In 1987 Anne and I rolled into the parsonage of Bacon's
Castle Baptist Church as the freshly minted pastor of this rural congregation.
I had high expectations of changing the world one life at a time and
ground zero for change was our community and most specifically our church
family. I grew up in Latin America and I had the privilege of growing up
with great ethnic and racial diversity in a school with people from all over
the world. I had grown up reading about the black and white separation in
our country, and the racial laws that divided our land just two decades before,
but I had never realized how deep seated that divide really was until I moved
to Surry. The hunt clubs were divided by race. The Masons
were divided by race. But what troubled me the most was that every
Christian church in Surry was divided by race. How could it be that the
church that Jesus started, that reconciled Jews and Gentiles together in one
body, one gathering, could be so divided by skin color?
Twenty-eight years ago I wrote a vision statement of what I
believed God wanted to do with Bacon's Castle and one part of that was
reconciling this racial divide. I remember picturing a morning worship
service at Bacon's Castle that was composed of black and white believers who
loved Jesus and loved each other just as much. Early on I prayed hard,
and worked even harder, to bring that vision to fruition. In the late
1980's, seventy believers from our church family joined me one Sunday as we
went over to a sister church composed of African-American believers, and asked
for forgiveness. We went primarily to ask for forgiveness for the past
racial sins of our church family; truly it was a blessed day as we were
received with such a loving heart. We did many things in those years to
open the doors of Bacon's Castle to racial reconciliation--combined
worship services, exchange of pulpits, praying together, and observing the
National Day of Prayer together. Today, almost three decades later,
Bacon's Castle shares a great relationship with most all the Christian churches
in Surry, black and white, and though we have a few African-American members,
we have not been able to change the racial culture of our church. Most of
us are white-- of European descent.
Did you know that statistically only seven percent (7%) of
churches ever manage to reach an ethnic/racial divide of 70/30%? That
means that only seven churches out of 100 ever have a congregation where three
out of every ten members are different from the majority. It's not a very
high bar but even at that, most of us don't meet it. Why? Why doesn't
it happen naturally? After all, in the county where I live the population
is racially about half and half-- half black and half white. Most people
say it has to do with culture-- the culture of the church. Black and
white Christians do things differently, so we're all more comfortable in what we
know, and that keeps us separated. That may be true, but isn't racial unity
in the body of Christ more important than our comfort? Isn't the gospel
powerful enough to help us find a middle ground in how we do things?
Let's face it, the reality is that racial reconciliation isn't very
important to us. It's something that we think would be ok if it happened
but not anything that we are willing to fight for, sacrifice for or pursue with
purpose and passion. We don't think that our present racially divided
churches reflect poorly on the gospel or on our Savior Himself.
But I think it does. I fact, I think our
segregation as believers based on race is even sinful. At least it is a
reflection of our sinfulness and selfishness. I believe we need to fight
to change the status quo but the question is how? How do we change this
voluntary segregation? Believe it or not I think I have the answer.
A couple of weeks ago I attended the funeral visitation for
the mother of a pastor friend. She was a godly woman and the church was
packed for hours as people remembered her with praise and love. There
were persons from many different churches across the county—many churches that
is except the white churches. It stood out that I was the only white
person at the service. That struck me—why were there not more white
believers there to honor this great and saintly, African American woman?
Only one reason—we don’t have relationships across this racial divide that are
lived out socially. Yes, we have relationships at work or in some
civic organizations, and we even have them across churches, but we don't have
them as friendship relationships that are lived out in our homes. This
pastor, whose mom had passed, has been my friend for almost thirty years.
We pray together almost weekly but when I mentally examined our relationship I
realized that he and his wife have never been to my house for dinner and an evening of games. Let me be honest, I don’t think we’ve ever had any
African-American couple in our home for dinner and games. It’s not that I
wouldn’t want to—I think I'm being honest when I say I would want that!
But what hasn't happened is that Anne and I have never done anything
intentionally to bring us together socially as friends-- it’s not been a
priority.
I said I believed I have an answer; here it is. Begin
to work on cross racial friendships by inviting folks to your home for a meal
and games. We love the card game "Golf"-- try it.) It's
just that simple-- we have to make an effort as believers to build friendships
that cross those divides. Let me ask you, if you are white, when was the
last time you had any black friends over to share a meal and evening together?
If you are black, when was the last time you invited any white friends over for
supper and friendship? If you are like me, it's probably far too little. Some of you might honestly say, "I don't have any friends of a
different race to invite." Well, that's the point; so start with some acquaintances. How about a neighbor that you know but don't know very
well?
This post has gone on long enough but if you happen to have
read this far, and you happen to be a follower of the Lord Jesus, I want to
encourage you, even exhort you, to pursue the tearing down of this racial
divide in our local churches. Do you remember Reagan telling Gorbachev to
tear down the Berlin wall, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall?"
Let's tear down this wall of racial divide. Fight for it.
Pursue it with me. Join me in doing it one friendship at a time!
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