Ethnic groups in Alabama find unity in worship

When Christians of various races and ethnic groups recently worshiped together at West Tabernacle Baptist Church, Birmingham, they represented a focus on unity that is taking place around the state.
   
The Inter-Baptist Fellowship (IBF) worship service is one of several similar events happening in different parts of Alabama, said Ronald Davis, who works with the group through the Alabama Baptist State Board of Missions (SBOM).
   
The IBF is a statewide organization with representatives from the Alabama Baptist State Convention, Alabama State Missionary Baptist Convention, New Era Missionary Baptist State Convention and New Era Progressive Missionary Baptist State Convention. The group is also broken down into various regional committees — currently 12 — from the statewide organization.
   
“In the last five years, we have become more reflective of our communities, involving many more ethnic groups, including Koreans, Chinese, Hispanics to name a few,” said Davis, an associate in the SBOM’s office of associational missions/church planting.
   
David and Ellen Bragdon of Bluff Park Baptist Church, Birmingham Association, serve on one of the regional committees.
   
“It has built bridges between our youth and the youth at black churches,” Ellen Bragdon said. “Now our youth and youth from some of the black churches have services or outings together.”
   
“It’s a cross-cultural bridge-building concept that we are glad to see,” David Bragdon added. “The (regional) committees are having a great effect on the lives of church members from various cultural groups.
   
“We are grateful to be part of that influence.”
   
Currently 57 predominately black churches are part of the Alabama Baptist State Convention, according to Davis.
Twenty of those churches are members of Birmingham Baptist Association (BBA), said John King, BBA’s networking and affinity team leader.
   
King, who is also pastor of Trinity Baptist Church, Birmingham, said that while most of the black churches in BBA are also aligned with the National Baptist Convention, their membership in BBA has opened new doors of cooperation between races.
   
Timothy Lovett, pastor of Huffman Baptist Church, Birmingham Association, preached during the recent multicultural event in Birmingham. 
   
Developing the theme of “Stone on Stone” based on 1 Peter 2:5, Lovett noted how people from different ethnic backgrounds can be building blocks or stones used by God to build up His Kingdom.
   
He said Christ — as the gift of salvation to everyone — came as a Trojan horse, fooling Satan into thinking he had won.
   
“Satan thought he received a gift (after Jesus died and before He arose) — he thought he had received what he had always wanted,” Lovett said.
   
“But we all know that Jesus conquered death, delivering what will be the ultimate defeat to Satan in the end.
   
“What we need to fear is not each other but the evil that is alive in the world,” Lovett said. 
   
“If you want to know why we are so separated, look at the evil one; for it was not God’s intention that we so separate.”