Black church and parachurch leaders are drawing together in a new coalition that augers well for black involvement in overseas missionary service and evangelism among blacks in the United States.
Contributing to this new unity are two conferences to be held in Atlanta. The meetings, known as Destiny ’87 and Atlanta ’88, are expected to attract as many as 1,500 black church leaders, influential laypeople, and students.
In the past, organizational and denominational differences and varied approaches to solving problems of racism caused efforts at church and parachurch cooperation to fall short of black leaders’ expectations. But it appears those differences have been laid aside for the sake of common action in evangelism and mission.
“We’re starting with a vision and a spirit to serve one another,” says Crawford Loritts, chairman of Destiny ’87, a summer conference designed to involve black Christians in missions. Loritts and Matt Parker, chairman of Atlanta ’88, an evangelism conference, say the new spirit among black leaders is a grassroots phenomenon.
Parker sowed the seeds in 1984 when he asked 60 black leaders to meet for a national summit on black church development. “We asked them simply to come and encourage one another and to share resources and skills,” says Parker, associate vice-president of William Tyndale College in Farmington Hills, Michigan.
Two years later, another meeting brought 100 presidents, founders, and directors of Slack ministries together with black church and denominational leaders. Parker says ten white leaders were invited as observers “so they could see the depth of black leadership.”
At those two meetings, Loritts says, “the threat factor was diminished. It was a historic new beginning in the black church in America.” Prior to that, he adds, black church leaders “didn’t know the parachurch movement.”
Loritts, national director of Here’s Life Black America, points out that this new beginning has “an obligation to the lonely voices of the past. We’re standing on their shoulders,” he says, referring to black Christian leaders such as John Perkins, Bill Pannell, and Tom Skinner.
Loritts says the “booming black middle class has found out that materialism doesn’t satisfy.” Both middle-class blacks and the “permanent black underclass” are now responsive to the gospel, he says. He and Parker say “the climate is right” for evangelism among blacks, but they point out that black Christians need more practical training. Parker says he wants Atlanta ’88 speakers and workshop leaders to teach black leaders how to go back to their churches and train Christians to evangelize.
When it comes to world missions, Loritts says, most black Christians don’t see themselves as having a role. “For the most part, [blacks] have had a theology of survival,” he says, “that is not in complete harmony with God’s global purpose.”
“The crucial issue is mobilization,” Loritts says. “The black middle class is growing, but we’re not aggressively recruiting missionaries. We want every person to leave Destiny ’87 with the realization that the Great Commission is an inescapable obligation and responsibility.” Executives from predominantly white mission boards plan to attend the conference to discuss how to recruit and train black missionaries.
By James Reapsome.
