What Is Meachum Village?
Meachum Village is a community of Black American families who are using scripture and history to fix our marriages and break the cycle of family dysfunction. We share solid, Biblical guidance to help us commit to Christ and each other.
What We Believe:
Jesus is the son of God, and God created everything—including the family. The foundation of the family is a husband and wife who are submitted to Christ, whose death and resurrection restores our relationship with God by covering the cost of our sins.
We believe the inspired Word of God sustains us and restores broken Black families so we can:
Be set apart from antichrist world systems
Our financial system, education system, healthcare system, political system, and certainly the system behind media and entertainment actively reject Christ. They were created to distract us or numb us to obeying him.
Christ-following households are called to disconnect from these systems and stand against them, not integrate with them. The reason is the same as the reason God walked the Hebrews out of Egyptian slavery: So that we can worship Him.
John 15:18-25
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That is why the world hates you. Remember what I told you: ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you also. If they obeyed my teaching, they will obey yours also. They will treat you this way because of my name, for they do not know the one who sent me. If I had not come and spoken to them, they would not be guilty of sin; but now they have no excuse for their sin. Whoever hates me hates my Father as well. If I had not done among them the works no one else did, they would not be guilty of sin. As it is, they have seen, and yet they have hated both me and my Father. But this is to fulfill what is written in their Law: ‘They hated me without reason.
Ephesians 6:10-17
Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.
Restore the original design for marriage
We believe God created his desired template for marriage on the sixth day of creation: One man and one woman coming together to make one flesh, and no one else should separate them. This is a prescription for how man and woman should come together to form families. This design is also part of how we’re made in his image.
Any other type of union is a man-made violation of God’s initial design, and a distortion of his image. That includes polygamous unions, same-sex unions, unbiblical second marriage unions, long-term boyfriend/girlfriend/fiancé unions, co-parenting unions, or any other deviations from the original marriage design.
Jesus reconfirms that his father’s intended design for marriage is exactly what he created in the beginning: One man and one woman cleaving together to make one flesh that no one else can separate. The apostles gives several epistles of guidance for monogamous marriage. They do not acknowledge any other type of union.
The goal of this ministry is to restore God’s initial design as the standard for marriages in Black households and protect these unions from any people or ideologies that might tear them apart.
Genesis 1:26-29
Then God said, “Let Us make man in Our image, according to Our likeness; let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over the cattle, over [g]all the earth and over every creeping thing that creeps on the earth.” 27 So God created man in His own image; in the image of God He created him; male and female He created them. 28 Then God blessed them, and God said to them, “Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion over the fish of the sea, over the birds of the air, and over every living thing that [h]moves on the earth.”
Matthew 19:1-6
Now it came to pass, when Jesus had finished these sayings, that He departed from Galilee and came to the region of Judea beyond the Jordan. 2 And great multitudes followed Him, and He healed them there.
3 The Pharisees also came to Him, testing Him, and saying to Him, “Is it lawful for a man to divorce his wife for just any reason?”
4 And He answered and said to them, “Have you not read that He who [a]made them at the beginning ‘made them male and female,’ 5 and said, ‘For this reason a man shall leave his father and mother and be joined to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh’? 6 So then, they are no longer two but one flesh. Therefore what God has joined together, let not man separate.”
Genesis 2:18-25
And the Lord God said, “It is not good that man should be alone; I will make him a helper comparable to him.” 19 Out of the ground the Lord God formed every beast of the field and every bird of the air, and brought them to [g]Adam to see what he would call them. And whatever Adam called each living creature, that was its name. 20 So Adam gave names to all cattle, to the birds of the air, and to every beast of the field. But for Adam there was not found a helper comparable to him.
21 And the Lord God caused a deep sleep to fall on Adam, and he slept; and He took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh in its place. 22 Then the rib which the Lord God had taken from man He [h]made into a woman, and He brought her to the man.
23 And Adam said:
“This is now bone of my bones
And flesh of my flesh;
She shall be called [i]Woman,
Because she was taken out of [j]Man.”
24 Therefore a man shall leave his father and mother and be[k] joined to his wife, and they shall become one flesh.
25 And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
Be ambassadors for Christ
Black Christian families are called to represent Christ in our beliefs and behavior. As we do this, we have to be prepared for the persecution that comes with it, whether the backlash is from other family members or nonbelievers.
We are called to be his loyal followers, his representatives, and his spokespeople.
2 Corinthians 5:16-21
So from now on we regard no one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come. The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
Raise the next generation of Christ followers
When husbands and wives turn away from Christ, they can cause generations of their children to do the same. Married couples are to consider their relationship their primary allegiance. Their home is their primary ministry, and their children their disciples. If husbands and wives don’t train their children, this world will.
Psalm 127:3-5
Children are a heritage from the Lord,
offspring a reward from him.
Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are children born in one’s youth.
Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their opponents in court.
Deuteronomy 6:4-9
Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength. These commandments that I give you today are to be on your hearts. Impress them on your children. Talk about them when you sit at home and when you walk along the road, when you lie down and when you get up. Tie them as symbols on your hands and bind them on your foreheads. Write them on the doorframes of your houses and on your gates.
Live fruitful lives
The world says the super rich live fruitful lives simply because they are rich, even if they have a million divorces, public custody battles, and restraining orders. Scripture has a different definition of a fruitful life. The fruit we are called to produce should emulate Christ and lead others to him, especially our families.
John 15:1-17
I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes so that it will be even more fruitful. You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. Remain in me, as I also remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.
“I am the vine; you are the branches. If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. If you do not remain in me, you are like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you. This is to my Father’s glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.
“As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love. I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit—fruit that will last—and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you. This is my command: Love each other.
Who Were John & Mary Meachum?
They were heroes of the Christian faith. They were fierce advocates for Christ and for their people. This site is named for them, because they are powerful examples of what Christ-focused, husband-wife teams can do for future generations and for his glory.
John Berry Meachum was born into slavery in Goochland County, Virginia on May 3, 1789. By age 21, he’d earned enough as a carpenter to buy his freedom. And his father’s. He and his father walked 700 miles on foot together to buy the rest of their family. When his wife, Mary, was sold away to St. Louis in 1815, he followed her and bought her freedom, too.
He helped start one of the first Black churches in St. Louis in 1825.
The membership grew to over 500 members. The church was also a literacy and carpentry school for free and enslaved Blacks.
Missouri state officials retaliated by banning education for even free Blacks and shut the school down in 1847. The Meachums reopened the school—on a steam boat in the Mississippi River, outside of state jurisdiction. They called it “The Floating Freedom School.”
John and Mary Meachum used their home and church as an Underground Railroad stop. With his money as a carpenter…
He purchased other enslaved people at auctions.
He was able to free 20 enslaved people by training them in carpentry. When they paid him back, he’d go purchase more people.
He died in his pulpit in 1854. His wife, Mary Meachum, continued his work. She led a stampede of enslaved people out of Missouri headed for Illinois via the Mississippi River in 1855. She continued the work until she died in 1869.
Read John Berry Meachum’s Advice for Blacks Coming Out Of Slavery
John Berry Meachum and his wife Mary were devout Christians and abolitionists. They were born into slavery, but John purchased his family’s freedom at 21 years old. John and Mary started a school for Blacks in their church. When Missouri outlawed education for Blacks, they moved their school to a boat outside of state lines. As an entrepreneur and pastor, John Meachum purchased and freed other enslaved people. Before he died in 1854, Meachum wrote a pamphlet with clear instructions for Blacks coming out of slavery. Maybe now we’ll listen…