By Chris Hughes
ST. LOUIS — Cooperative Baptists gathering in St. Louis for the 2025 General Assembly kicked off their annual meeting with clapping, dancing, singing, energetic preaching and exuberant worship at the fourth annual Late Night Worship service.
Hosted by CBF’s Pan African Koinonia (PAK), the tradition of Late Night services harkens back to the first Watch Night service held Dec. 31, 1862, as enslaved people gathered in worship late in the evening, watching and waiting for the news of freedom to come through the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation by Abraham Lincoln.
It also calls back to a time when African-Americans worshipped at night because of the freedom and safety it afforded them to worship without fear. “It was in the stillness of the night that my ancestors would take the risk to go and cry out unto God in safety and in secrecy,” explained Rev. Devontae Powell, PAK steering committee member and pastor in Flint, Michigan.
“Not long ago in this country, a theological normalcy was that a Black body was not even worth the consideration of having a soul,” Powell added. “So we today honor the sacrifices of our ancestors and we praise God where He has brought us.”
Rev. Dr. Charles E. Goodman Jr., pastor of Tabernacle Baptist Church in Augusta, Ga., delivered a thundering sermon entitled “Be Like This Tree” based on Jeremiah 17:8 (NLT): “They are like trees planted along a riverbank, with roots that reach deep into the water. Such trees are not bothered by the heat or worried by long months of drought. Their leaves stay green and they never stop producing fruit.”
Goodman encouraged worshippers to be like the tree in the text by being firmly planted, remaining connected to sustaining waters, being deeply rooted and producing fruit. “I’ve come to encourage you to be like this tree…The tree is a worshipper, a disciple that we should be like.”
There are two kinds of trees, Goodman suggested: those that try to stand on their own, and those that rely on the living waters of God. “If you want to survive and thrive in life, you need to be sustained by the river,” he offered. The key for Christians, Goodman preached, is to be planted close to God and depend on God’s sustenance.
Extending the metaphor further, Goodman said it is important for Christians to develop a deep network of roots to anchor them in difficult times. “Root work is hard work…The question is can you keep to the long hard work of making sure your roots grow deep,” he shared.
To illustrate his point, Goodman told the parable of an old tree in a man’s back yard that was leaning so much that it extended over into his neighbor’s yard. Worried that it might fall over, he had it inspected with the intent of removing it. After a tree removal expert had looked it over, he told the man, to his surprise, that he couldn’t remove the tree but assured him that it would never fall over because it had developed a deep root system that was tethering it to the ground.
Further, the expert found not only was the tree’s root system deep, but the roots had also wrapped themselves around a large rock, meaning it would continue to hold fast for as long as it lived. In the same way, Goodman encouraged Cooperative Baptists to be deeply rooted to God and anchored to the rock of their faith, Jesus Christ.
That work is necessary to sustain faith, especially in hard times.
“Being rooted and planted does not exempt you from adverse weather conditions,” Goodman posited. The text of Jeremiah states plainly that heat and drought are still an ever-present reality, the preacher explained, but because the tree is firmly planted, it is not bothered by the heat or worried about the drought.
Speaking directly to the current socio-political climate, Christians face many different kinds of “h
eat,” according to Goodman: the rise of political division, racism, exclusion and extremism in the country. However, this is not a time for fear or withdrawal, but rather a time to become stronger in faith. “The heat can help you grow into the person God wants you to be,” Goodman shared.
Finally, he suggested the tree in the text never stops producing fruit, meaning that Christians should produce the kinds of fruit God calls us to produce, not for ourselves but for others. “The fruit was made for someone else. That should be our clarion call. What fruit are we producing?” he concluded. “The good news is: you can be like this tree.”
After a benediction, Cooperative Baptists were invited to give to an offering for the Dr. Emmanuel McCall Racial Justice and Leadership Initiative, which is named after Rev. Emmanuel McCall, a civil rights trailblazer in Baptist life, and dedicated to racial justice initiatives within CBF life.
Watch the Late Night Worship Service via YouTube.