Pastor Karla Garcia of S.S. Morris Community AME Church did not know Pastor Marcio Sierra, Jr. of Lighthouse Church, but she felt a nudge from God to reach out to him.
S.S. Morris had been struggling with a deteriorating roof for several years. Now it was at a crisis point and the cost of fixing it was in the $50,000 range. Garcia was at wits end about what to do.
“The Lord said, If you contact him, he will know what to do,” Garcia explained of the impulse to contact Sierra. So in September, she sent him a long message on Facebook.
This involved not only reaching out across denominations but across cultures. Lighthouse Church, on Madison’s West Side, is a predominantly Latino congregation. S.S. Morris, located at 3511 on Milwaukee Street on the East Side, is part of the African Methodist Episcopal denomination – the oldest Black denomination in the nation.