Gospel hard but fun for Rev Jeremy

REVEREND Jeremy Francis is associate pastor to Rev Selvin Mc Millan (Superintendent of the Moravian Church in Trinidad) at Rosehill and Toco. In spite of twice-weekly services at both these churches, Rev Francis has been guest preacher at Methodist and Anglican churches in Port-of-Spain and the Church of Scotland in Sangre Grande. The very dynamic speaker who enjoys communicating the Word of God says:  “I believe God gives me the interpretation of the Word so that I can communicate it to his people. I try not to be very complicated, and my aim at the end of a sermon is that the most educated to the least should be able to understand.  The gospel is for everybody so I really try hard to make sure that everybody can understand. It is hard work but I have fun with it. I never stand up to preach and am not nervous. It grips me to the point that I cannot eat before I  preach.”

The young minister’s love of music rivals that of preaching and he has found himself being invited to play at several churches. “I started music at age seven and by the time I was 14/15 was playing for the church.  I used to play for four churches in the Virgin Islands full time. I love it and cannot survive without music, I could do nothing without it and just cannot function without music, it is in my blood, it is my lifeline.” Besides the organ which he desperately loves, Rev Francis has played the steelpan in school but gets goose bumps on the organ and says “I am my most creative at an organ.” The ebullient pastor has another great love, he is “happily” married for the past 16 months to Jamaican, Moyia, a  Spanish teacher at Bishop Anstey High School. He graduated in 2002 with a four year Diploma in Ministerial Studies from the United Theological College of the West Indies in Jamaica, completed his seminary training, was ordained on September 7, 2003 in St Croix by the Right Rev Kingsley Lewis and came to Trinidad on his first posting. 

Rev Francis chuckled as he spoke of being baptised African Methodist Episcopal in his birthplace, St Croix, Virgin Islands, and becoming Moravian when his mother moved to Antigua. “There was no AME Church. I was the last child, her only boy, and so I went with her and ended up Moravian because my father was Moravian.” He moved back to the Virgin Islands in 1995 and candidated for Ministry having always wanted to be a priest.
Life in Trinidad is fast and sometimes gets to Rev Francis but he finds “it is challenging in terms of ministry because of a number of factors. The plurality of the country is one as most of the members of  Rosehill do not live in the area and come from as far as Arima and Petit Valley.  The Moravian Church in Trinidad is one of the smallest Conferences so there is always the challenge of awareness of identity. However, there should be more awareness when the $1.2 million church, seating 500, is built at Rosehill in the near future.  Because of small membership the Belmont Church was closed, and since the demolition of the 100-year-old Rosehill Church, services are held in the church hall. 

There are also Moravian churches at Chaguanas and Tunapuna, and eight churches in Tobago which are separate and apart from Trinidad; Rev Esther Moore-Roberts is superintendent there. The Moravians have also contributed to education as there is a pre-school at the front of the Rosehill property, and two primary schools — the Gloster Lodge Moravian at Belmont and L’Anse Noire Moravian at Toco. Rev Francis hopes that at last people will learn something about  the oldest protestant church in the world, and remarked: “Mention the word Moravian and people ask is it Catholic, is it Baptist?” In truth and in fact the Moravians did begin in the Roman Church when Christianity came to Moravia, a small kingdom in Central Europe, in 863, through the preaching of two Greek priests, Cyril and Methodius, who preached in the language of the people. “With the rise of the Roman Church, the church in Moravia was Latinised and the people were kept under the thumb of Roman priests who ruled them ruthlessly and kept them in ignorance” writes G Oliver Maynard in A History of the Moravian Church Eastern West Indies Province.

It was John Hus, a Bohemian, and professor at the University of Prague and a priest of the Church of Rome, who led the movement for reform in the Roman Church and in 1402 began to preach openly against the tyranny and abuses of the church, pointing out, for example, that the Pope must be guided by Scripture, that worship should be conducted in the language of the people, that the people should be taught the Scriptures, that priests should set an example of holy living and that salvation is found through faith in Jesus Christ and not in buying indulgences from the church.  Hus was forbidden to preach but would not be silenced, supported by his freedom-loving countrymen who shared a deep dissatisfaction with the tyranny and abuses of Rome.  The church even tried to arrest him while he was preaching, so Pope John XXIII  called a council to study the matter. Hus went in good faith to Constance, Switzerland, where the Council was convened, to plead his cause, and was seized and thrown into prison despite the fact that he had been promised a “safe-conduct” by the Emperor.  On July 6, 1415, Hus was burned at the stake after being condemned by the council without a hearing.

His indignant followers banded themselves together as “The Hussites” to protest against Rome, and so began the famous Hussite wars that shook the whole of Europe.  In 1457, the Moravians, realising that Rome would never make peace with them and that they could no longer live under the tyranny of the Roman Catholic Church, reluctantly decided to form a religious community of their own in a little village called Lititz with the Bible as their rule of life. They called themselves “Jednota Bratrska,” the Czech for “Unity of the Brethren” which still remains the official name of the Moravian Church. Several priests of the Roman Church sympathised with and joined the Moravians and soon established a regular ministry of Deacons, Presbyters and Bishops.  The movement for reform which grew into the great Protestant Reformation, started with the Moravians. In 1732 the Moravian Mission to the West Indies began in St Thomas, the Danish West Indies. It is said to be the pioneer church of Christian Missions which brought the gospel to the slaves. Today Moravian churches can be found in Antigua, headquarters of the Province, which is made up of  St Croix, St Thomas, St John, Tortola, St Kitts, Barbados and Trinidad and Tobago. There are also Moravian churches in Guyana and Jamaica.