SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Utah’s first black-founded church recently celebrated its 130th anniversary.
The Deseret News reports Trinity African Methodist Episcopal Church pastor Daniel Stalling, during a special celebratory sermon last Sunday, told members to hold on to their beliefs as they confront racism and difficult moments.
Rev. Stalling joined others, including a pianist and two singers on loan from Brigham Young University, to lead churchgoers through several upbeat hymns.
Congregation member Lucinda Sampson says Trinity formed in the 1880s with just a few families who raised the money to start a foundation for the building.
Rev. Nurjhan Blanch Govan, who recently retired but remains at the church as an interim pastor, says an exact founding date isn’t known, but the congregation is believed to be about 130 years old.
