Black ministers are called upon to heal divisions

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Over and over, black residents and many ministers say a lack of cooperation among the black churches is thwarting attempts to rejuvenate Sikeston's downtrodden West End, where most of the city's blacks reside.

"It's a power struggle," says the Rev. Chester Yarber of the West End Missionary Baptist Church. "We have put ourselves in a position of leading our church, but the teaching has been stepped on."

Since the days of American slavery, when the church was the only safe meeting place for blacks, the church has served as "a surrogate world" for the black community, in the words of Princeton University theologian Dr. Peter Paris. The educational, cultural, economic and spiritual needs of blacks were met in one place.

"It happened by the fault of a racist society that did not permit black participation in other mainline institutions," says Dr. Robert M. Franklin, president of the Interdenominational Theological Seminary in Atlanta, Ga. His institution is a consortium of six denominations.

The role of the black church as a gathering place and a source of social activism was most evident during the civil rights movement in the 1960s. But Franklin says some black churches have become territorial and narrow in their view.

"They are acting more as houses of refuge, as places of protection from the world rather than spiritual center for social change acting to transform the world."

Says Franklin: "There are clergy who have a rather myopic view of their responsibility to the larger community. They have a distorted interpretation of the Christian Gospel."

Nine out of 10

Yarber is in his third month as pastor of his church. He grew up on the West End streets and comes from a family he says was involved in "everything ungodly." But he claims to be the norm.

"Of 10 men in Sunset, nine have some experience with some type of street life," he said. "Maybe all 10 do."

Going into the military turned him around. "I knew if I wanted things in life I would have to work for them," he said. Besides preaching, Yarber works for Sikeston Light and Water. He and his wife Carolyn have three children.

The Rev. Harry Sharp is a white man who from 1996 until last year was the minister at Smith Chapel, a black church in Sunset Addition. Black churches haven't been the force they could be in helping solve some of the ills violence and drugs have visited upon Sikeston's poorer neighborhoods, he says.

Sharp says the Sunset and Clayton additions are fertile ground for church work in three areas: substance abuse, instilling a work ethic and educational goals in children and neighborhood pride.

At this time, the groups that are trying to do something about these issues in Sikeston are not-for-profit organizations or volunteers.

Sharp is a Sikeston native who moved away and retired from IBM before returning to Sikeston. He is chairman of the commission writing the Sikeston City Charter.

Five black churches are located within a few blocks of each other in Sunset Addition and three more are in Clayton Addition. Most of Sikeston's 3,800 blacks live in these two areas.

In some cases, Sharp charges, the minister operates the church as much as a business as a religious institution.

"The minister is basically the business manager and owner of the church. That really brings into question some things I can't address."

Smith Chapel is a United Methodist Church. Ministers don't handle money as they do in some of the community's other churches. Some others in the area are nondenominational churches or Baptist churches subscribing to different conventions.

Denominations divide

The black churches don't work together, but neither do the white churches, Sharp says.

"Denominational differences have always gotten in the way of the Kingdom."

The Rev. Major Lucious, the black minister of St. John Missionary Baptist Church, doesn't think competition between black churches is the problem so much as lack of cooperation. "Everybody has their own island and is satisfied with being alone," he said. "A spirit of cooperation among the churches would impact our community without a doubt."

He is a member of the Sikeston Ministerial Alliance, but most other black ministers are not.

"It's not that they are not welcome," Lucious says. "They just don't come."

Some black churches won't deal with other black churches, Yarber says. The struggle is not for money so much as power.

"If you're top dog at your church," he says, "you figure you should be the boss everywhere you go."

Lucious views Sikeston "as a growing opportunity. I also see a lot of ills that have carried on through the years," he said. "There still is a great deal of prejudice in the community. There is a divide."

Trading pulpits

Not everyone observes that divide.

Three Sikeston churches are trying to erase the divisions between blacks and whites. Members of the black Prince of Peace Church headed by the Rev. Rick Anderson, the First Christian Church led by the Rev. Allan Schreiber and Trinity Baptist Church pastored by the Rev. Tom Geers congregate at each other's churches one Sunday a month. One of the visiting ministers preaches.

Geers maintains the pulpit-trading with the single black church, limited as it is, is a significant step.

"It's almost a miracle when you see black churches and white churches together. It's the way it ought to be," he says.

Their goal is to draw the community together, says Geers, who has been pastor of the same church a remarkable 28 years. "We can only do that if we have responsible leaders who work together."

The divide works both ways.

"You hear the black community doesn't want us in their business," Geers says.

Franklin says a few of the community's most trusted elders must be identified to convene the other church and community leaders who can help outline a vision for the community and identify solutions to its problems. These elders may not always be the charismatic people who get most of the attention, he said.

"We often overlook them, or it's the dynamic entrepreneurs who get most of the media attention. But they don't have the kind of influence the elders have," he said.

Up to the churches

It is up to the churches to lead Sunset and Clayton additions out of the trouble that has plagued them over the past decade, Lucious says.

"If there's going to be any salvation in our community, and I don't mean just spiritually, to have an impact on the criminal element, it's going to have to come from the leadership of the church," Lucious says. "And we're going to have to be more involved in the community outside the church."

The church, the schools and parents have to work together, he said.

"We have so many young people trying to raise families that don't know what family is. It is possible we can reach the children, but if we just reach them on Sunday and there's no cooperation between school and home, it's like double jeopardy."

Providing services to black youths after school hours should be one of the community's greatest concerns, Franklin says. Youths today experience their first drug use, sexual experimentation and contact with handguns not on weekends or during the midnight hours but during weekdays before 6 p.m., he says.

"We are challenging congregations to work together to provide a kind of matrix of support and safe harbors for our kids in the after-school hours."

Since the closing of Lincoln Elementary School in 1968, the West End has had no activity center for its children. Lucious' church is trying to raise $100,000 to build a facility that will include a gym and space for other community activities.

"Sikeston is filled with wonderful people, both black and white," Lucious says. But choosing a new way of life is difficult, he acknowledges, no matter how much people want to throw away their prejudices and crutches.

"The Lord told Moses to tell Pharaoh, 'Let my people go.' ... When Pharaoh let the people go, the people wouldn't let Pharaoh go. It's a vicious circle."

sblackwell@semissourian.com

335-6611, extension 182