AME pastor returns to congregation after being elected first female bishop

BALTIMORE - Vashti McKenzie stood on the front step of Payne Memorial AME Church and pointed to the ''seeds'' that she has planted during her 10 years as pastor of the inner city congregation.

Where boarded-over buildings once stood is a church senior center just days away from completion. Down the street is a community center, where the church runs job training, support for people with HIV and other programs geared toward resurrecting a blighted neighborhood.

A victorious McKenzie returned home to preach at Payne Memorial on Sunday, clothed in the deep purple and black robe of a bishop. On Tuesday, she became the first woman to hold that title in the history of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.

This fall, she will leave for southern Africa to take over the church's 18th Episcopal District, a territory with 200 churches and 10,000 members in Botswana, Mozambique and Lesotho.

''I thank God for the sisterdom that stood behind me,'' McKenzie thundered to the overflowing crowd of 450 parishioners Sunday.

''My job was to fill the church, and I did my job,'' she said. ''Now God's got another who's going to come and till the fertile land and take Payne Memorial to the next level.

''Pastors come and go, but the church stays the same ... this is God's church, it's never been my church.''

The crowd was dotted with women wearing brilliant red and white, members of the Delta Sigma Theta sorority. McKenzie is national pastor of the public service organization of 192,000 women, and her grandmother was one of the group's founders.

Parishioners credited McKenzie with building Payne Memorial's 1,600-member congregation, saying many were drawn by her personal touch.

''Every time she preached, she would speak to me, it's like someone told her about me,'' said Bryant Clairborne, who was married by McKenzie in 1994 and brings his four children to church with him every Sunday.

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On the Net:

Payne Memorial: http://www.payne-ame.org