By Ima Gontellit, Chicago Crusader
LAWD HELP US
People are increasingly whispering about the open-secret about Fellowship M.B. Church’s pastor Charles Jenkins’ alleged abandonment of his flock. You see this embattled pastor who once had his male private parts posted on the internet by an alleged disgruntled lover whose gender was never revealed, has apparently moved to Atlanta and has no plans of returning to Chicago.
People said Jenkins “been gone for a while now” and that he will “sometimes fly in to give a Sunday sermon” but that he mostly gives that responsibility to an assistant. What has made people even madder at the “Ship” is that it has been said the ambitious preacher is openly a candidate to take over the late Bishop Eddie Long’s church after their senior pastor abruptly quit right before Sunday service.
What be said about the whole thing is that the Grammy-award winning boy preacher was handpicked by Rev. Clay Evans despite some warnings from people who thought it was a bad idea. Since Jenkins took over the “Ship” membership has plummeted to less than 1,000 with some alleging only 150 people even bother or to show up to the historic mega church that probably boasted at least 5,000 members. They sayin’ they done all run off to Greater Harvest or Love and Deliverance.
What’s interesting about that is people running ‘round town saying because so many of Greater Harvest’s homosexuals have ran off to join other ministries, that there’s some open fighting going on inside the church walls with one group of homsexuals trying to fend off another group of foreign homosexuals. And, the choirs are all up in arms and trying to figure out which homosexual to follow. The pastors, we hear, have kept their heads in their bibles and are hoping their beloved sissies (closeted and open) will work it among themselves.They just don’t want to see pink socks flying when it is collection time.
In de meantime, people are also wondering what Dr. Jenkins did with the money he received from the sale of the Soft Sheen Building that he was awarded or bought and had planned to turn into a charter school. Elders and deacons are trying to figure out if the money was deposited in the church’s bank accounts or someone else’s.
Remember Jenkins was the grinning Negro who held a red-carpet event to open up a doggone Al’s Italian Beef, where the Who’s Who and what’s what of Black Chicago all showed up to be dined on shrimp, lobster and expensive champagne. The only problem with that was none of those people were nowhere to be found when it was discovered this singing preacher wasn’t paying the teenagers their wages—and had allegedly come under threat of physical violence by some of their angry parents. BTW, Jenkins’ business partner in that scheme was LeVan Hawkins who had been convicted of federal financial crimes involving some real crazy mess up in Philly.
Now other people are finally reporting what De Chatterbox told you way back when: Pastor Jenkins, who once allegedly hired ninjas to protect him and was surrounded by bodyguards, was allegedly run over by his outraged wife with her expensive SUV, where he suffered a whole lot of body damage—after she allegedly caught him creeping out of a place that wasn’t a church with somebody that wasn’t his wife.
What de poor tithing folks want to know is when will these Negro preachers lak Charlie Jenkins and a whole handful of others around the country who’ve done much worse, stop this nonsense—- that would be playing wth De Lawd; hustling churchgoers out of their earnings; and then asking for forgiveness when they are caught lying, cheating, stealing, fondling children, committing adultery and engaging in questionable sex acts—including with those of their same gender. They does all this while denouncing all of it which sometimes result in people being put out of these houses of worship and turning their backs on their faith altogether.
-Ima-
HOTEL HELL
Don’t nobody know if it’s no truth to something about a Negro-owned hotel about to go belly up because people done finally realized you can’t rent it out for no large scale meetings and that it’s really a motel dressed up to look like a high class hotel? Since its meeting rooms are too tiny, all Black groups that constantly call for the support of Black dollars continues to take all of their high-falutin’ conventions to white-owned establishments, many of whom are owned by people with some questionable views on African American issues. Since June and July is Black convention season, once again more than $10 million will flow out of the community via these collective organizations and smack into the hands of white banks, white businesses, white printers, white media and white vendors. Then these big time people will return home to their Black community and demand we support Black businesses.
FAKE CAMPAIGN ALERT
Now we’re hearing at least one person is fixing to get ready to drop out of de mayor’s race because somebody has threatened to expose them as being a straw horse candidate. We heard the threat has come because of the failure to pay monies owed and now the person is angry and mad and running around telling all who will listen to “watch what happens next.”
-Ima-
FUNERAL FALLOUT?
Word done came up in the senior building that people attended the funeral of some famous lawyer and that some group of Negroes called for a boycott when they realized, “some of the people on the program was hated by the deceased.” We hear because of it, they have vowed to “take up the mantle and expose these people” and that they are “mad as hell” and that’s what “the deceased man wanted.” Okay.
EDITOR’S NOTE: This column is published as political satire, street gossip and humor, and therefore should not be considered as fact but rather as matter of opinion. None of the items therein are collected by the news gathering staff of the Crusader Newspaper Group. Items forwarded to The Chatterbox are kept confidential unless otherwise requested by the author in writing. For submissions please forward to: [email protected]. Original photography and artwork are permitted. Thank you for reading!
