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ReNews editors James D. Berkley and Pam Bowman zeroed in on two PC(USA) churches that exemplify multiracial, multicultural diversity: Crossroads Presbyterian Church in Stone Mountain, Georgia, near Atlanta, and the Oak Lane Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia. We spoke by telephone with Crossroads members Burt Harding and Pam Gruduah, and Oak Lane member Allen Bradley and former pastor Richard Armstrong (1958-68), who now is Professor Emeritus of Ministry and Evangelism at Princeton Theological Seminary.

The Church is called to a new openness to its own membership, by offering itself as a community of diversity, becoming in fact as well as in faith a community of women and men of all ages, races, and conditions, and by providing for inclusiveness as a visible sign of the new humanity.

How is your church different from the typical Presbyterian church, and how did you get to this point?

Allen Bradley: In the early 1950s, a religious census done by the Philadelphia Presbytery indicated that our East Oak Lane neighborhood, an affluent area with large homes, was going to become Jewish and then African American. Our minister thought we should move to the growing suburbs, but 36 board members from the church met and voted unanimously that whatever happened in this community, there should be a Presbyterian church on the corner of Eleventh Street and Oak Lane. We stayed, but the minister resigned. Every other mainline church in our community eventually closed its doors and moved to the suburbs. After an exhaustive search we called Dick Armstrong right out of seminary to be our pastor, and then we began to go into the community and make calls. We welcomed people into the neighborhood and invited them to come to our church.[1]

Burt Harding: Crossroads Presbyterian was founded as a neighborhood church in 1974 with 45 charter members. We had a gifted pastor and over the next ten years grew to about 350 members who lived in the all-White neighborhood, about 18 miles from the heart of Atlanta. The demographics began to change in 1982, slowly at first and then rapidly into the early 1990s. Concerned about real estate values and schools, people began to move away until the early 1990s when we stopped the bleeding at 90 members. Thankfully we were able to completely eradicate the $1 million mortgage on our facility, or we would have had to close the doors. That was one of God's great gifts to us during those ten years.

The first people of color to come into the church were interracial couples. Then Caribbean people began to show up. They had grown up in traditional Protestant congregations, Anglicans and Presbyterians from Jamaica and Panama, and gravitated to a more traditional worship style than is found in the African American churches here. With the next crop of new members, I think we'll be up to 150. Also, about eight years ago, God brought to us our first African American pastor, Elward Ellis.

Pam Gruduah: I think the Lord is calling people to this place. My husband and I relocated to Atlanta from Tennessee. One Sunday morning we were searching for a particular church but couldn't find it. We passed Crossroads and recognized the name Elward Ellis on the sign, so we worshiped at Crossroads instead. As we continued to visit and looked around, we liked what was happening here. Some people are prepared for diversity through their life experiences, so even when you come with baggage, if you seek to serve the Lord, you look beyond the faces in the congregation. We found a sweet fellowship here. The Word of God was being taught; it was a place where we could serve. That's our story, and I'm sure it's similar to many people who have joined Crossroads in the past ten years.

If we were to look at your church on a Sunday morning, what would we see?

Allen: At Oak Lane you would see about 60 percent African Americans and 40 percent Whites, and not only on Sunday morning but also across the boards of the church, the leadership, and the choirs. We have a Chancel Choir and a Gospel Choir.

Burt: Our church is about 70 percent people of color and 30 percent Euro-American, but I believe we are multicultural because of our theological perspective. We are driven by a biblical agenda rather than one that is politically correct or humanistic.

Pam: I think it's also important to note the diversity within the people of color here. We have a large population from the Caribbean and some from Africa, along with Asians, Indians, and African Americans--a diverse cultural representation.

Burt: Offhand I can think of people with backgrounds in India, Canada, Nigeria, Liberia, South Africa, England, Ghana, Jamaica, Panama, Taiwan--I've probably missed a few.

There are painfully few other churches such as yours. Is that solely due to the fallen nature of humankind--the sins of prejudice and exclusion, or ethnocentrism--or is there another explanation?

Dick Armstrong: This is a huge question. It's partly a cultural-social thing: There are neighborhoods that are not inclusive, and the churches often reflect the neighborhood, as they should, so it's harder to have diverse and inclusive churches. Economic class is often related to racial, ethnic, and linguistic backgrounds. I wouldn't put it in terms of fallen nature of humankind, but it is a failure to live up to the Great Commission, to go and make disciples. We haven't done that. Churches don't see themselves as the mission units in their communities, and fail to see their parishes as a mission field. All the George Gallup surveys indicate that most people would be responsive to an invitation. That means training people to go out and extend an invitation.

We think we can "program" people into the church--have a good program for this and that, and they will come. That's partly true, but that doesn't reach the unchurched people, which is our responsibility. In spite of all the good things that have been done with the Church Growth movement and other programs, we've largely shifted members around, while the actual membership numbers have gone down. We're not reaching the secular people around us. That's our challenge.

Pam: I think it is probably--and unfortunately--due to the problem of sin. People do flee as communities change and people of color move in. Sometimes it's just basic preference, but I think the root is still sins of prejudice and exclusion. We do need to live up to the Great Commission, but unfortunately the nature of humankind is sinful.

Burt: In the southern United States, we're grappling with a history that dates back to the era of slavery, where animosity and enmity and suspicions among races first grew and have continued. You are almost betraying the African American community if you become a member of a White church. And Whites are suspicious and critical and condemning of African Americans. Neither group wants to associate in an intimate worship relationship. In our church I have found that that is a history hard to put away.

Dick: That is what I meant by the cultural-social baggage that we have to deal with historically. We encountered that in Philadelphia. On the one hand, some White people were saying, "You let one in and pretty soon they'll all come in," and on the other African American people knew that some felt that way so, of course, they were reluctant to join. It was very hard. We would invite, invite, invite people to come, but no one wanted to be the first Black member. The turning point was when we asked, "How are we going to deal with this unless you help us? Some-body has to break the ice."

Allen: Valora Thompson broke the ice as the first African American member. That eased the situation, although we did lose members. When people left, it was clear that it was an issue of race. We simply made a commitment to stay in the community, and invite folks in. Later we had Koreans, but now that population has taken over every vacant church building in the community. This area is heavily Korean, but they choose their own churches.

It sounds like both churches changed as the community changed. It's a good sign when the church reflects the community around it, rather than remaining a pocket of one kind of person in a community that's diverse. Is there a difference in the mindset of the people in your church as compared to people elsewhere? In other words, does your church attract people from the pool of persons who specifically relish diversity, and would it thus be unattractive to another, perhaps larger, pool of people who naturally gravitate toward a familiar culture?

Dick: The "Homogeneous Unit Principle" that Donald McGavran gave us--that people don't want to cross racial, linguistic, or national lines to come to faith--is true, but it's evidence of human sin, the challenge to be met. [2] Unfortunately, many have used that principle as an excuse for not trying to become inclusive. Of course we had some problems getting to that point of inclusiveness, but we had loving people coming into the church, and I remember how we felt an incredible spirit of unity and love. Every seminary student who has visited or done field work in the Oak Lane church--many of whom were my students at Princeton--comes back and says the same thing: "I've never been in a church with that kind of spirit! There's something unique there. If you can define it and figure out how to help other people have it, it would be a great service to the broader church." There is something unique, and I'm sure it's true of Crossroads as well.

Burt: In time, diversity is no longer an issue. At Crossroads, once people know each other across racial lines and spend time together in worship, study, and prayer, and once they serve together in missions or on session, then differences are not that important.

Dick: There's nothing complex about this. Black people, White people, red or yellow people--all people will respond to those who come sincerely in love and in service to invite them to church. Allen, you can add to that, because it still is that way.

Allen: We started an outreach program with Dick: Parish, Publicity, and Program. Currently we use the real estate changes to create our own "welcome wagon." We have gifts or discounts from about 25 local merchants, information about the library and social agencies in the area, a list of every church in the community, and a letter from our minister, and we put all this in a bag to say "Welcome to the community!" Three times a year the doorbell ringers divide into multicultural teams of two, a woman and a man. We invite newcomers to worship with us. If there's any interest, we go back a second time with another team of callers, to make sure they know it's more than just two people who are interested in them. When they come to church, we follow up with a letter and a postcard to return (What did you like about the service? How was the warmth of the membership? What didn't you like? And so on.)

Our "Welcome to the community!" not only attracts people, it rubs off. Six people on our calling team this year are new members who expressed their excitement about Oak Lane when they joined. We give them training and pair each one with an experienced caller, capitalizing on their fresh enthusiasm for the church. It's not hard. You just go and be yourself, welcoming people to the community, inviting them to church, and believing they will feel a worship presence here. It's interesting, too, that by the time most people join, they have already become active in one way or another.

Pam, picking up on the demographics of Crossroads, it sounds like the pool of people in your church includes expatriates from other countries, people that find themselves in a diverse setting and have pooled themselves together into a diverse congregation. Is that a good description of Crossroads?

Pam: Yes, but I'd like to add a slightly different twist. I think the Euro-Americans who stayed at Crossroads stayed out of obedience. They weren't necessarily trying to be in a diverse situation; they were obeying the Lord. Recently we shared our histories, and I was curious to hear why various people stayed. It was encouraging to me that they stayed because they felt like the Lord was not calling them to leave this work. And I think that is true for those on the other side who are truly committed to the Lord. People are not necessarily looking for diversity per se; they are looking for an environment where the Spirit of the Lord reigns supreme and the love of Christ abounds. We didn't choose God; he chose us. And it is the same kind of thing in this church. It shows the heart of the people. I don't think we're unique when we're talking about people of God. We're simply trying to be obedient.

Dick: Pam, I agree with you. I think the people who stayed at Oak Lane did so out of obedience when the community was changing rapidly. The first two or three years, we declined in membership as people left. However, after we became an inclusive congregation, others joined because they wanted that kind of experience; they believed in it. It does become an attraction, but in the beginning nobody had experience in being a part of an inclusive congregation. It had to be out of obedience.

Let's say I'm a pastor or elder in a church that is pretty much status quo. You look out there, and most everybody looks like everybody else. And I want to tap into the pool of people who thrive on diversity--they enjoy change; they're not stuck with the familiar. How do we find that person, or, as Pam was talking about, how do we transform people into that adventurous, multicultural mindset, a mindset that appears to be more biblical?

Pam: The church is probably one of the most difficult places to do that. In real life we are diverse in our work environments and school settings. I grew up in the Atlanta area, and in 1969 I was bused out of my community to schools that were integrated. I've always been a minority somewhere; that's been my journey. A lot of us have had "diversity training" preparation in our life journeys, but it doesn't necessarily extend into our church life. It can happen when we are connected and thinking with the mind of Christ.

It sounds like there's more life experience in diversity than people are using in a lot of our churches.

Dick: So you train and equip people to do what the church is supposed to be doing--that is, making disciples, who make disciples, who make disciples. It's the mission of the church. You equip people to make the case not only for Christ, but for the church. If enthusiastic church members share their faith with others, they will see the value of making disciples. It takes time and persistence. Most churches haven't been persistent enough to see that persistence pays off!

Let's follow that idea. What are some of the good things a church can herald about being diverse? What are the advantages? What's in it for people?

Allen: It's fun to experience the good expression of another culture. For example, our White members love our Gospel Choir, and they are the first to say "Amen" at the end of a number.

Dick: I think out of the suffering and pain that Black people have experienced--slavery and everything else that continues in our ongoing racist culture--their spirituality is terrific. The enriching experience of deeper spirituality born of suffering was part of the gift to White members of the congregation. And Black members responded to our Presbyterian tradition, with its emphasis on education and preaching that is biblically based and theologically solid. From educational backgrounds at all levels, our Black members told me how much they appreciated that. A multiracial church looks like what the church ought to be: inclusive, enriching, diverse. We've discovered what Paul meant to be "one in Christ." It transcends all of those human barriers. And if it doesn't happen in the church, where will it happen?

Burt: Once you have experienced intimate spiritual unity with people of other races, monocultural churches just strike me as boring and bland. But I don't think we can convince people on the theoretical level that it's good, beneficial, or spiritually invigorating to be a part of a diverse church. You come to that conclusion once you've jumped in and experienced it.

A lot of Presbyterians think we ought to be that way, and since we aren't, we feel vaguely guilty about it. But you have the freedom to say, "We are the way we're supposed to be." I love to hear that! But what price did you pay? Did you have to decide to lose anything considered valuable in most churches?

Burt: I think our session would have paid the price of disobedience to God if we had decided to close the church down, sell the building, and move out to an all-White community. That would have been a spiritual death knell to those involved.

Allen: We took a leap of faith. After we decided to stay and we had called Dick to this church, we launched a large capital campaign, $180,000 to enlarge our educational program space, sound-proof Sunday school rooms, and do other renovations. If we were going to minister to the community, we had to have a better facility.

Dick: The vote for the capital campaign split families and friends. The ostensible argument was whether we should renovate or not; the unspoken argument was whether we could integrate or not. They could fight that battle with conscience on the renovation issue. When we voted to do the renovation, that was the signal. Twenty people left the next day, including the clerk and the treasurer. But the treasurer's father and sister stayed. It split families.

Another price was time. Discipling takes time. It's a strenuous, ongoing, huge responsibility for church leaders, for the pastor and session. One thing we learned was that the vocal minority is never as numerous as they are loud. After the vote, there were far more people in favor of moving forward than even the nay-sayers thought.

You can read about this in our session minutes. We asked, "What if 50% of the people leave? What if 75%. leave? How will we pay salaries?" We went around the table--there were thirteen families represented--and we agreed that if we had to die as a church, we would be born again as a church. At that point, we became a church! Yes, we did lose members--that was the price--but three years later, we had the biggest membership gain in the history of the church. God honors your efforts to do what's right.

Burt: When you buy into a diverse situation, you live with a lot of uncertainty. After ten years, we still don't know the eventual outcome. It gives me great heart and hope that you in Philadelphia have been doing this for 45 years. We don't know how it will pan out here. We pray and trust that God will keep us diverse.

What was the most difficult hurdle to cross to get to a multicultural state? Probably other people are going to have to cross that hurdle. What kind of help can you give them from your experience? How did you overcome?

Dick: In my view, the biggest bottleneck is the pastor. If it doesn't happen with the pastor, the session and church leaders, it's not going to happen. You can't expect congregations to do what they are not being led to do. For a long time in our denomination, few pastors knew about evangelism because there were no courses taught about it. I never had one in seminary. But if the pastors are committed to it, it can happen. Have a retreat. Talk about your mission. Do you have a mission statement? Does it need revision? How is what you are doing in the church translating your mission statement? If it's not doing anything for your mission statement, get rid of it or change your statement! It can happen if the leadership wants it to happen. Anywhere there are people in a community, the church can and should grow.

Allen: Had it not been for the lay leadership at Oak Lane, where we had a meeting without the pastor and voted unanimously to stay, there wouldn't even be an Oak Lane Presbyterian Church. Dick came in and led us in the proper direction.

Dick: Thank you, Allen, but the reality was that of the 200 active members, 172 people participated in our outreach. It was an incredible response on the part of the congregation. Yes, it takes leadership--that's a Church-Growth principle--but a commitment must begin with session. If session isn't committed, it won't happen.

Pam and Burt, what has been your most difficult hurdle?

Burt: I'm not conscious of a hurdle. I came from a very racist background, but I had already resolved some of my own prejudice issues before I got involved in this church. As a young adult I had some experiences in which God opened my eyes to the reality of his love for all people. I didn't need to bear any major cross to go into a multicultural situation. The people who left our church were afraid their properties might be devalued or their children would not get a good education. If people didn't want to associate with Blacks in the church, it was never spoken. Our "White flight" had nothing to do with the church situation.

Dick: Still, it was White fright that led to White flight. Fright represents an attitude that must be dealt with. We faced it. How do you change people who are threatened by something they haven't experienced? Otherwise, all the churches in our denomination would be culturally inclusive.

Pam: I'm newer here, but when I hear the history, it's clear to me that Crossroads has survived because of the few leaders who committed to stay. That impressed me. If that had not happened, we would not be who we are today.

Burt: "Stay or leave" was a defining moment at Crossroads. There was a lot of praying and searching Scripture. The elders could not find a good reason in Scripture to leave and to sell out, even though that was the conventional wisdom, and big churches in our neighborhood did leave.

We know that different ethnic and cultural groups operate differently. How do you keep your church efforts focused on sharing the Gospel and growing disciples, not just on getting along or negotiating compromises or communicating across former social and ethnic barriers?

Pam: We go through the same conflicts that any church goes through. We're just like a family! We do have challenges, but they are not necessarily unique. We deal with them, just as in any other church. Yes, people have preferences toward a certain style of worship and music, but there's also an element of respect for others. At Crossroads we're learning to get along with one another in the process of just doing what God has called us to do.

Burt: Our challenge is to maintain our focus in mission on evangelism and discipleship. We need to give balance to the races, but those issues shouldn't distract us from our primary objective of winning people to Christ and helping them to grow up in the faith.

Allen: We have a great feeling of fellowship across cultural lines. We recognize that we come from different cultures, and we attempt to meet each other across those lines. Everyone responds. I would add that the pastoral leadership must be maintained. We've been blessed to have that kind of leadership at Oak Lane, even among our interim pastors. Our current interim, who has been a consultant in many diverse situations, tells me that he sees the trust between the races as the most unique thing about Oak Lane. We have eye contact. We listen to each other. We love and care for each other.

Dick: This is the fun and excitement of it, an asset of being inclusive! You grow together, you talk, you share, you discover each other's uniqueness and gifts. As long as you don't force it on people, as long as you give them options, people generally respond. It's not unlike introducing an electronic worship service. If you just do it, you'll make some people mad. But if you prepare and have the fun of saying, "This is unique; this is different," you'll find people are amazingly flexible, more than I ever imagined. That's one of my surprises. Another is you cannot always predict what reactions will be. Oftentimes the Holy Spirit does miracles with people. God surprises us all the time.

I hear you saying that you set a vision and then you enculturate people into the vision, so that it becomes the church's style.

Dick: How we bring people into the church is extremely important. There must be integrity in that process, so people can take their vows with integrity. Preparing them for membership, that is, understanding the mission of the church, is an extremely important part of this process. When they join, they become further proponents or practitioners of the thing you are trying to be. Joining the church is not just a perfunctory thing, but a really meaningful time.

Allen: We were one of those bland and boring churches early on, before that census was done and the neighborhood changed. Our session made a decision, and we got excited, taking a leap of faith that we would grow and prosper and be a real witness in the community of Oak Lane. And that's what we are!

Yes, you are, and Crossroads, too.

 

NOTES:

1 "The Oak Lane Story" by Richard S. Armstrong details the history of how the Oak Lane church accomplished its goal to become multiracial. (now out of print) Dick reports that it has evoked interest not only in this country, but abroad.

₂ Donald A. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1970).

Also see C. Peter Wagner, Our Kind of People: The Ethical Dimensions of Church Growth in America (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979).

Richard S. Armstrong continued to use the Oak Lane model of evangelism in subsequent pastorates including Second Presbyterian Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, before he joined the Princeton Seminary faculty. His book, Service Evangelism (Westminster Press, 1979), spells out the evangelistic principles and methods used at the Oak Lane church. His Faithful Witness (Geneva Press, 1987) course was commissioned by the General Assembly to be the official evangelism training program for Presbyterian churches. Dick continues to teach and write. His most recent book is Are You Really Free? Reflections on Christian Freedom (CSS/Fairway Press, 2002).

Allen Bradley has been a member of Oak Lane Presbyterian Church for 52 years, serving as clerk of session for more than half that time. He recently completed a two-year term on the Philadelphia Presbytery Board of Trustees and now has been elected a trustee at Oak Lane, the only church board on which he hadn't previously served.

Pam Gruduah has been a member of the Crossroads church since 1998. She has served as a short-term missionary in Liberia where she met her husband. Pam is coordinator of the Crossroads nursery and serves on the mission and education boards of the church. Her husband is an elder. The Gruduahs have three young children.

Burt Harding is a founding member and an elder at Crossroads Presbyterian Church. He spent nine years in ministry with InterVarsity, before launching his business career. After retirement in 1995 he taught New Testament Studies at the Evangelical Theological College in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.