Kelly Farrow has many roles and quite a bit on her plate.
She is an ordained minister, lecturer, businesswoman, and social justice advocate. She manages her residence constructing on W. 145th St. in Harlem, which has been a Housing Growth Fund Company (HFDC) for 4 many years, and serves as its president.
When she just isn’t attending to the constructing, Farrow’s work as a minister retains her occupied. Liberation is on the middle of her strategy to ministry. Womanism, a theological self-discipline that facilities Black ladies and is derived from Black Liberation Theology (a framework outlined by James Cone, who taught at Union Theological Seminary), is a core methodology she makes use of.
She inherited her residence from her grandmother, with whom she cut up her time whereas rising up with one other grandmother within the Bronx. However the Bronx shaped a lot of her id and she or he likes to say she is authentically South Bronx, and that neighborhood has at all times impressed her life in addition to her preaching model.
“Hip hop informs my theology…after I preach, my cadence of sounds,” mentioned Farrow, 50. “My authenticity was birthed on the streets of the Bronx.”
She brings that theology to her work as minister of discipleship at Double Love Expertise Church in Brooklyn and affiliate minister of the Convent Avenue Baptist Church in Harlem, the place her great-grandmother was a founding member and which she attended rising up.
“After I present up in a church, or within the pulpit…I’ve by no means left myself behind; I’ve at all times proven up as my full self,” Farrow mentioned. “I’ve by no means shrank.”
Whereas attending Metropolis School, Farrow first realized she wished to enter the ministry. Whereas serving children in youth ministry at Convent, she says she found that she wanted to be herself in her strategy. She acquired her grasp of divinity at Alliance Theological Seminary and was formally ordained in 2009. As her work is interdisciplinary with different areas, Farrow is ready to become involved with social justice causes, like housing and training.
In 2018, Farrow established the Kelly U. Farrow Institute for Black Preaching and Schooling, the place she has constructed a sisterhood via a program, the Circle of SacredFire, which supplies training and mentorship for ladies of colour who wish to get into ministry. Psychological well being and wellness are additionally a spotlight. Greater than 50 completely different circles have taken place throughout completely different cities like Chicago and Atlanta, with 15 at faculties, together with Morehouse School and McAfee Faculty of Theology.
“Circle of SacredFire teaches ladies the methodology, command presence within the pulpit, put an excellent, sturdy sermon collectively, but additionally sister one other lady so we diminish competitors and that ‘crabs in a barrel’ mentality, stroll via womanist ethics and embody being a womanist, and what meaning, and be an excellent servant chief,” Farrow mentioned. “I’m educating them that while you convey a seat to the desk, you convey an additional empty chair, somebody to come back sit with you.”
However Farrow can be dedicated to serving to individuals with possession in her HFDC constructing as a result of she has been one herself from a younger age.
Her Harlem grandmother, Barbara Jean, served on the board of the residence constructing till her passing in 2021. Farrow says Jean was intentional about passing it down and made her a shareholder when she was round 10 years outdated. She was additionally instilled with a ardour for social justice from her grandmother, who had been lively within the Civil Rights Motion, participated within the 1963 March on Washington, and was a member of the 1199 nurses union.
“What granny taught me was that life insurance coverage insurance policies are the keys to getting Black individuals into generational wealth,” Farrow mentioned. “When my grandmother handed away, she left us no debt. She left us a legacy of a constructing and cash within the financial institution, and she or he had already paid for her personal funeral.”
Below her management, the constructing has gained two new shareholders, after not including any in 40 years.
“I’m in justice work, I’m in mission work,” Farrow mentioned, “and that transcends areas for me, whether or not it’s in housing, whether or not it’s within the pulpit, whether or not it’s on the streets or the Bronx.”
