Hartford Memorial Baptist Church celebrates 100 years of loving God and serving the world community. The Rev. Edgar Wendell Edwards served as founding pastor from 1917 to 1920 when he relocated to Chicago. After a diligent search, the Church called the Rev. Charles A. Hill Sr., assistant to the Rev. Robert L. Bradley Sr., of Detroit’s historic Second Baptist Church. Installed as pastor in November of 1920, he served for 48 years until his retirement on his 75th Birthday, April 28, 1968. During his progressive pastorate, Dr. Hill built new church facilities on the corner of Hartford and Milford and subsequently, a community and recreation facility.
He was a strong supporter of organized labor; UAW Ford Local 600 was organized at Hartford Church. An outspoken champion of civil rights in the difficult days before the Civil Rights Movement, Dr. Hill was at the forefront of the struggle for equality in the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s. He was one of the first Blacks to run for the Detroit City Council. Courageously, he opened the Hartford pulpit to such nonconformists as W.E.B. DuBois and Paul Robeson.
On April 6, 1969, Hartford gleefully received its son, Charles Gilchrist Adams, as pastor of the church in which he had been reared, indoctrinated, baptized, licensed, ordained and married. At that time, Dr. Adams, an honors graduate of the University of Michigan and Harvard Divinity School, had just begun his seventh year as pastor of the historic Concord Baptist Church in Boston, New England’s largest African American congregation. Having burned the old mortgage in 1971, Dr. Adams led Hartford into the current James Couzens’ facilities on April 10, 1977; under his strong and vigorous leadership, this mortgage was burned in 1983, nine years ahead of time. With an ever increasing church family, Hartford has become one of the largest church congregations in Detroit. Widely known for its music ministry, Hartford boasts of the largest pipe organ built by a Black church. Choir loft expansions, upgraded audio/video equipment and redesigned lighting in the Sanctuary are only part of the ongoing renovations.
Dr. Adams’ vision of community outreach led to the establishment of The AGAPE (LOVE) HOUSE for charitable and community ministries. Formerly housed in properties purchased across the freeway on James Couzens, The AGAPE HOUSE, now temporarily located in the Church, continues to offer needed social services that include the Daily Senior Citizens’ Program, Hunger Task Force, Resource Center &Bookstore, Multi-Media Ministry, Scholarship and College Preparation Programs, Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous.
Hartford has purchased commercial real estate along Seven Mile Road, supporting the establishment of fast food restaurants, such as McDonald’s, Long John Silver, Kentucky Fried Chicken and other businesses. A Super Kmart was built on church property and employed hundreds of local residents. Today, on the same church property, Home Depot continues to provide employment and a tax base for the city and state. On other church properties, Hartford has established the Head Start Agency, a Tutorial Program and the Hartford Institute for Biblical Studies.
Recently, Hartford, under the leadership of Dr. Adams, purchased 5.5 acres of land located on the former Meyers Road campus of Lewis College of Business. The design and plans are in progress for the utilization of this site for Vision ‘007, Dr. Adams’ and Hartford’s greatly expanded vision for community outreach. Vision ‘007 will host an assisted living complex, gymnasiums for seniors and youth, a performing arts auditorium, health facilities and The AGAPE HOUSE programs.
In 2007, Dr. Adams was selected as the first professor of the Practice of Ethics and of Ministry at Harvard University. His full teaching schedule at Harvard has not prevented his weekly delivery of soul-saving sermons at Hartford. Assisting him is his son, the Rev. Charles Christian Adams, who was unanimously appointed as Hartford’s first Presiding Pastor, thus continuing the Adams’ pulpit legacy. We celebrate and praise God for the ever expanding ministry of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church.
Rev. Charles Christian Adams served as the Presiding Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church for eleven years as well as Co-Pastor, all this alongside his father, Dr. Charles G. Adams. On October 1, 2019, Rev. Charles Christian Adams became the fourth pastor in Hartford’s history. In addition to his preaching and teaching ministry at Hartford, Rev. Adams has traveled the world, ministering in Geneva, Switzerland for the World Council of Churches, Harare, Zimbabwe for the Baptist World Alliance Youth Conference and Johannesburg, South Africa for the American Baptist Churches. He has preached throughout the United States, Europe, and Africa. In April 2013 Rev. Adams received the prestigious honor of being inducted into the Martin Luther King Jr. Board of Preachers of Morehouse College. Rev. Adams also regularly conducts behavioral health seminars at churches, schools, prisons, treatment facilities and anywhere else he may be needed.
Rev. Adams is a member of the Golden Key National Honor Society, lifetime member of the NAACP and currently serves as the President of the Michigan Progressive Baptist Convention. He sits on the Board of Directors for the Detroit Recovery Project, Center for Urban Youth & Family Development, and the Emmanuel House Recovery Center. Additionally, he sits on the board of directors for Morehouse School of Religion, Loyola High School and Ecumenical Theological Seminary. He is an advisory board member for the American Baptist Women in Ministry as well as St. Jude Research Hospital. Rev. Adams also directly served his community as a sworn city official, sitting on the City of Detroit Board of Ethics and is a past Board President of The Metropolitan Christian Council of Detroit & Windsor. Also Rev. Adams currently serves a a Wayne County Sheriffs Chaplin and is the 1st VP of the Progressive National Baptist Convention Midwest Region. Rev. Adams also currently serves as Election Chair for the Progressive National Baptist Convention. Where he also serves as a Executive Board Member.
Rev. Charles Christian Adams is the loving husband to Nicole Adams and father of Charles Edward Adams and Madison Elizabeth Adams and Juliana Ortiz. He is currently pursuing his Doctorate degree at Duke University Divinity School and is grateful for the opportunity to have served alongside his father, and to now perpetuate the Hartford legacy as a continued beacon of light to the people in the City of Detroit and beyond.
Charles Gilchrist Adams graduated with honors from the University of Michigan and Harvard University and went on to become a doctoral fellow in Union Theological Seminary in New York City. From 1962 to 1969, Dr. Adams served as Pastor of historic Concord Baptist Church in Boston, followed by an appointment as the Pastor of Hartford Memorial Baptist Church in Detroit.
In 1991, Dr. Adams addressed the Seventh General Assembly of the World Council of Churches; he was elected to that organization’s Central Committee at this Assembly.
He recommended the World Council use its offices and resources to combat racism in the U.S. and around the world, and their response was to join forces with the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA. Together, the organizations converged on Los Angeles in 1992 to meet with churches, gang leaders, public officials and citizens in order to bring about a lasting peace after the riots following the verdict in the beating of Rodney King.
1994, Dr. Adams received his second citation by Ebony Magazine as one of the nations 15 greatest Black preachers (he was first cited in 1984). Ebony also named him as one of the top 100 most influential Black Americans. He served as President of the Detroit Branch of the NAACP in 1984 and was elected to its Executive Board in 1986, 1988, 1990 and 1992.
Dr. Adams was the 1993-94 Conference Preacher for Hampton University Ministers Conference held in Hampton, Virginia. He has been awarded twelve honorary doctorates from colleges and universities across the country; has spoken before the United Nations (on South African Apartheid); and has received the coveted “Rabbi Marvin Katzenstein Award” from the Harvard Divinity School. This is given to a Harvard graduate who exhibits “a passionate and helpful interest in the lives of other people, an informed and realistic faithfulness, an embodiment of the idea that love is not so much a way of feeling as a way of acting and has a reliable sense of humor.”
A prolific writer, Dr. Adams has published locally and nationally in scholarly journals, daily and weekly newspapers. His sermon, “Drunk on the Eve of Reconstruction” appeared in the Winter 2001-2002 Edition of The African American Pulpit (Judson Press). Judson Press also published 9.11.01 African American Leaders Respond to an American Tragedy in which a sermon by Dr. Adams is featured. September 2002, Westminster John Knox Press published Power in the Pulpit, in which Dr. Adams describes how he prepares, writes and delivers his sermons.
Professor of Preaching, Ecumenical Theological Seminary, Detroit, MI, 2000 to 2007. He held the position of William and Lucille Nickerson Professor of the Practice of Ethics and Ministry, Harvard Divinity School, Cambridge, MA., which began in July, 2007 and ended June, 2012.
Dr. Adams’ board affiliations include the Baptist World Alliance, the World Council of Churches, the National Council of Churches, the Congress of National Black Churches, Morehouse College (Atlanta, GA) and Morris College (Sumpter, SC).
He is married to Agnes Hadley Adams and is the father of Tara Adams Washington, MD and the Rev. Charles Christian Adams.
Rev. Charles C. Adams
Senior Pastor
Rev. Dr. Kevin N. Taylor
Assistant Pastor
313-861-1285 x416
ktaylor@hmbcdetroit.org
Rev. Curtis Kilpatrick
Minister of Christian Nurture
313-861-1285 x439
curtishbk@hmbcdetroit.org
Rev. Lurecie Stokes
Minister of Pastoral Care
313-861-1285 x423
lstokes@hmbcdetroit.org
Rev. Jonathan Betts Fields
Youth Minister
313-861-1285 x509
jbfields@hmbcdetroit.org
Lawrence Mathews
Chief Financial Officer
313-861-1285 x457
lmathews@hmbcdetroit.org
Diane Jenkins
Director of Finance
313-861-1285 x411
djenkins@hmbcdetroit.org
Deborah Boatner
Executive Assistant to the Pastor
313-861-1285 x435
dboatner@hmbcdetroit.org
Gwen Moore
Pastoral Project Coordinator
313-861-1285 x417
gmoore@hmbcdetroit.org
Robert Kennerly
IT / Webmaster
313-861-1285 x421
pastorbob@hmbcdetroit.org
Teri Graves
Accounting Clerk I
313-861-1285 x416
tgraves@hmbcdetroit.org
LaTrice Lucas
Accounting Clerk II
313-861-1285 x428
llucas@hmbcdetroit.org
Maxine Borders
Receptionist
313-861-1285 x410
mborders@hmbcdetroit.org
Jacqueline Henderson
Security Supervisor
313-861-1285 x541
jhenderson@hmbcdetroit.org
Edith Clifton
Media
313-861-1285 x433
eclifton@hmbcdetroit.org
“And they entered into a Covenant to seek the Lord God of their fathers with all their heart and with all their soul.” —II Chronicles 15:12
Having been led, as we believe, by the Spirit of God, to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, and on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost, we do now, in the presence of God, angels and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another, as one body in Christ.
We promise by the aid of the Holy Spirit to forsake the paths of sin, and to walk in the ways of holiness all the days of our lives.
With this view, we engage to strive together for the advancement of this church in knowledge, holiness and comfort, to promote its prosperity and spirituality, to sustain its worship, ordinances, discipline and doctrines.
To contribute cheerfully, by tithing, as taught in the Bible for the support of the ministry, the expenses of the church, the relief of the poor and the spread of the gospel throughout all nations.
We also engage to maintain family and secret devotion, to religiously educate our children, to seek the salvation of our kindred and acquaintances.
To walk circumspectly in the world, to be just in our dealings, faithful in our engagements, and exemplary in our deportment, to avoid all tattling, backbiting, and excessive anger, and to oppose all unloving acts and attitudes in all walks of Life toward any of God’s children, and to be zealous in our efforts to advance the kingdom of our Savior.
We further agree to walk together in Christian love and watchfulness, giving and receiving admonition with meekness and affection, to remember each other in prayer, to aid each other in sickness and distress, to cultivate Christian sympathy in feeling and courtesy in speech, to be slow to take offense, but always ready for reconciliation, and mindful of the rules of our Savior, to secure it without delay.
We, moreover, engage that, when we remove from this place, we will as soon as possible unite with some other church where we can carry out the spirit of this covenant and the principles of God’s word.
Humbly confessing our past sins, we pray for grace and strength to keep these, our holy vows, for the sake of Jesus Christ our Lord.
18700 James Couzens
Fwy Detroit, MI 48235
(313) 861-1285
