St. Paul African Methodist Episcopal Church, located at 1355 W. 21^st Street in San Bernardino, has announced the Reverend Godfrey R. Patterson as the church’s new senior pastor.  He was appointed by the Rt. Rev. Clement W. Fugh, Presiding Prelate of the 5^th Episcopal District of the AME Church.

Rev. Patterson has more than 40 years of a successful pastoral experience where he has served congregations in Maryland, Washington, DC, Virginia, North Carolina, California and Kansas.   His most recent pastoral assignment was at St. Paul AME Church in Wichita, Kansas.  A native of Chicago, IL, he graduated from Northside High School, attended and graduated from Lambuth College in Jackson, TN; after which he responded to the “call of Gospel ministry” and enrolled at the Howard University School of Religion in Washington, DC.  At Howard, he distinguished himself as both a campus leader and community organizer, co-founding the Howard University Student Aid to Political Prisoners and becoming a coordinator with the Wilmington 10 Defense Committee.

He is also the founder of InFocus Ministries, an “evangelistic social gospel workshop” and has traveled extensively throughout the nation and organizing the converts to become agents of positive change in the black community.

His credits as an author include The Ten Black Commandments (Principles of Survival); two books, The Autobiography of a Stranger; Just Trusting in God; and a screenplay, “Framed.”  He is currently working on his third book, Meditations from the Heart of a Stranger, as well as video project connected with his book, Just Trusting in God.  His personal motto is taken from the words of Hale, “I cannot do everything but I can do something.  What I can do, I ought to do.  And what I ought to do, by the grace of
God, I will do.”