CHURCHES OVERCOME BOUNDARIES OF RACE

"Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity!" -- Psalms 133:1.

CHAFFEE -- For Chaffee, a town of about 3,000 white people, it was an odd sight.

It was Sunday, and black people, lots of them, streamed into People's Full Gospel Church. White people walked in alongside.

The children played together in the yard. The adults shook hands and hugged, smiling broadly. A white man preached, then a black man.

And nobody seemed to notice they were of different colors.

A union between New Horizon Missionary Baptist Church, an all-black congregation in Cape Girardeau, and the all-white Chaffee church began in May 1995. The Rev. Spencer Bass of People's Full Gospel asked the Rev. Paul Jones, an associate pastor at New Horizon, to come preach.

Bass tried to invite a black pastor to preach before, but the man never showed up. Jones promised to be there on time, despite what he heard about prejudices in Southeast Missouri.

"After moving to Missouri from Kentucky, I heard the reputations of some non-integrated towns," Jones said. "I was kind of apprehensive, but my father was able to sustain me. That's why I like the 23rd Psalm, `Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil.'"

Jones' visit went well, so the two small congregations began meeting together once a month in either Cape Girardeau or Chaffee. Sunday marked the one-year anniversary of their unique idea.

Pressures began almost immediately after the joint service program started. Bass said a young Chaffee man stopped him with accusations of "bringing the colored church down here."

Another threatened to burn crosses in Bass' yard if he didn't stop having black people inside the Chaffee church.

The Rev. Howard McGee, New Horizons' pastor, said he met with "subtle resistance."

"There are still black people in Cape who don't like what we're doing," he said. "They can't accept this fellowship, but I learned a long time ago not to worry about what they think."

While some in the congregations weren't thrilled with the idea, nobody quit either church. They simply didn't show up on joint service days. But many others did, including Virginia Craft, who plays the piano for People's Full Gospel.

"I've been in a lot of churches -- I'm 55 and I grew up in church -- and this is the first time I've done this," she said. "But I've always been around black people, and I believe in being friends with them and being nice to them."

Roy Jennings, a member of New Horizons, said he wasn't afraid to go to Chaffee for fellowship. He has a Roto-Rooter business and works many jobs in the area.

"I hope we're growing stronger," Jennings said. "Everybody should be doing this."

But everybody isn't. In fact, some have blamed racial hatred for a string of 123 church arsons over the past five years. There have been 30 fires at black churches and 23 at white churches since January, all of them in the South.

The most recent was Friday in Oglesville, Mo., a small town near the Arkansas border. The all-white Oglesville General Baptist Church has about 100 members.

Bass, Jones and McGee said they don't fear their churches will be burned. The people are God's church, they said, not the building.

"It just doesn't matter anymore," McGee said. "We know what our purpose is."