LOUISVILLE, Ky. (ABP) -- Long talks, compromises and at least one blunt sermon preceded a recent celebration service uniting a black church and a white church in Louisville, Ky.

Several questions remain for the new congregation, but both pastors insist they have both the Holy Spirit and a spirit of cooperation to make the unusual merger a success.

Pastors Lincoln Bingham (center left) and Mark Payton (center right), along with their wives, lead their newly united congregation in prayer Aug. 23. (PHOTO/David Winfrey)

More than 560 people sang, prayed, and rejoiced Aug. 23 as St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church (a mostly black congregation) and Shively Heights Baptist Church (a mostly white congregation) merged to become St. Paul Baptist Church at Shively Heights.

“Today is a great example of the gospel at work changing lives, congregations and communities, with impact extending far beyond today and far beyond Louisville,” said Larry Martin, a consultant for the Kentucky Baptist Convention who has long worked with St. Paul’s pastor, Lincoln Bingham, on racial-reconciliation efforts.

The location of the combined churches is especially noteworthy. Years ago, Shively was a white-flight suburb for many families leaving the city of Louisville. Just down the road from the church campus is the spot where, 55 years ago, a bomb destroyed the house of the first black family to locate in Shively.

Pastors at both churches say they realized their congregations were at a crossroads when they proposed combining forces.

At St. Paul, Bingham said facilities were limiting the church from conducting the ministries members wanted to host. The youth had no gym. Seniors had no elevators. The sanctuary, which seated 220 people, lacked room for growth. “Our challenge was we had ministries and membership larger than what our facilities could properly accommodate,” Bingham said.

Seven miles southwest, Shively Heights Baptist Church was facing challenges both economic and cultural, said Mark Payton, who has led the church for eight years.

“We had 100 people trying to raise $112,000 per year” just to keep the doors open and the staff paid, he noted. “We were just getting so crunched and we just knew that we needed help to reach this community.”

Statistics compiled with the help of the Kentucky Baptist Convention reinforced the challenges and opportunities surrounding the church campus, he added.

The merger of Shively Heights Baptist Church and St. Paul Missionary Baptist Church attracted lots of attention from the Louisville, Ky., media, at their inaugural worship service Aug. 23. Newscaster Rachel Platt of WHAS-TV (pictured) said the uniqueness of the merger says a lot about race relations in Louisville. “People are kind of looking at this. ‘Well how is it going to work out? How are they going to blend the two?’” she said. “I think it’s an experiment and a test of faith to see how this plays out, and people are watching.” (PHOTO/David Winfrey)

Projections showed that by next year, 30 percent of the neighborhood would be African American, Payton said. Reports also noted that 300,000 people live in a five-mile radius of the church.

The two pastors, who have been friends for 25 years, were talking this past winter when they realized a merger might solve their problems. The Shively Heights campus has a gym, four times as much education space as at St. Paul, elevators and a sanctuary that can seat 500 comfortably.

Together, Payton and Bingham emphasized the opportunities for reaching the community with a public witness to reconciliation -- as well as a racial sensitivity that wasn’t possible before.

Still, both congregations had some objectors. Said Payton: “Me and Lincoln decided when we started this process we would lose some but we would gain far more.”

Bingham said two-thirds of St. Paul members voted for the move. He said he maintained focus by casting the vision for what God wanted to accomplish.

“God wants us to do bigger things,” he said. “We’ve had a great ministry here. But God has much more for us to do. And the facility and the racial mix [in Shively] will provide even greater opportunity.”

Payton said approximately 70 percent of Shively Heights voted for the move, but less than one percent expressed their opposition publicly. Nearly 20 members have left since the vote to merge, he added.

“Even in this day and age, we would be naïve to think some of it wasn’t because of race,” he said.

Payton addressed the racial issue squarely in a sermon before the merger.

“I just told them, ‘You all used to live downtown. Why did you move to Shively? We all know why you moved,’” he recalled. “‘When are you going to quit running from them and start reaching them?’”

Nationally, approximately 8 percent of churches are racially integrated, according to George Yancey, a sociology professor at the University of North Texas who has studied race and churches.

A combined church children’s choir sings during a choir performance at the first service of the newly merged St. Paul Baptist Church at Shively Heights in Louisville, Ky., Aug. 23. (PHOTO/David Winfrey)

While many aspects of life, such as work or school, often are integrated, totally voluntary organizations like churches remain less so, he noted. “In America we still choose to be among our own, racially,” said Yancey, author of One Body, One Spirit.

Successful integration requires sensitivity and compromise from all parties, he explained.

“Things are not going to be the way they used to be and both groups are going to have to accept that,” he said.

Yancey said some research suggests integrated churches are better able to grow numerically, but more research needs to be done into such outcomes as spiritual growth or true cooperation among different ethnic groups in such churches.

For the newly christened St. Paul Baptist Church at Shively Heights, many details remain to be worked out. Bingham and Payton are taking turns preaching on Sunday mornings.

Leadership teams and committees are being merged. Bingham said leaders are working to maintain a diversity of cultures in all aspects.

“It will take some time to do this, but we’ll do everything we can possibly do to make sure that equity is demonstrated in music, preaching and every other part of our worship.”

Payton said he’s asked members to be patient as leaders “nail down the wrinkles.”

“We’re all going to be stretched,” he said. “I’ve reminded them of Joshua as he led the children of Israel. He said ‘We’ve never been this way before,’ and neither of our churches have been this way before.”

Bingham said he hopes other congregations will learn from the merger that “we all should follow the biblical mandate that we all be one, and that it does not necessarily suggest disaster when we obey that command.”

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David Winfrey is a correspondent for the Kentucky Baptist Western Recorder.

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