55th Annual Jewel Luncheon Presents Pastors of the Missouri Conference Saturday, June 21, 2025 11:00 AM – 2:00 PM Orlando Gardens Event Center 2050 Dorsett Village, Maryland Heights, MO 63043 Bishop Francine A. Brookins, Esq.– Presiding Prelate – Fifth Episcopal District The Reverend Dr. Miriam J. Burnett, MD, MPH – Episcopal Supervisor of Missions The Reverend Edmund E. Lowe, Sr. – Presiding Elder, Gateway District Lisa Cole-Collier, MCWMS President Keesha Kahn, MCWMS First VP/Program Chair
THE REVEREND PRISCILLA A. DOWDEN-WHITE, PHD Rev. Dr. Priscilla Dowden-White is a bi-vocational academic and pastor. An ordained Itinerant Elder in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Dr. Priscilla is the proud Pastor of Bethel AME Church in Paynesville, Missouri. She is Associate Professor and the newly appointed Chairman of the History Department at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, where she teaches and also directs the African/African American Diaspora Studies Certificate Program. Her research and teaching focuses mainly on 20 th century African American freedom struggles, African American women’s intellectual history, and American pragmatism. She is the author of Groping toward Democracy: African American Social Welfare Reform in St. Louis, 1910 – 1949 (University of Missouri Press, 2011), and is currently at work on a book-length biography of the late attorney and civil rights leader, Margaret Bush Wilson. She and her husband, Christopher C. White, recently celebrated their 30 th wedding anniversary. Their daughter, Dara Taylor and son-in-love, Kevin Taylor, have blessed them with three beautiful grandchildren: Kevin, Caleb and Naamah.
THE REVEREND HOWARD E. ABERNATHY Rev. Howard E. Abernathy, for the past five years has been the proud pastor of Parks Chapel A.M.E. Church in Webster Groves, MO. His previous pastoral assignments have been with Allen Chapel A.M.E. in Hannibal, MO and St. John A.M.E. Church in Centralia, MO. Rev. Abernathy is a son of St. James A.M.E. in St. Louis, MO. where he answered his call to preach. Rev. Abernathy is a graduate of Eden Seminary, in Webster Groves, Mo. where he earned a Master’s in Divinity. He is a graduate of Strayer College in Washington, D.C. where he earned a Master of Science in Business Administration. He is also a graduate of Howard University in Washington, D.C. where he earned a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology. Rev. Abernathy has been blessed for the past 25 years in his marriage to his wonderful wife Theresa, who as the Reverend says helps to keep him balanced. As Proverbs 18:22 says, “A man who finds a wife finds a good thing and obtains favor from the Lord.” According to Rev. Abernathy, to be in the service of the Lord is both a blessing and a privilege one that I do not take lightly.
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