By Rev. Dorothy S. Boulware
In a season when the beginnings of the Divine Nine organizations are being celebrated, one founder’s day almost went unnoticed.
On Jan. 15, 2023, Rho Alpha Tau Christian Writers Fraternity & Sorority was established for people of faith who are also creatives. It’s a one-of-a-kind fraternity and sorority, the seed of which was given to prolific author Dr. Kendra Norman Holmes Bellamy by the Lord–although it took her a few years to move on the vision.
On its website, Rho Alpha Tau describes itself as neither a sisterhood nor a brotherhood — it’s a co-ed “disciplehood.” Members of the multicultural fellowship dedicate themselves to creatively using their God-given talents to empower, educate, encourage and entertain.
An Answer to Prayers
The Rev. Stephanie Atkins is one of those creatives. In addition to being a wife, mother and grandmother, she’s a writer, blogger, playwright and creator of sermons for her weekly preaching as pastor of Waters Memorial AME Church in South Philadelphia. She’s also the new president of Rho Alpha Tau’s Lambda Chapter.
This group was seemingly the answer to her prayers. She’s been interested in writing her entire life, but the great impetus for her most recently published work was the 59 weeks she spent as a caregiver for her mother — the length of time from her mother’s diagnosis of cancer to the day she gained her wings.
“My very first book was ‘I Am Just a Voice.’ It was a compilation of the first sermons I preached from 2014 to 2017. I was inspired to go the devotional route because it’s the easiest route,” she says. A church member who is a graphic artist designed the cover, and she sold it at her church, Mount Calvary AME in Towson, under Pastor Ann Lightner-Fuller’s leadership.
And Atkins couldn’t wait to write the next one, which turned out to be a stage play, “The Woman With an Issue of Blood,” produced largely with the assistance of her 43 cousins.
The focus of the play was her family’s story, the challenges they experienced in their formative years, and how she’s seen them blossom into people of faith, and many leaders in ministry.
“It was something I wanted my mother and my family to have the opportunity to see, and they did. And I’m looking forward to doing it again on another level,” she says.
Atkins also wrote a play about the HIV and AIDS crisis, “Standing Alone but Sitting Together.” The play uses a series of vignettes to depict children who’ve lost parents to HIV/AIDS. “These young people are now standing alone in their parents’ loss, in the loss of their parents, but sitting together as they’re sitting at the cemetery. Each one of them gets up and tells their own story.”
Service and Social Justice at the Core
In addition to their creative ministries, members are encouraged to participate in service projects that reflect the message that characterized Jesus’ ministry: to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, visit the sick, assist the homeless, and pray for the imprisoned.
Members also “are advocates of promoting community involvement and outreach, reading programs for school-aged children, higher education for adults, and social justice and racial equality for all,” according to the RAT website.
This article was originally published by WordinBlack.