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Cedar Grove Tabernacle of Praise
Cedar Grove Tabernacle of Praise Celebrates 100 Years
By Monica Montgomery
Photos Provided by Still Shots Photography and Snuggs Photography
Understanding our history helps to guide us into the future. History is tied to the local church for most African American communities. In 1923, eight people from the Terra Cotta community of Greensboro, North Carolina, gathered to discuss the establishment of a church. In 2023, Cedar Grove Tabernacle of Praise proudly celebrated its centennial year.
In a time when the world is changing with the click of a button, the historic Cedar Grove Tabernacle of Praise is going strong as a beacon of hope, light, love, and faith in the Terra Cotta community. Terra Cotta, named after the brownish-red clay, was explicitly founded to segregate the African American workers who, from the 1880s to the 1970s, made the clay pipes that ran beneath the city.
Since that fateful gathering of the founding eight members, Cedar Grove has become a pillar of stability in its community. Displaying strength and wisdom from the past while lighting a path of hope for the future. Over the one hundred years the church has been in service, it has only had five pastors. The current senior pastor of almost eight years is Overseer J. Troy Blackwell. When the previous senior pastor of CGTOP selected him, Blackwell was pastoring the church he founded.
“I’ve only been the pastor of CGTOP for eight years. My connection to the church goes back to 2004. I knew of Cedar Grove Tabernacle of Praise through our Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship affiliations, and I would eventually understand my purpose. My predecessor, Dr. James A Johnson, hand-selected me for the senior pastor position once he retired,” he explains.
Overseer Blackwell received his call to the gospel while on active duty in the US Navy. He was licensed in the ministry of the gospel in 1991. He retired from the Navy in 2002, and God led him to plant a church, that being, Freedom For Living Ministries which he founded in the basement of his home.
“Before starting Freedom For Living Ministries, a fellow pastor and friend reached out to me and asked me to do a sermon series at his church while he went on a short sabbatical. Once I started my church, my friend invited me to go with him to a Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship conference in Arizona in 2004. That year, I became part of the Full Gospel Church Fellowship,” he explained.
The different district positions allowed Blackwell to fellowship with several churches, including CGTOP. Blackwell says, “Dr. Johnson brought me in several times to do workshops and things like that. So, he and I had a strong relationship, and the church and I were very familiar with each other.”
Before being asked to become senior pastor of CGTOP, Overseer Blackwell says the Lord showed him a vision. “God told me that I would have two churches. One would be in a rural area, and one in the city. God showed me specific dynamics and areas where each church had major strengths and weaknesses. My role was understanding how to merge the two,” Blackwell continues. “The rural church is smaller and family-focused. It is truly a community church. The issue is the rural church is often steeped in traditions and resistant to change. The urban church is organized and progressive, but the intimacy and connectivity can sometimes be lost if we’re not careful. My assignment is to bridge the gap between the two ideologies.”
Blackwell sought God’s wisdom, thinking that God was calling him to plant a second church. Not long after, he received a call from Dr. Johnson, the then-current senior pastor, telling him he planned to retire. “Dr. Johnson called and said that he was retiring in a year and wanted me to take over as senior pastor at CGTOP,” Blackwell said with a laugh. “I didn’t see it coming, to be honest. I asked him if he was sure, and he said yes. At that point, God’s vision became clear. I would be merging two churches. Freedom for Living, a small rural community church, and CGTOP, a larger urban church.”
In the one hundred years that CGTOP has existed, it has done so because of forward-thinking leadership and community support. Each pastor was instrumental in the growth of the church and its congregation. Initially a Baptist church, Dr. James A. Johnson, in his twenty-six years as senior pastor of Cedar Grove, helped to connect it to the Full Gospel Baptist Church Fellowship.
Cedar Grove Tabernacle of Praise is an essential cornerstone of the Terra Cotta community and its rich history. As Overseer Blackwell goes into his eight years of service, he understands the importance of securing the church’s relevance to the people of this historic Greensboro community and those who will come after him.
“Dr. Johnson had done an amazing job of teaching Kingdom principles. The people understood what it meant to be Kingdom-minded, what that application looked like, and the importance of being consistent with the community. All I did was come in and build on that firmly established foundation. My assignment is to take the ministry to the next level in God,” Blackwell explained. “When a pastor retires, it’s usually because they have taken the ministry as far as they could, and it is time for them to release it so that the person God has prepared can move the vision forward. My goal is, with the leading of God, to move the ministry forward, giving it everything I have. Then, when I pass the mantle, the incoming leadership will have the same graceful transition Dr. Johnson gave me.”
Taking on a church with the historical significance and communal value that Cedar Grove has could be a bit daunting. Still, Overseer Blackwell is armed with vision and passion for seeing the church and the community’s people grow spiritually and civically. Blackwell plans to do this in three five-year phases.
The first five-year phase was growing the church and paying off the building. “As I said before, Cedar Grove was already a great church. The three keys to growth in any church are genuine love, trust, and mutual respect. That’s from the top to the bottom,” Blackwell said pointedly. “If you have authentic love, genuine trust, and mutual respect as your base, you create an atmosphere conducive to actual growth and not a swell of interest. That’s what is happening at Cedar Grove.”
In the second five-year phase, Blackwell intends to get the church back to its position at the center of the community. “Shortly before transitioning to CGTOP, Freedom for Living had purchased a plot of land. We hadn’t decided how to develop it at the time. The goal was a community center, but it wouldn’t make sense because the land is so far away from the people we are trying to serve,” he explained. “The church is meant to be a resource for the community—a place where people can get more than just their spiritual needs met.”
The third and final five-year phase of the current goal is civic awareness. In the last twenty years, churches and religious organizations have backed away from engaging in politics for fear of being seen as biased. Historically, the black church was where the community came to be informed of what was happening in the world and how they could play an essential role in securing their rights and the rights of those who would come after them. Overseer Blackwell believes it’s time for the church to step up. “To help our communities, we must become more informed of what is happening in politics. How can we make things better if we choose not to become aware of our communities’ social and economic issues? If historic communities like Terra Cotta are to survive, we have to engage in the politics that affect us,” Blackwell said passionately.
I must acknowledge that the things I’ve been able to accomplish for all my years of shepherding God’s people from the beginning until now, has been due the fact that my wife of 37 years, Kimberly, my partner in marriage and ministry has faithfully served by my side.
“Encouraging people to take an interest in how their city and town is run is important. Getting the information out so people can be informed voters gives them the power to advocate for themselves. This is the only way communities like ours will survive. I know empowering the people of God to help make the laws that govern them is God-ordained,” Blackwell says. While it has only been seven years for Blackwell as the Pastor of Cedar Grove, he knows what legacy he wants to leave behind. “My desired effect on this church and community is simple. I want my legacy to be that we honored God and used his wisdom to build the community up one family at a time.”
www.cedargrovetop.us
