Our Mission

Our mission to feed the hungry, to clothe the naked, to cheer the fallen, to set at liberty the captive quickens our resolve to love as Christ has commanded. We shoulder the cross of discipleship for sake of justice and the glory of God.

Allen seeks the agape love of God for all God’s people and “presses toward the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.”

Greater Allen A.M.E. Church

What We Believe

Our commitment to emancipation and liberty is determining for our walk as Christians who are African Methodists.

  • For the sake of our children we affirm categorically the value of human personality.
  • For the sake of our women we aspire to freedom of speech and preaching and the share of divine authority and leadership in the building of the kingdom of God.
  • For or the sake of our men we call upon God for favor in discernment and judgement concerning the deep things of God’s Will and Word.

Church Leadership

REV. EDWARD SCOTT
REV. EDWARD SCOTTCo-Pastor
Edward A. Scott has served as pastor of Allen Chapel for more than 25 years.

Rev Edward A. Scott was born the first of seven children to Rev. Elizabeth M. Scott of Virginia and Edward M. Scott of Pennsylvania. He attended schools in Pennsylvania throughout the primary and secondary grades and attended college at Slippery Rock State University where he received his BA in philosophy.

He enrolled at Duquesne University to pursue graduate studies in philosophy, eventually earning both his master’s degree  and PhD. During the time he prepared for his doctoral exams he received the call to preach the Gospel. He was later licensed to preach and ordained an itinerant elder in 1979 just as he took his first teaching post in Calabar, Nigeria on the west coast of Africa.

Upon his return two years later he was recruited by the legendary Rev. Ulysses A. Hughey to teach at Payne Theological Seminary in Wilberforce, Ohio.

The following year he was assigned by Bishop Vinton R. Anderson to pastor his first church, the historic Holy Trinity A.M.E. Church in Wilberforce. The next year he was assigned by Bishop Hildebrand upon the urging of President Yvonne Walker-Taylor to also serve as Chaplain at Wilberforce University.

In 1986 he was awarded his doctorate and commenced his tenure of four years service as Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Monmouth College in Illinois. Following that appointment he moved east again to teach philosophy at Mary Baldwin College where he has remained since 1990. He committed three years to the work of Interim Dean and Vice President for Academic Affairs at the college before returning to the faculty full time.

Rev. Scott has been the pastor of Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church for more than 25 years and was the pastor of St. Paul A.M.E. Church for three years before that. No other labor has granted him more joy, a joy even rarely equaled, than that which pastoring has afforded. The call, while incomparable by any earthly standard, while heaviest of all the crosses one may bear, and though it may exact a toll by the sum of its urgencies, that same call is still as grace upon grace imbued.

Rev. Scott is the happy husband of Rev. Andrea Cornett-Scott, and he is the proud father of Jacob, Naima and Ellington. He is the grandfather of 5 prodigious grandchildren: Azure, Marquis, Victoria, Alexander and Julius. But first and last, he is the blessed child of the living God.


“I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me.”

REV. ANDREA CORNETT-SCOTT
REV. ANDREA CORNETT-SCOTTCo-Pastor
Andrea Cornett Scott has served as pastor of Christ Our Redeemer A.M.E. Church for 24 years.

Rev. Andrea Cornett-Scott is a native of Cincinnati, Ohio. All of her life, she has fostered a genuine love for creative community building. She accepted the call to preach at the age of seven. Throughout her life, she has been committed to outreach ministry, working both in the domestic and foreign mission fields. Rev. Cornett-Scott is a graduate of two African Methodist Institutions of Higher Learning: Morris Brown College and Payne Theological Seminary. As an undergraduate, Cornett-Scott studied abroad in the Dominican Republic at Universidad Católica Madre Y Maestra. Her Masters of Divinity Thesis was entitled: “Aint Got Time to Die: the African Spiritual Inheritance of the African Methodist Episcopal Church.”  She will celebrate 45 years of ministry this November having served four congregations: Bethel (Harrisonburg, VA), Ebenezer (Roanoke, VA), Christ Our Redeemer (Staunton, VA) and now Greater Allen with her husband, Dr. Edward A. Scott.

As a well-seasoned pastor, she has served the Virginia Annual Conference as a teaching member of the Board of Examiners, the Registrar, the Dean and she currently serves as the Chair of the Board of Examiners. She is also the Dean of the Second Episcopal District Board of Examiners. She is a trustee for the Virginia Annual Conference. Rev. Cornett-Scott has served as the Superintendent of Church School for the Portsmouth, Richmond Roanoke District and the District and Conference Coordinator for Women in Ministry. She has served as a mentor and a mother in the ministry to seven accomplished clergy persons: Rev. Amy Christine Hodge, Rev. Charles Coates, Rev. Ranyne A. Herbert, Rev. Shanna L. Payne, Rev. Lynnette R. Daughtry, Rev. Jennifer Lynn Oliver, and Rev. Jazmine L. Brooks. Pastor Cornett-Scott’s ministry of empowerment is based on her personal belief that she can do all things through Christ who strengthens her. She has a passion for nurturing the call of her constituents.

In her work to plant a college student serving congregation, she preached and modeled a faith of empowerment that proclaims the importance of serving a personal savior. Her ministry at Christ Our Redeemer has heralded the gospel truth that God will supply all of our needs according to God’s riches in glory when you exercise a fish and loaves kind of faith. Through her leadership, Christ Our Redeemer moved from mission standing to full station standing within the prescribed four years. Many young college students have found a church home at Christ Our Redeemer during their academic tenure; when they graduate, they are prepared to take a leading role in their respective local churches.

Along with her active ministry in the African Methodist Episcopal Church, Rev. Andrea Cornett-Scott serves as the Chief Diversity Officer and a member of the Religion faculty at Mary Baldwin University. She has been a member of the Mary Baldwin administration for twenty-eight years. As a service to the college community, she leads the Greater Things Campus Ministry, offering spiritual support to MBC students through bible study, prayer fellowships and other worship experiences.

Rev. Cornett-Scott and Dr. Edward Scott have three children: Jacob, Naima, and Ellington; five grandchildren, Azure, Marquis, Victoria, Alexander and Julius; one great-grandchild, Angel, and a spoiled pup named Darla Renee Calloway Scott.


“I can do all things through Christ
who strengthens me.”

“Faces of Allen:” Past & Present

We’re People Who Get Involved

Participate in the life of this church in any way, small or large.
You are welcome for an hour or a lifetime.

Here at Greater Allen A.M.E. Church in Staunton, you have lots of ways to get involved.

  • Understand more of God’s purpose and plan for your life. Church School is held every Sunday at 10 a.m. Let’s get together and learn from one another. You’re invited!
  • Help feed the hungry and clothe the naked. The Women’s Missionary Society (WMS) administers the food pantry (open every first Monday of the month from 5 to 6 in the evening) and undertakes special projects to serve the needy.
  • Food Farmacy (Seasonal: every Thursday 6-7 pm, July 29-October 14). Food Farmacy matches chronic disease and nutrition education with free produce to help individuals better control their health care and health outcomes. The program is open to anyone interested in learning preventive health measures for diabetes and other chronic diseases through food and diet education.
  • Sing a new song (and some treasured old ones). Join our Voices of Victory Choir.Practice is every Saturday at 9:00 a.m.
  • Stand up for what you believe in. Ushers make everyone feel welcome for Sunday’s worship, distributing the day’s order of service, “directing traffic” during the service, and standing at the door to assist anyone who needs it.
  • Advance the scholarship and education of our youth. Our Young People’s Department (YPD) and Scholarship & Education Committee consider it their priviledge and duty to shepherd our young congregants to value and receive excellent education.
  • There’s more! Come meet the friendly folk at Allen and see how your talents and skills can glorify God and edify the community.

Our Book of Discipline identifies AME Churches’ goals. We primarily seek

… to minister to the spiritual, intellectual, physical, emotional, and environmental needs of all people by spreading Christ’s liberating gospel through word and deed.

… [I]n every local church, the African Methodist Episcopal Church shall engage in carrying out the spirit of the original Free African Society, out of which the African Methodist Episcopal Church evolved: that is, to seek out and save the lost, and serve the needy through a continuing program of

  • preaching the gospel,
  • feeding the hungry,
  • clothing the naked,
  • housing the homeless,
  • cheering the fallen,
  • providing jobs for the jobless,
  • administering to the needs of those in prisons, hospitals, nursing homes, asylums and mental institutions, senior citizens’ homes; caring for the sick, the shut-in, the mentally and socially disturbed, and
  • encouraging thrift and economic advancement.

(The Doctrine and Discipline of the African Methodist Episcopal Church 2004-2008, p. 15)

Address

936 Sudbury Street
Staunton, VA 24401

Services

Sundays 11am – 1pm
Sunday School 9:30 am – 10:30 am

Phone

540-886-2210
[email protected]

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.

Martin Luther King, Jr.

Love recognizes no barriers. It jumps hurdles, leaps fences, penetrates walls to arrive at its destination full of hope.

Maya Angelou, Poet and Author

Whereas our ancestors (not of choice) were the first successful cultivators of the wilds of America, we their descendants feel ourselves entitled to participate in the blessings of her luxuriant soil.

Richard Allen, Founder of the A.M.E. Church