the 80th anniversary of the founding of New Hope Free Will Baptist Church in the District of Columbia.

 

WHEREAS, on Thanksgiving night, 1934, Mother Carrie Parker shared with other native North Carolinians, who had relocated to Washington, D.C., a vision to establish a Free Will Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.;

 

WHEREAS, in March of 1935, the Willing Workers Club held their first formal worship service at 1609 11th Street, N.W., under the name “New Hope Free Will Baptist Mission”;

 

WHEREAS, in April 1935, the church was officially organized under the Northern Annual Conference of the United American Free Will Baptist Church, thereby making it the first Free Will Baptist church in Washington, D.C.;  

 

WHEREAS, on Sunday, November 28, 1965, the New Hope Free Will Baptist Church moved to its current church home at 754 11th Street, S.E., which is recognized as an historical edifice, protected by the Historical Preservation Society;

 

WHEREAS, in 1972 Northern Annual Conference of the United American Free Will Baptist Church became the Northeast Free Will Baptist Conference;

 

WHEREAS, from 1935 until the present day, New Hope Free Will Baptist church has grown and prospered spiritually, financially, and physically from the inception of the election of its former pastors Rev. Wiley Miller (1937), Rev. T.T. Ferguson (1940), Rev. Arlester Bess (1944), Rev. T.C. Dixon (1949), Rev. Clifton Jones (1963), and Rev. Robert O. Freeman (1968), and the first female pastor in the church’s history and the first elected female pastor in the Northeast Free Will Baptist Conference history, Rev. Dr. Ernestine Howell Battle (1999);

 

WHEREAS, in April 2015, New Hope Free Will Baptist Church celebrates and commemorates its 80th anniversary; and

 

WHEREAS, the New Hope Free Will Baptist Church family resolves to pass on the legacy received from those who ran before them to the present and future generations.

 

IT IS HEREBY RESOLVED, BY THE COUNCIL OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, that the Council acknowledges and recognizes the 80th anniversary of the founding of the New Hope Free Will Baptist Church.

 

Sec. 2. This resolution may be cited as the “New Hope Free Will Baptist Church 80th Anniversary Recognition Resolution of 2015”.

 

Sec. 3. This resolution shall take effect immediately upon the first date of publication in the District of Columbia Register.