Leading Religious Figure Just Full Of Positive Surprises

Sunday was T-shirt day at Payne Memorial African Methodist Episcopal Church in West Baltimore. Everyone was dressed casually, wearing T-shirts celebrating the church’s centennial.

Then in walked the church’s pastor, the Rev. Vashti McKenzie, looking cool and calm in a royal blue African-inspired two-piece dress that swept the floor.

Later, she opened her jacket to reveal her Payne T-shirt.

It was just one of the latest surprises from the woman who has become one of Baltimore’s leading religious figures.

In July, McKenzie, representing 60 African-American churches, signed exclusive agreements with four banks. In return, the financial institutions - called the Collective Banking Group - agreed upon fair treatment for the churches, mostly inner-city institutions, when handling loan requests and other transactions.

Some Baltimore ministers are calling the pact a “historic” move that will relieve some blighted pockets of the city.

The bankers and ministers agree McKenzie was key to the agreement. They champion her as one of a new breed of African-American minister, generally better educated than their predecessors and eager to put into practice some of the remedies for urban problems they proposed in seminary.

“We’ve always had ministers who were interested in social causes, not just what goes on inside the church,” said the Rev. Marvis May, who was on the four-member negotiating committee with McKenzie.

“But now, you have a large power base of ministers interested in making real change in the community, and Vashti is one of the most vocal.”

McKenzie has spent much of her working life in other pursuits - including stints as a fashion model and broadcaster. And for a long time she was on the sidelines, literally, as the wife of Stan McKenzie, a former National Basketball Association player. They met when he played for the Baltimore Bullets in the 1960s. The Pikesville couple, married 29 years, have three children.

She is a Baltimore native, a graduate of the University of Maryland, College Park, and a member of the Murphy family, owners of the Afro-American newspaper. Her late mother was long-time Afro reporter Ida Murphy Smith Peters, a daughter of Carl Murphy, its legendary editor and publisher.

By the time McKenzie became a minister in 1982, she felt she was prepared for almost anything - including negotiating across the table with bankers.

She was attending Bethel AME Church, then under the direction of the Rev. John Bryant, when she said God called her to be a minister. She worked at Bethel for a time as minister for communication, overseeing its broadcasting operations and other matters.

After divinity school at Howard University, she was assigned to two small churches in Cecil County by the AME church and later to Oak Street AME Church in Baltimore.

But she became prominently mentioned as a rising star in AME church circles six years ago when she was named pastor of Payne Memorial.

McKenzie is praised by church members for her innovative ideas. At Oak Street, she and her husband played host to “Monday Night Football” socials, where area residents were invited to watch football games on the church’s large-screen television.

Afterward, they would talk about how the residents wanted to improve themselves and their community.

Even more successful were the soap opera socials, when neighborhood women, some on welfare, were invited in to watch “The Young and the Restless.” Then the women would discuss issues of importance to them.

Out of that initial group, five women have gone on to obtain college degrees, McKenzie said.

In her 6-1/2 years at Payne, the membership has grown from 280 to 1,240, said a longtime member. The church has 21 new ministries, ranging from a Boy Scout troop to a program that helps 45 families a year with emergency assistance.

“She’s had a tremendous impact on both the religious and secular communities,” said Mayor Kurt L. Schmoke.

Named one of the country’s top 50 pastors by Ebony magazine, McKenzie is considered likely to become the first female bishop in the AME church, said Brookins. But that’s something that won’t happen until at least 2000, at the church’s next quadrennial convention.

Until then, McKenzie will be active with the banking collective, especially through her church, which plans to renovate a long-vacant apartment building near the church for a school and businesses, she said.

The collective is believed to be the second such alliance in the country. It’s an affiliate of the 2-year-old Collective Banking Group of Prince George’s County and Vicinity, which has led to millions more dollars being lent to churches there, say church officials.

Baltimore’s Collective Banking Group was founded nearly a year ago, after McKenzie brought together about 20 pastors to discuss the idea with the Rev. Jonathan Weaver, president of the Prince George group. The Baltimore pastors, eager to establish such a group, elected McKenzie as president.