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James Roberson, the pastor of Church on the Rock Sundry Sunday More churches in N.C. thriving with multiracial congregations
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Published: May 11, 2008
"I have been groomed under a different style
of ministry. My background was ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse."
RALEIGH
The 10 a.m. service at Calvary Chapel in Apex is mobbed. People sit in folding chairs at the edges of the aisles, on the floor and in the lobby, where they watch the service on a TV feed.
But what makes this church unique is not its apparent popularity. Rather, it breaks many of the unspoken conventions of church life across the country, and especially in the South. Its pastor, Rodney Finch, is black. The congregation is about 70 percent white.
From his pulpit, where he wears a long-sleeved T-shirt under his jacket and a microphone attached to his ear, Finch projects a thoroughly contemporary and casual approach to preaching.
"I feel like it's important to be real," said Finch, 47, who started the church more than 10 years ago. "I'm not trying to impress anybody. I come to the pulpit with an understanding that I'm a tool in the hands of God."
The Christian evangelical network of Calvary Chapels, consisting of 1,000 churches across the United States, is especially diverse, but it's not alone. Eleven o'clock on Sunday morning may still be the most segregated hour in the week, but increasingly it is less so. A new generation of churches, including many of the new megachurches, are making significant strides toward integration.
Leading the pack are charismatic or Pentecostal churches that believe that the Holy Spirit bestows gifts such as the power to heal, prophesy and work miracles. And many megachurches have adopted an inclusive vision, open to various economic and racial backgrounds. When asked if they liked being in a racially diverse community, 90 percent of megachurch members said they agreed or strongly agreed, according to a 2005 study of megachurches by Hartford Seminary.
Part of the reason that large churches draw a more diverse crowd is that their worship format, even their architecture, is modeled after contemporary, secular styles that appeal to a larger cross-section of the population.
But mostly, black churches are changing, too. A rising generation of black-church pastors didn't necessarily grow up in the black church, and they were educated in racially diverse schools. Many say they are squarely part of the middle class and feel comfortable socializing with whites.
"I have been groomed under a different style of ministry," said James Roberson, the pastor of Church on the Rock, a mostly black North Raleigh church at which about 20 percent of members are white. "My background was ethnically, culturally and religiously diverse."
Roberson grew up outside
New York and attended James Madison University in Virginia as an undergraduate and Dallas Theological Seminary -- schools at which blacks are in the minority. His first ministerial experience was at Denton Bible Church, a mostly white megachurch outside Dallas.
For white pastors, attracting blacks requires an intentional effort.
"At a soul level, we need to do our best to empathize with where people are coming from," said Ron Lewis, the pastor of King's Park International Church in Durham -- perhaps the region's most diverse church with a congregation that is 40 percent white, 40 percent black and 20 percent Hispanic or Asian. "When we begin to listen to their stories, that breaks down walls."
King's Park has also been serious about hiring minorities. Aside from Lewis, who is white, the church employs two black pastors and one who is Asian.
But not everyone sees integration as a goal, especially if it means the abandonment of historically black churches in inner-city neighborhoods.
Jonathan Wilson-Hartgrove, the associate minister at St. John's Baptist, a historically black church in the heart of Durham's Walltown neighborhood, is a white man in a predominantly black church. He worries that although some middle-class blacks find acceptance at mostly white, middle-class churches, those congregations might be less accepting of poor people, or those who are homeless, addicted to drugs and alcohol, or in and out of prison.
"Jesus wants us to question the system that is hurting some people so that others can have middle-class success," said Wilson-Hartgrove, whose most recent book is called Free to Be Bound: Church Beyond the Color Line.
But blacks who made the move to mostly white churches said that their only prerequisite was finding a church where the teaching and preaching were biblically sound. Some said they yearned for more teaching and less preaching.
"We wanted a church aligned with the tenets of Jesus Christ," said James McPherson, a member of Raleigh First Assembly of God.
McPherson grew up in Fayetteville and was the only black member of his high school's basketball team. When it came time to find a church, he and his wife visited several before settling on First Assembly. Two years ago, McPherson, the director of learning and organizational development at Duke University Health System, was elected to the church's board of directors, becoming the first black to sit on the board.
For Andy Ellis, who is white, joining a predominantly black church was a way of connecting more deeply with a spiritual part of himself he didn't know that he had.
After a stroke in 2006, followed by the death of his sister, Ellis visited Church on the Rock at the recommendation of a physical therapist.
"I never felt so welcomed in my entire life," said Ellis, 51, an advertising writer who lives in Wake Forest. "I was being hugged by strangers."
Ellis and his wife, Christie Dowda, continued attending after that first service in January 2007, and eventually joined the church. Last month, he was baptized.
"My wife and I joke that we're middle-aged white people offering ethnic diversity," Ellis said. "But we're not out of place at all. It's a loving environment."
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N.C. Politics
Federal Politics
The Downtown Summer Music Series will begin on Thursday. Ed Bumgardner talks to some of the organizers of the Downtown Jazz lineup, in which a form of music known as "smooth jazz" will play a more prominent role this year.
Thursday's relish stories will appear in the Entertainment section.
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