Guest Preacher this Sunday: The Rev. Monica Hargrove of Lomax AME Zion
February 19, 2022: Rev. Hargrove received her early childhood education from public schools in Georgia and graduated from Frederick Douglass High School in Atlanta, Georgia, as class valedictorian. She continued her education at Dartmouth College, where she matriculated during the college’s first year of co-education with women as students, and received her A.B. cum laude, majoring in government. She continued her studies by obtaining her J. D. from the University of Michigan Law School, and then a Master’s of Divinity Degree in May of 2003 (obtained while working full time as a lawyer) from Wesley Theological Seminary in Washington, D. C. She has always been a firm believer in the importance of education, and is always studying to show herself approved!
After relocating to the Washington, D. C. area for employment with the U. S. Department of Justice Antitrust Division upon her completion of law school, she joined Lomax A.M.E. Zion Church in Arlington, Virginia, under the pastorate of Rev. (now Bishop) Louis Hunter, Sr. She was admitted to the bar of the District of Columbia (a license which she currently maintains) and practiced law with the Justice Department through October of 1983, when she accepted a position in the General Counsel’s Office of US Airways in Arlington, VA. Although her legal career kept her busy, she spent much time engaged in ministries at Lomax—having served as a member of the Celestial Echoes Choir, as a Sunday School teacher and Superintendent, as a member of the Trustee Board, and as Chair of the Scholarship Fund, among other things.
She currently serves as Associate Minister at Lomax A.M.E. Zion Church in Arlington, Virginia, which is pastored by Rev. Dr. Adrian Nelson II. In addition to preaching and conducting workshops at various churches, Rev. Hargrove has also served as an instructor in the Conference Course of Studies program for the Philadelphia Baltimore Conference, as a member of the Judicial Council of the A.M.E. Zion Church, a member of the Alumni Council of Wesley Theological Seminary, and was named to the Board of Governors of the Seminary in 2015, on which she currently serves on the Building and Grounds Committee, the Executive Committee, and as the Secretary of the Seminary’s Board of Governors.
Monica’s favorite scriptural passage is taken from Philippians 4: 11-13: “Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: everywhere and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need. I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.”