A Writer Turns Her Lens On Spiritual & Mental Health

Top: Stefon Hawkins leads the praise team (Stefon Hawkins, Marissa Kendrick, Izaiah Brockington, Chris Kendrick). Bottom: Providence in the sanctuary. Lucy Gellman Photos.

It wasn't Sunday morning, but church was fully in session. Stefon Hawkins lifted the mic to his lips, ready to sing. "Hallelujah! Glory to ya!" he proclaimed. The words, sweet and round, drifted through the building, weaving through keys and percussion. "Hallelujah!" In the first pew, Wydell Sims and Brenda Ward rose to their feet, the music flowing through them. "We magnify your name!"

Between the pews, Isaiah Providence bent at the waist, steadied his hands, and began to film. From the side of the church, it looked like he was praying.

That was the scene on Shelton Avenue Monday afternoon, as work began on the film Pastors Cry In The Dark at St. Mary's U.F.W.B. Church. Written and directed by Andrea Daniels-Singleton, the film aims to spread a mental health message to churches across Connecticut, where faith leaders may be holding more than they can carry on belief alone. 

Last week, she welcomed New Haveners into the process, blending real-life faith and family ties with hours of filming. For her, it's the only way to do this kind of work. The film lives under her production company, A2A Productions, and is supported by the New Haven Artist Corps.

Top: Andrea Daniels-Singleton directs. Bottom: The church in full form. 

"In my professional and personal life, I've encountered many people suffering silently, afraid to seek professional help, and or not willing to acknowledge the need due to shame, pride, or lack of education and resources," she said by email after a full afternoon of filming. "A2A's motto is, 'We'll put a face to your pain' ... I pray this project promotes the importance of self-freedom, self-care, and healthy mind health."

Work around Pastors Cry In The Dark began in 2018, when Daniels-Singleton launched a series of monologues called "The Cry Within Project." Designed to shatter stigma and educate listeners around social taboos, the project grew steadily each year, as she added both new writing and new voices to the work. No theme was off limits: Daniels-Singleton wrote about molestation, HIV and AIDS, divorce, domestic violence, LGBTQ+ acceptance and suicidality among other topics.

At some point, she began to explore the heavy weight that often falls on faith leaders, sometimes the only confidantes and counselors that their congregants turn to. She learned that "75 percent of pastors report feeling severe stress and 70 percent don't have close friends," she said.

Top: Self-described church mother  Loretta Samuels and Elder Donald Brown. 

What she discovered both surprised her and seemed obvious, like it had been there all along. A daughter of West Hills, Daniels-Singleton grew up in the church, surrounded by faith leaders and gospel musicians. Several of her elders were preachers or pastors; so was her mom, the late Predency Daniels. Her aunt, 102-year-old Apostle Martha V. Green, founded St. Mary's 52 years ago. The church has always been her second home. 

"Witnessing the responsibility and expectations assigned to pastors grieved my heart," she said. When she started to do research, she found that stress, burnout, exhaustion and physical isolation remained extremely high among pastors, particularly during the Covid-19 pandemic.

And yet, "admitting it [that stress] is almost non-existent in conversation," she said. She wanted to change that at the pulpit. The arts were just her vehicle to do that.

Top: Latonya Daniels-Jackson and Tanya E. Randall. Bottom: Members of the worship team carry the scene. 

On a recent Monday, that vision was well underway by early afternoon, as bright October sunlight streamed through the stained glass windows of the church, and Providence began setting up equipment on the sides of the sanctuary. In a back room, makeup artist Latonya Daniels-Jackson set down her tools on a counter, and got to work.

Tanya E. Randall, a real-life minister who also runs a production company, sat down in front of her. She closed her eyes, and Daniels-Jackson got to work.

"This means a lot because she's getting the message out," said Randall, who took over Hamden's Wayfaring Ministries when her father retired last year. "Exhaustion is something that's big in the faith community—you are not always able to bow out. You do need those channels to talk about it."

As a minister herself, she doesn't just appreciate the film: she understands it on a level that is nearly cellular. When she took the role, Randall was in the midst of Interruptions, an eight-part course from Rev. Odell Montgomery Cooper on trauma-informed healing. It helped her understand the heavy—and dangerous—burden that faith leaders often tried to shoulder alone.       

"A lot of times, people may not receive something across the pulpit," she said. But when it comes to the big screen, that understanding shifts. For better or worse, they may be more receptive to the message through film.

The words echoed for Daniels-Jackson, a self-described "God girl" who believes that her faith saved her life. Born and raised in New Haven, Daniels-Jackson grew up doing hair and makeup for her three younger sisters, her mom and her friends. But after leaving the Elm City for Atlanta, she started working as a stripper, and felt like she was coming apart at the seams.

"I was wilin'," she said. It was religion that led her back to the work that gave her meaning.

"God saved me girl," she said to Randall as she grabbed a pair of tweezers off the counter, and gently approached one eyebrow. "He gently tapped me on the shoulder and he said, 'You wilin.'" She felt a calling to go home. The rest is history.   

Now "it's not really the makeup and hair that I love, it's the way that it makes people feel," she said. "It's the conversations." 

Top: Apostle J. Kelly Edge II. "We carry our own personal lives, the burden of our family, our friends, our siblings and the church," he said. "It feels overwhelming."

She kept those going as Randall rose, a vision in emerald green, and Apostle J. Kelly Edge II took her place. Born and raised in the church—"it was chosen for me," he said with a laugh—Edge plays the titular Pastor Blake, whose discussion of stress and isolation comes in the form of a sermon.

It's a role that feels natural: Of the 58 years he's lived in New Haven, he's been speaking in churches for 47 of them, including at Pitts Chapel when he was just 11 years old. He's now a pastor at Breaking Chains Cathedral of Miracles Church, which operates out of a storefront on Treadwell Street in Hamden.

"It means that I have a desire and a calling to reach out to those that need help," he said. "This conversation should happen! We carry our own personal lives, the burden of our family, our friends, our siblings and the church. It feels overwhelming."

Back in the sanctuary, two dozen parishioners-turned-extras filled the pews, dressed in long dresses, crisp suits and a few wide-brimmed church hats trimmed with ribbon. Seated in the first pew with her daughter, church Elder Lillie Raper, Apostle Green soaked in the scene around her, watching as Providence checked in with Daniels-Singleton and musicians took their places across from the choir.

Top: Green with Goldie Toney and Lillie Raper. Bottom: Monya Saunders.

Over five decades ago, Green started the church on her faith, and the belief that people needed the spiritual community. She still remembers her first sermon, on the moment God promises that he will be with Joshua just as he was with Moses. The rest was history: she served as pastor until her 98th trip around the sun four years ago. It was a given that she would be front and center in the film.

"It's awesome to look at where we came from and where we are now," she said. "You see the fruit of our work. When you look back over the years and see what God brought you, you thank God for what you came through."

Up front, Daniels-Singleton called the room to attention: the filming was about to begin. Holding his camera, Providence looked out over the crowd with an easy smile. Last year, he met Daniels-Singleton after she reached out, looking for someone to film her annual monologues. While he attends church elsewhere in the city, he was interested in Daniels-Singleton’s message, and excited to help.

"Just act as if the camera is not here," he said. He comes by a measured, methodical sort of patience naturally: when he’s not filming out in New Haven, he’s a teacher at Cooperative Arts & Humanities High School. "And you're praising the most high power."

With that single direction, a praise team assembled, Hawkins leading the charge. As he brought the mic to his mouth, a spirit began to move through the space, sound welling up from the floor and radiating out from the singers gathered at the front. Marissa Kendrick turned her head, voice lifted, and raised her outstretched hands toward the ceiling.

Beside her, Izaiah Brockington closed his eyes for a moment and let the music move through him without missing a note.

Among the pews, people had begun to dance, some brought to their feet by the sound. Beneath the neat brim of her hat, Monya Saunders swayed from side to side, pointing to the ceiling as Hawkins sang “We praise your naaaaame!” Four rows back, Marisol Wilk jumped up and began to groove, as if it was a party. With assistance, Green stood and wrapped her arms around herself.

“I love to worship,” Wilk said, joking that she was grateful for an unexpected kind of bonus day after Sunday. “I love to praise the Lord. He’s my everything. He’s my life, my healer, my deliverer.”    

Providence enlisted the help of Tyler Sufra, a recent Co-Op grad. 

Back at the front, Hawkins finished on a triumphal note, and watched as Daniels-Singleton jogged to the front of the church. After a hushed tete-a-tete with Providence, she announced that attendees were going to do the scene again. Nobody seemed to mind.

“My hope for this project … is that it encourages pastors all around the world, to know you're not alone,” she said afterwards. As sheaves of light came through the window, those words came to life over and over again. No sooner had the praise team finished, for instance, than the choir rose, and Melissa “MeMe” Johnson took the mic. As Daniels-Singleton appeared ready to conduct them, Johnson burst into song, the sound coming from somewhere deep in her ribcage.

It was enough to catch Loretta Samuels and Elder Donald Brown by divine surprise. Both sprang to their feet, arms raised to the ceiling in praise, As she listened, percussion came back in under Johnson’s voice with a jingling, rhythmic tambourine. Samuels began to weep openly. After attending the church for 23 years, she can’t enter the space without feeling “the holy spirit coming around,” she said.

Further back, Dawn Herring let the spirit move her too. While St. Mary's isn't usually her church—she attends St. Matthew's nearby on Dixwell Avenue—she was intrigued when she heard about the project from Daniels-Singleton, who is her fiancé's cousin. Monday, she brought her daughter, seven-year-old Kiarra Herring, and a five-week-old child who she is fostering.  

Top: Edge as Pastor Blake. Bottom: Herring with her kids. 

"I think it's very interesting!" she said. "We think about our point of view when we come to church, but the pastors—who do they turn to? They just have a lot of weight on them.”

“It feels like a Sunday,” Kiarra chimed in.

Herring smiled. “And that’s what it’s supposed to feel like,” she said.   

Her words rang true moments later, as Edge II took a seat behind the pulpit, Randall on one side and Sampson Denny on the other. Gone were his soft, long-sleeved t-shirt and slacks, replaced with thick, blue-and-silver vestments that glowed beneath the light. When he stood, it felt like the whole church momentarily held its breath.

He greeted the congregation, then pressed his palms to the pulpit. Providence silently adjusted his equipment, getting the whole thing on camera. 

“Praise the Lord everybody,” he began, and already there were murmurs of Mmmmm and yes yes in the pews, drifting forward from all sides. “God is good, isn’t he?”

Edge let himself step into the transformation, becoming Pastor Blake. He told the congregation he would be vulnerable, and received nods and murmurs of approval in return. In the sanctuary, attendees were suspended between two worlds: their real-life churches, where their pastors may be facing severe stress and emotional burnout, and St. Mary’s, where they were extras in an afternoon film shoot.

“Every Sunday I say let Jesus fix it for you,” he continued, and congregants hung onto every word. “When I really should be saying, let Jesus fix it for us! Yeah, you heard me, let him fix it for us!”

He described the levels of burnout and exhaustion that pastors often carry—a topic that is so taboo, he had declined to comment on it even in private, during an interview before the camera started rolling. In the pews in front of him, the murmuring was now a humming, buzzing thing, alive and ready to receive his words. He asked for the recognition that he, too, was human—even if he had a direct line to the divine.

“God chooses imperfect people for leadership,” he said, his voice rising with the words. In the church, now bathed in late afternoon light, it felt like a call to action. “Cover us in prayer, not gossip. Before you disgrace, embrace, and extend grace.”