David Yaffe-Bellany Photos
A packed house for Morrison’s last sermon.
Morrison at the pulpit.
The Rev. Eldren Morrison said farewell to the congregation he helped raise from the near-dead by invoking a biblical message from Paul the Apostle: It’s not about me.
Morrison delived that message in his final Sunday sermon at Varick Memorial AME Zion Church, which the beloved and influential reverend is now leaving to assume a pulpit in a larger city down south.
In his last act as a New Haven preacher, Morrison discussed a biblical verse in which Paul attributes the growth of his church in Corinth to God’s grace rather than to human intervention.
“‘I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God has been making it grow,’” Morrison said, quoting from 1 Corinthians.
“There were pastors before. There will be pastors after me,” he added. “We’re not what’s important. The church is not about me.”
Over the past decade, Morrison has established himself as a leader in the New Haven community: a Joshua figure whose inspiring sermons and political savvy brought Varick back from the brink of financial collapse.
In 2007, two-century-old Varick, one of the oldest African-American churches around and a one-time stop on the Underground railroad, had a dwindling attendance and more than $1 million in debt. Morrison — who also opened a charter school, the Booker T. Washington Academy, and chaired the fire commission during his tenure at Varick — quickly reversed that decline. Under his leadership, Varick has paid its bills, repaired a leaking roof, and significantly expanded the congregation, welcoming young families from diverse backgrounds into the fold. Membership has risen from 250 to over 2,000. It’s hard to find a seat many Sunday services. Morrison had also begun discussing plans to undertake economic development in Dixwell and Newhallville through Varick. (Morrison was named the INdependent New Havener of the Year in 2014; read about that here.)
As his final sermon Sunday tacitly acknowledged, the departure of such a successful leader has prompted the question of whether the progress seen under his tenure will continue.
“I know a few people will leave, but I hope a few who have really become committed will stay,” Morrison told the Independent, as he reflected on the future of the church. “The next day and the next moment are not promised to any of us. I didn’t come to stay forever.”
Morrison, who grew up in the South, has family in New Haven but had never set foot in Varick when he agreed to take over as pastor.
“I’m going to remember this as some of the best years of ministry that I’ve had,” he told the Independent. “I came here as a single preacher. I’m leaving as a husband and a father.”
After nearly a decade in the city, Morrison said, he thinks it’s the right time to move back to the South, closer to his parents and extended family. He is set to take over at Shaw Temple AME Zion Church in Atlanta.
On Sunday, reflecting the influence Morrison had built up here, a string of politicians and prominent community members attended the final Morrison-led services, including Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, Mayor Toni Harp, schools Superintendent Garth Harries and former Mayor John DeStefano. They praised Morrison’s dedication to the church, his passion for education, and even his sartorial prowess.
DeStefano pays tribute to Morrison.
“The first thing I noticed — he had a very nice suit on,” said DeStefano, recalling his initial meeting with a sharply dressed Morrison in 2007.
In his sermon, Morrison compared New Haven to Corinth, equating the major roadways that ran through Corinth to streets like Whalley Avenue in New Haven.
“The church there reminds me of Varick today,” he said, his voice rising. “There was nothing that church in Corinth could not do, if it put its mind to it.”
Morrison at his final Sunday at Varick.
The comparison doubled as a warning. Over the years, Morrison has generally avoided lecturing on the news of the day — or “preaching the headlines,” as he puts it — choosing instead to emphasize everyday lessons rooted in Scripture. On Sunday, he quoted from a letter in which Paul noted that Corinth was riven by factionalism. He went on to enumerate the perils of “immaturity” — a source of perpetual conflict in all kinds of human relationships, he said, and the single most disruptive force in the work of ministry.
Coming from Morrison, that reminder carried particular weight. The turmoil he faced in the mid-2000s resulted from a previous Varick pastor secretly refinancing the church’s mortgage in order to allegedly embezzle the funds.
“There’s some sense of immaturity in all of us,” Morrison told the Independent afterward. “I was glad I was able to step in and get this church on the right track.”
He ended his sermon on a lighter note, capping his serious-minded warnings with an assurance that linked biblical teachings to the music of Kendrick Lamar.
“We gon’ be alright,” Morrison declared, to cheers. “We gon’ be alright.”
