Attempting to Break Down Sunday Morning Segregation
There is still at least one area of American life where segregation is alive and well, in the practice of our faith. The Birmingham News puts the focus on one church that is attempting to bring people of all backgrounds together,
Every once in a while, a pastor starts up a new church with the stated goal of crossing cultural boundaries and bridging racial divides.Frequently, those pastors find that declaring a new church’s diversity goal does not necessarily make any inroads against Sunday morning segregation - the tendency of people to worship at churches that are made up of their same ethnic and racial categories.
But there’s something different about the Rev. Joel Miller. For one, any church Miller starts will be biracial. Miller is black. His wife is white. They have three children.
The 38-year-old Miller last Sunday launched Providence Church, which meets Sundays at 10:30 a.m. in the auditorium of Homewood High School.
“I want to be a bridge,” Miller said.
The first service drew 140 people, including a Hispanic businessman, a black family from Liberia and many white professionals, he said. “It’s an eclectic group of people,” Miller said. It will be a “transcultural” church, he promised.
I heard a discussion on this topic on the Tavis Smiley show back in the spring (link here) with Rev. Curtiss Paul DeYoung and George Yancey, authors of United by Faith. It is a wall that continues to separate us and there must be effort on both sides to ensure that we do not continue to feel that isolating ourselves based on race is acceptable in any area of our lives.
NOTE: I also want to thank the Birmingham News for this positive story at a time when there is a lot of negativity in Alabama on so many fronts.
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September 29th, 2003 at 4:36 pm
All well and good, but is starting a church with the express intent of making it bi(or tri)-racial the right thing to do? Don’t get me wrong, churches *should* be multi-racial. The problem is when you start making race the basis of your beliefs, rather than God (which is what church is for). In a perfect world church is something you go to and see multiracial people and it’s not even an issue. So where do you draw the line in an imperfect world?
September 29th, 2003 at 9:20 pm
No one’s talking about making race the basis of your beliefs. We’re talking about making a church welcoming for people of all backgrounds. I think people would want to attend multi-racial churches if they didn’t feel like an “outsider”.
You’re correct that it shouldn’t be an issue. The problem is that it is an issue. There is no need to draw a line. We don’t give up on trying to make the world better, just because it won’t ever be perfect.
April 21st, 2004 at 4:50 pm
I attend Providence Church and Pastor Miller’s main focus in his sermons is about God. Before I went to Providence I attended an all white church and I did not feel welcomed. At Providence you feel this genuine love from all races and race is not an issue at this church.