Pastor Adeline Brown laces up white leather Riedell skates at 6:08 a.m. on a Saturday at the southwest corner of Lake Merritt. Two regulars she calls “the brothers” are already on the path. So is a man in pajama pants who waves at her every morning and has never said his name.
“Saturday morning is the only time the lake belongs to the regulars,” she says. “By 8 it’s strollers and dog people. By 10 it’s tourists. Right now it’s ours.”
Pastor Adeline is 47, born in Oakland, raised in the AME Church on West Street, ordained in 2009. She has led the congregation at Mt. Zion AME on Telegraph since 2017. Her church van says THE LIGHT IS HERE. Her skate bag says ADELINE.
She started skating again in 2020, the year the pandemic shut down indoor services and the church moved to Zoom. Skating was the only place her body could be a body without performing for a screen. She came every morning. The brothers showed up. The man in pajamas showed up. She started leading what she calls “open church” on the path: no sermon, no liturgy, just a question she puts to whoever skates next to her.
The question is always the same: what are you carrying.
Some mornings nobody answers. Some mornings everyone does. A man named Marvin has answered every Saturday for three years. His wife died of breast cancer in 2022. He does not skate. He walks beside Pastor Adeline at her pace and tells her what he is carrying. She listens. They both watch the lake.
“I learned the most important thing about ministry on a pair of wheels,” she says, her breath fogging in the morning air. “If you stop, the conversation stops. If you keep moving, people will tell you anything.”
At 7:30 she clips a bell to her skate bag and rings it three times. The brothers wave. The man in pajamas waves. Marvin walks home. Pastor Adeline drives back to Mt. Zion to set up coffee for 11 o’clock service.
