STATE COLLEGE — Throughout the month of April, Unity Church of Jesus Christ is celebrating two major milestones — the 46th anniversary of the church’s founding and 45 years of ministry for Senior Pastor Harold McKenzie, in partnership with his wife, Sister Sherren McKenzie.
The “HIGHER: From Generation to Generation” 2023 anniversary celebration will include special events and a celebration weekend April 28-30.
The church took root in 1972 from a small group of Penn State students who sang in the United Soul Ensemble, a Black gospel choir that provided music for the Black Christian Fellowship at the University Park campus. It has now grown into a thriving, independent Christian church that purchased its second building, the former Celebration Hall facility, in 2017.
AN UNEXPECTED PATH
UCJC’s history is intertwined with Harold McKenzie’s unexpected path into pastoral ministry.
“I am not the founding pastor of the church but I am an original member,” he said. “I never had an idea that I would be a pastor, but I had a love for Christ Jesus for a long time.”
He said he grew up in the projects of Harrisburg in a single-parent home and remained sincere about his faith after giving his life to Jesus at age 11.
“I went away to college and had the blessing of meeting the love of my life in the summer of 1970,” he said of Sherren. “She’s from Mississippi and went to school in Indiana. I’m from Harrisburg and went to school at Lock Haven University. We met in a six-week window in Harrisburg in the summer, and we fell in love. We had a common love, one for our Lord, and one that very quickly developed for each other.”
After they returned to their schools, they saw each other five or six times over the next two years, “back in the day of pay phones,” he said. “We got married in 1972, much to the shock and surprise of both of our families.”
Sherren said she was raised by her great-grandmother in Jackson, Mississippi.
“A lot of very negative things happened in my life, so I was very much a broken young girl,” she said.
At the age of 13, she said, she had an encounter with God at a Bible camp that changed her life, and when she was 17, she prayed to have a husband who loved the Lord.
“I figured that if I have someone who really loves Christ, that they would have to do me right,” she said. “Harold and I just celebrated our 50th wedding anniversary in August.”
Harold said that in 1974, the couple heard the United Soul Ensemble sing in Lock Haven and felt drawn to the atmosphere the choir created.
“We started coming back and forth to participate in the choir and the house-to-house Bible study,” he said. “We wanted to be a part of what God was doing, so in 1975 we decided to move to State College. Our church grew out of a revival that was happening in the choir.”
A SUCCESSFUL MERGING
Harold said when the leader of the Black Christian Fellowship relocated, the Rev. Gerald Loyd, a Penn State graduate student who was director of the United Soul Ensemble, assumed leadership of the Black Christian Fellowship ministry. The BCF combined with the choir’s bible study, which was called the Ministries of Life Fellowship. It held Sunday morning worship services on campus in the Frizzel Room of the Pasquerilla Spiritual Center’s Eisenhower Chapel.
“In 1977 a unity celebration was held to combine both ministries, and the church was named Unity Christian Ministries,” he said. “The word ‘unity’ was based on Psalm 133, ‘Behold how good and pleasant it is for brothers to dwell together in unity.’ We later renamed the church to Unity Church of Jesus Christ.”
In 1983, the church took a step of faith to purchase its own building in the community, even though the membership consisted mostly of undergraduate students. It also bought a warehouse across from campus — 140 N. Gill St. — that Penn State had used previously for mining safety training.
Sherren said, “There were literally mining tracks going down the center of it. There were big cages where they stored equipment.”
“It truly was a step of faith,” Harold said. “We didn’t have the money to pay a professional contractor. We only had two guys within the church who had any type of construction skills. But we had a bunch of guys who were willing to learn. We’d find somebody who had the skills and we’d have them come in and show us what to do.”
They learned to do drywalling, studding walls, masonry and installing doors and windows in the cinderblock walls.
“The Gospel Tabernacle in Coudersport sent three guys down and completely rewired the building for free in three days,” Harold said.
“I put in the floor of the bathroom upstairs. I’d never done anything like that,” Sherren said. “Everybody worked together.”
PATH TO MINISTRY
The church remained at that location through 2017. In January 2018, it held the first service in the current church at 2280 Commercial Blvd. in State College. Harold said the average Sunday service attendance was 100 to 150 people.
As the church grew, Harold said people recognized God’s calling on his life.
“People told me even when I was young, you’re going to be a pastor,” he said. “But it never connected in my life. It never resonated.”
He was ordained as an elder in the church in the late 1970s. In April 1978, he was ordained as an assistant pastor and served first in the State College church, then at a church the couple started in Williamsport.
“It’s extremely important to me to take God’s principles and build them into people’s lives,” he said. “To show them both how to know and love him, how to live a healthy, well-rounded life and how to serve him and serve our community.”
“This celebration we’re having recognizes how many years I’ve been in pastoral ministry, not how many years I’ve been the pastor of the church,” he said. “I became the senior pastor of our church in 1990.”
He assumed the role when then-senior pastor Gerald Loyd and his family returned to Pittsburgh.
Ephraim McKenzie said about his parents, “They assumed leadership … and have been able to build an environment that really honors Jesus and brings wholeness and healing.”
Ephraim is one of the McKenzies’ three children and serves as an executive pastor, similar to a chief operating officer.
“Now there’s openness for other voices that are just as significant, valued and affirmed,” said Audrey Kharem, a church elder who leads the Unity Christian Campus Ministry on campus.
The church also provides transportation for students to attend services. “It’s not just one person leading the troop,” Kharem said.
FAITH THROUGH SERVICE
“We are a church that’s predominately Black and have been a haven for Black people,” said Ephraim. “Pastor McKenzie has a vision for a multicultural congregation.”
“Their heart of humility is just so genuine,” Kharem said. “They live it. They don’t just talk it. Pastor McKenzie was working for Columbia Gas Company. Driving all over the place, doing a physical job, coming home at crazy hours, but yet he’d be there if we had 6 a.m. prayer. Whatever was needed, he was there.
“If somebody’s family needed something, it was not unusual for Sherren to come with a whole spread of food,” Kharem continued. “That has been their way of life for many years and it didn’t matter who you were. If they knew there was a need, they didn’t always call the congregation. They would get up and they would just go and do it. And that’s why we celebrate them.”
“They are modeling the life of Christ,” said Linda Wade, an elder and a member of the executive committee.
Kharem said, “During COVID, Sherren was making pots of soup and delivered soup to people. The McKenzies pray, but they do very practical life-giving action. It encourages others of us to do the same.”
“Pastor McKenzie humbly offered his wisdom and displayed his gentle demeanor on various State College school and community boards and commissions,” said Wade. “Sherren gave of herself as a singer, storyteller and poet in performance for Penn State’s Martin Luther King Jr. Memorial Banquet and as a Pennsylvania Council of the Arts grant recipient.”
Sherron said, “It hasn’t been an easy road, but I can tell you it’s been a good road.”
The April 28-30 celebration weekend events will include a fellowship night, a banquet and a special Sunday service. For more information, visit www.ucjc.org.
