Photo by Laura Moon
Click to enlarge photos.By Jon Gillooly
Marietta Daily Journal Staff Writer
MARIETTA - The 6,000 members of the Cathedral of Turner Chapel AME Church of Marietta are spending the weekend celebrating the 20th anniversary of their Trinidadian pastor, the Rev. Kenneth E. Marcus.
Marcus was chosen as pastor of Turner Chapel in 1988, which he said was then a congregation of about 150 members in a small church on Lawrence Street in Marietta.
The son of a factory worker in Trinidad, which is the southernmost island in the Caribean off the coast of Venezuela, Marcus came to the U.S. in 1975 at the age of 21 at the encouragement of an African Methodist Episcopal Church missionary, who urged him to seek a scholarship at Morris Brown College in Atlanta.
The AME church, Marcus explained, is a Christian denomination founded by African slaves in the 1800s, who rejected racism, but who wanted to remain Methodists. The Episcopal part of the name comes from the church being administered by bishops.
Marcus' original plan was to earn a business degree and return to Trinidad to work in the oil fields, which is Trinidad's largest export. But it was in college, where he was called to be a pastor and where he met his wife, the Rev. Cassandra Marcus, who is co-pastor of the church.
Winston "Strick" Strickland, who has run a barbershop on Lemon Street for 31 years, has cut Marcus' hair for two decades now.
"You can tell it even when he walks in the barber shop. There's something spiritual about the man," Strickland said of Marcus.
The Rev. Walter Moon, pastor of Word of Faith AME Church in Mableton, said while Marcus has put on a little weight now, they used to tease him about being thin.
"He was not much bigger than his guitar," Moon said.
Moon said years ago Marcus was in a car wreck on Interstate 75, and was miraculously unharmed, even though the car flipped.
Moon said Marcus told him that that the Devil had tried to get him.
"I said, 'you're so small he couldn't find you,'" Moon said with a laugh.
In addition to help from the divine, Marcus said three things helped him develop the church to the 6,000-member mega church it is today.
First, he brought about an upbeat worship experience.
"A very inspiring worship experience, so when you come to church, regardless of where you've been or what has happened, our hope is that you leave inspired. You are empowered and inspired to go back to work, to go back where you came from and deal with the ups and downs of your days," Marcus said.
The pastor is an accomplished guitarist and filled the church with guitar music, both acoustic and electric from the start.
Moon, who at the time was a trustee of Turner Chapel and who handed the keys of the Lawrence Street church over to Marcus, said the congregation was not used to such charismatic music.
"That was a new experience for our church. We were straight-laced," Moon said.
Marcus said another strategy was to always have a relevant message in his sermon.
"You try to address their pains and their hurts and their struggles so that the message became very relevant. And even today I have days when people will come to me and say to me after the service, 'did my husband talk to you?' Or, 'were you at my house last night?' I think that attracts people."
Third, Marcus said he's always tried to provide an opportunity for people to be active in the church.
"Having something for everyone to do within the church so that church becomes not only a Sunday morning experience but almost an everyday experience," he said.
The three-part strategy began to bring people in. From one service at the original Turner Chapel on Lawrence Street to two services to three services until finally Marcus moved the congregation to Wheeler High School's auditorium in the mid 1990s. Before long, they had outgrown the auditorium and moved into the Wheeler gymnasium.
"This was a major operation for us because we had to set up every Sunday morning. We had to bring the chairs, set up the pulpit area and the audio and video and then break it down. It took a lot of volunteers," he said.
Not having the money to build a new church, Marcus opted to build his own gymnasium two blocks from the church's current location on North Marietta Parkway.
"One of the major challenges in a gymnasium is the acoustics. Gymnasiums are built for noise. You know, home court advantage. So it was a major audio problem for us, in addition to the paraphernalia - (Wheeler) Wildcats, you know," he said with a laugh.
Although real estate outside the city was cheaper, Marcus believed it was important to remain near the original church.
"We wanted to stay here in this community where we've always been," he said.
He and his congregation settled on the current spot on North Marietta Parkway, where the old Marietta High School football field had been, spending $24 million on a giant church that can seat 3,200 people.
Members come from a 30-mile radius, he said.
On Palm Sunday in 2005, the congregation marched from the old gymnasium two blocks away to the new cathedral, circling the church for a prayer before marching inside for the first service.
"It's hard to express what a joy it was on that particular day," he said.
Marcus said he hopes to be pastor another 20 years at the church.
"God wants to use this congregation to do an awesome work - to make a major impact on Marietta, Cobb County and greater Atlanta and even the world. The challenge sometimes is for us to trust God and to believe that just as God took us from this little group of 150 on Lawrence Street and blessed us and grew us, that God has some more awesome things God wants to do through this church to make a difference in the lives of people," he said.
jgillooly@mdjonline.com
Comment on this Story
Posted Comments