HALIFAX - After the hymns and quiet prayers of a Sunday morning, Rev. Rhonda Britton sat in the silence of her 192-year-old Black church in Halifax, reflecting on what it’s meant to guide her congregation for 17, often challenging, years. An important moment for her congregation came last year, when New Horizons Baptist Church reopened after the COVID-19 pandemic and four years of construction, complete with new offices, comfortable chairs rather than wooden pews, and a non-profit wing dedicated to community and church programs.
The physical renewal of her church building complements the years she spent working to transform society, speaking truth to power, and battling for social justice. “The welfare of people is a key part of the church’s mission, not just the gathering in a building on a Sunday morning,” said Britton, who recently announced she is retiring at the end of this year. Britton, a 67-year-old former information technology worker from Jacksonville, Fla.
, was ordained at the age of 44. Her choice to join the church, she said, was a response to a calling she had resisted for decades, even as friends had longtime referred to her as “Rev.” In 1999, Britton attended Princeton Theological Seminary in New Jersey, where a professor, originally from Nova Scotia, suggested she consider a job at Second United Baptist Church in New Glasgow, N.
S., located in a Canadian province she knew nothing about. In 2007, after five years in New Glasgow, she shifted to Halif.
