Go out into the world...

Like many disciples before them, Highland was not always confident of the faith that called them. Occasionally they would seek ways to avoid facing such issues but there is a continuing theme of trying to reach across the racial divide and be ambassadors of reconciliation.

In 1968 the issue was raised as to whether Black children would be welcome at Highland’s weekday school. While eventually they approved such an action, they first explored whether the issue could be avoided by providing more funds for a kindergarten program at the Lincoln Street Project in which Highland had major financial and volunteer involvement.

That same year the nation was experiencing an increasing amount of violence in the cities across the nation. A special Presidential task force issued a report entitled “Crisis in the Nation ” which declared that the central problem was white racism. A small group of Highlanders formed a special Sunday school class to study the issue and invited an elder from Dellabrook, William Buie, to assist in their study.

The tensions around the issue of race in our society were high enough that when rumors began to surface that the class might be interested in purchasing some property in a White neighborhood and moving a Black family into the community, potential conflict in the church became quite high. The Session investigated the issue, separated rumor from fact, and wrote a letter to the congregation reaffirming the class’s study and the theology which lifted up the value of diversity.

In 1950, less than six months after the official formation of Highland Church, the Session appointed Bill Thacker to the Committee on Negro Work in the city. As a Southern community in the early 50s, Winston-Salem was beginning to struggle with the issue of race relations which would divide the city as it did the nation. The church’s actions were often more in the area of compassion and nurture than one of challenging the structures that maintained the separation of the races in the city.

In their initial action, Mr. Thacker brought to them a recommendation that they should cooperate with the school board and local Black pastors to provide scholarships for Negro youth to an upcoming youth conference in Fayetteville at the cost of $15 each. Three elders immediately agreed to sponsor three youth.

Their interest in supporting the Negro youth soon led to their joining other Presbyterian churches in our community in July of 1950 to raise money to support the hiring of a director of religious education to work in the Carver School area. This led to the Men of the Church assuming the responsibility for paying the rent for a room in which the DRE could work and later to pledge towards the General Assembly’s project of building a church on Dellabrook Road which became the first African-American church in our city in the Presbyterian Church of the United States (Southern Presbyterian).

In 1959 it was still the youth who were encouraging the church’s involvement in the areas of race. The youth at Highland were involved in a youth group known as the Pioneers which had some programs on Christians and race relationships. As a result of that study, they decided to help the youth at Dellabrook organize a Pioneer youth group.

Then in April 1959, the Highland Pioneers invited the Dellabrook Pioneers to conduct a program at Highland and have supper together. When some parents questioned the propriety of having Black and White youth have a joint meal and program at Highland, the issue was taken to the Session. Elder Ted Blount made a motion which passed to support the youth in their efforts.

Later, in 1961, when the issue of Highland’ having a policy with respect to accepting or denying access to worship by Black Christians, the church was clear that a policy of openness to any who wished to worship was reflective of their faith. Jesus said, “… I was a stranger, you welcomed me…” (Matthew 25:35) and one can see signs of that same openness being exhibited in the Body of Christ.

It is not that Highland was a liberal church that was willing to challenge the structures of segregation. Rather they were a church that tried in often halting fashion to be faithful to the Gospel.

Paul declared,”…God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Corinthians 5:19-20) To be entrusted with the message of reconciliation in our current world requires us to become involved at points of alienation and separation in our society.
For that to take place requires us to both go out into society and to bring those who are struggling into our community. Jesus’ ministry exemplified that sort of societal healing as he reached out to tax collectors, prostitutes, lepers and Gentiles, all of whom were considered separated from God’s community.

It would be expected that the Body of Christ would be expected to exemplify that same spirit in their life and ministry. It is common to picture most congregations in our culture as bastions of conservatism and to assume that they are not involved in such work of reconciliation. However, if you read their minutes, would you discover signs that such reconciling work does break through. That is what we will be exploring in this next part of exegeging a congregation.

In the church, as in society, we are constantly engaged in the infinite debate as to who is the greatest but within the church God has provided a continuing possibility of us being surprised by hearing the Word from the least among us.

In the early 1990′s, Richard Wright, a high school student, stood before the congregation and told them how he had learned the value of stewardship from his father when his father stopped providing him the quarter for the collection plate and told him that his offering must now come from his own money. It was a simple but effective way of God’s reminding a congregation that they, too, had a responsibility to support the church.

A congregation prays for and suffers with a family experiencing the illness of a child and we are all reminded of the preciousness of the gift of life. Members of a youth group lift up their idealism about race relations and a congregation is confronted by their own prejudice. A chaplain shares her experience working with college students and we recognize that the vows we took at a child’s baptism does not end when that child leaves our community.

Many youth leaders or Sunday school teachers have learned servanthood through their efforts to work with young people. Through the children and youth of a congregation, we are confronted by the tender fabric of all of our society which requires nurture, patience and forgiveness if we are to be bound together as a people. The hunger of children and youth for affection and affirmation provides many adults the opportunity to hear again Jesus words: “Whoever wants to be first must be last of all and servant of all.” (Mark 9:35)

On the one hand, one can view these various programs and activities related to children and youth as simply a sociological response to family needs within our society which an organization has provided on behalf of their constituency. But can we also look at what God may be revealing through the Body of Christ by means of this response to children and youth?

In a violent society in which a leading cause of children’s death is caused by abuse and the vast majority of those imprisoned were abused as children, does the church’s continuing efforts to be present to children and youth of all ages give testimony to the importance of Jesus’ statement: “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”? (Mark 9:37)

The church is one of the few institutions in our society in which a continuing intergenerational experience is an expected reality. Even schools segregate ages and rarely provide the possibility of people learning from each other across these age barriers.