Salvaging a Sinking Ship

It is my job as lookout on the wall to scan for the signs that give clues to what my people need.
—Suzan D. Johnson Cook

Mariners’ Temple was, by all definitions, a dying church. People, playing with the name, referred to it as “a sinking ship.” The congregation had dwindled to fifteen members in a facility that holds more than a thousand, so it took some unusual circumstances to bring me there as pastor.

During my last semester in seminary, I was working part-time in our local denominational office. I learned about a vacancy in a church in Chinatown on the Lower East Side of New York, the Mariners’ Temple Baptist Church. The only contact I had had with this community was my childhood trips to Mott Street for an authentic Chinese meal. And in January I had preached for Mariners’s pastor when he was on vacation.

Now that pastor had decided to resign, and the last voice from the pulpit the congregation remembered was mine. They inquired if I would serve as their interim pastor.

The Sinking Ship

The ancient Mariners’ must have been some place. It is the oldest Baptist church in Manhattan, a once-grand congregation that formed to serve the seafaring crowd and thrived for decades. But now, it seemed, I was being sent for the final benediction.

“At least,” some said, “it will give you an opportunity to pastor a church,” no matter how brief.

The rumor in denominational circles was that the congregation could not sustain itself. It was six thousand dollars in the red, and its credit rating was horrible. Action was imminent to dissolve the church. Without extensive repairs, the grand building was about ready to fall down on the members’ heads. Can these bones live? I wondered as I wandered the facility my first day.

But I made up my mind to look on the opportunity as a blessing rather than a burden.

It rained my first thirteen Sundays at Mariners’ Temple. Even Easter Sunday looked more like the day of Crucifixion than the day of Resurrection.

But we brightened it with ten baptisms at the sunrise service. The ten were five children and five adults—all of them excited to be joining the church. They had come to the church and completed the new-members’ class under my leadership, so I was excited about them too.

That day turned out to be a day of resurrection for the congregation, and it startled more than a few. The denomination had all but promised our building to a Chinese congregation sharing our facilities, but like a stubborn heart donor, we refused to die.

What was it that helped us not simply to survive but even to return to vitality? There were several factors.

Attitudinal aerobics

From working on a political campaign for my brother, I knew what it was like to get people motivated and believing in a dream. They first had to be excited about themselves, so my initial sermons were esteem-building, faith-building exhortations. It was not enough to simply unfurl those seminary sermons I had produced for preaching class. Now my faith was on trial, and I had to preach what I believed. What a test of faith! It was a time for me to develop my theology.

I began by lifting out all the positive attributes of the church, the community, and the specific people in the church. I told them, “You’re going to make it; you are God’s people, and God doesn’t make junk. Everybody is somebody in the eyes of God. He doesn’t care about your past. His question to you is ‘Where are you going?’ Just think about what this church and what you mean to the community. We can’t let ourselves down!”

By focusing on the positive, I hoped to begin to stem the tide of despair and negativism that would wash away any gains I might make through sheer enthusiasm. I am convinced that people want better, transformed lives, and they will work for them. It is my job as lookout on the wall to scan for the signs that give clues to what my people need.

Next I asked members to join me in some fundamental disciplines: prayer, supplication, study, and fasting. We began to pray for growth, asking God to send “more laborers into the harvest.” We thanked God for those who’d had the fortitude to hold on while the going was tough, but we were bold to ask for others.

In my frontal assault on attitudes, I wanted my positive feelings about the church to take hold, but I wanted the I vocabulary changed to we. Then we could decide that we were going to make it.

I assigned a Scripture passage for memorization each month and quizzed the congregation at all meetings and worship services. One of our favorites became Philippians 4:13—”[We] can do all things through Christ who strengthens [us]” (nkjv).

It’s easy to get discouraged in this work, and I found I also had to keep my own attitude in line. I found myself asking God if this were really where he wanted me to be. I had come from an established church where people (including the pastor) knew what they were doing and where a tradition had long been established. At age twenty-six, I found myself thrust into the middle of a challenge I had never dreamed of. What was I doing here?

As I took inventory of my experiences, however, God showed me I had been prepared for this call.

First, as a child I had studied in Valencia, Spain, becoming fluent in Spanish. In college I had traveled to West and North Africa, Israel, and the Caribbean. I often wondered how God would use these experiences. Now I found myself in a multiethnic setting, where black, Spanish, and Chinese populations were about equal. I was praying in Spanish with Hispanic residents, trying to communicate through an interpreter to the Chinese community, and ministering to the black population at the same time.

Second, since this was my first pastorate, I was an unknown quantity. People’s expectations weren’t as demanding. Had I gone into an established church, I would have made inexcusable mistakes, and there would probably have been barriers already in place. But Mariners’ Temple and I could grow together.

Third, being a female in this role also helped. Since I was the first black woman elected to a major American Baptist Church in our two-hundred-year history, there were no role models, and no one really knew what to expect of me—including myself. So I dared to be a dreamer, to be different.

Some days I would come back to church from a business luncheon in the community and play basketball with the men of the church. I wondered how that would be received. But they appreciated my being me, and it allowed me to know them in a different way. This nontraditional approach infected our attitude. I’m convinced a positive attitude, one that is willing to go beyond barriers, is essential in reviving a church.

Getting acclimated

One of my first goals was to get close to our fifteen members, who by now were beginning to share my excitement about this church. The members consisted of one Hispanic woman, one white woman, and the rest black.

The Hispanic member was Mother Belen McCray, a petite woman nearly ninety years old who spoke little English but understood it quite well. She had been coming to Mariners’ since she moved into the neighborhood forty years ago, and she continually prayed that the doors would not close.

The black members, mostly men and women in their forties and fifties, were largely the deacons and trustees with a vested interest in the church. They had worked so hard to keep it afloat. Most of them became active when the Alfred E. Smith housing projects (where 90 percent of our current membership resides) were built.

Their children had come to the church for Scouting programs, classes, and social events, so these stalwarts remembered Mariners’ Temple when it was thriving. The church had served as a community church where many of their friends and neighbors celebrated weddings or attended funerals. To these people, it was more than a church; it was a personal landmark, an institution.

In a community like ours, local church history is seldom recorded on paper. Ours is an oral culture; our history is etched in the memories of the faithful. As I rummaged through people’s memories, I discovered this community was once known as “Little Africa,” a settlement where freed black slaves and those who did not go into slavery had arrived in the early 1800s. I made sure these and other historical facts were written down, because we couldn’t understand where we want to go without knowing where we had been.

History pointed out to us the evolution of the community along with the church. We could trace the various ethnic patterns and recall the highlights of each era. It helped us see how Mariners’ changed from a predominantly white church for European seamen into a self-supporting, mainly black church that helped shape a community. We could trace the change from the early black community of the late 1800s to the large escalation of blacks in the 1950s when the projects went up.

I first went to the church as an interim pastor. Trying to handle that responsibility cautiously yet boldly, I attempted few drastic changes immediately. It was more important to me to learn what had been done before I set out to change it.

I also got to know the people of the church in their home surroundings. I found a people who felt neglected. Many were on public assistance and caught in various social problems. Drug abusers and dropouts were numerous in the community. Because they were in Chinatown, where much of the emphasis was on Asian problems, the blacks often felt left out. They needed self-esteem and ethnic pride.

The church had many blue-collar workers and city employees. Members not on public assistance began to help those who were. This gave some the chance they needed.

Many in the community were in need of help and attention. Some asked me to accompany them to the bank to open an account, wanting advice on the best investments. When some particularly needy individuals came to our church dinners, I had to gently remind them about such niceties as waiting for their turn to be served. I accompanied some parishioners to court, where their children or other relatives were on trial for various offenses, and others to business lunches, where they taught me a thing or two. In this way, I was soon baptized into the action of the community.

And this also brought people into the church. On many occasions youths and children led their parents to church. This was the case with the first boys’ basketball team.

We realized that young black males needed an environment where they could learn discipline while catching the faith and having fun. We entered two teams in our denominational league, and we encouraged the older males to join as their coaches. The church enthusiastically attended their games and cheered them on.

But we tried to give them more than basketball. We worked to build relationship with their homes and school whenever possible. We let them know they had a support community where they could come if their other situations were not tenable. On any given day, I would drive up to the church and find various team members waiting to talk with me. In just a few months, many of their family members began attending, and now many are active members.

Through various efforts like this, I had 150 new members to get to know within the first six months. In that atmosphere of mounting and infectious energy, I was asked to become the permanent pastor. A unanimous vote was cast, and we planned a week-long installation celebration. To our delight, many of my colleagues joined us to welcome me as a pastor, including Dr. Gardner C. Taylor, pastor of the Concord Baptist Church of Christ.

I was even more gratified to learn a bit later that one of the congregation’s greatest concerns was that I remain with them for a decent length of time. They were beginning to open up to me and trust me. Enormous healing had to take place, and they didn’t want me to destroy their trust. When my brother and his children joined the church along with me, it solidified our covenant.

Hitting the streets with good news

One of my friends, Dr. Johnny Ray Youngblood, pastor of Saint Paul Community Baptist Church in Brooklyn, suggested that I attend an evangelism and discipleship conference in Dallas. When I got home, we began to focus on what evangelism means in a situation like ours.

One of the first ways we emphasized evangelism was by asking members to bring their family and friends to our worship services. To make them comfortable, we designed a “Come as You Are” service so that those who didn’t have “church clothes” would feel as at home as everyone else. We regular attenders made a point of dressing casually. I did my part by shedding my clergy robe that day. We ended up holding such a service quarterly because it was so successful.

We also invited the Addicts’ Rehabilitation Center Choir, a gospel group of former drug abusers, to share in these services. Seeing people so obviously changed active in the worship service helped newcomers accept their own pasts, and it gave them incentive to transform their lives.

Soon we began a radio ministry to spread the message rapidly in our community. We even used billboards to advertise major crusade services.

I had helped elect my brother to the New York State Assembly, so I was used to door-to-door campaigns. Why can’t the political model be used for evangelistic purposes? I wondered. So we made some simple fliers describing our worship services and bearing my picture.

I took all age groups with me to canvass the neighborhood, inviting people to our church and asking them, “What can our church do for you?” Many people refused to answer their doors, but those who did remarked that if the pastor would come to their home, then at least they could try to come to the church. When nobody was home, we just left the flier.

That outreach garnered many of the people who later joined our congregation. We had become a known presence in our neighborhood. People were talking about us.

We were thrilled to see families beginning to come together. On several occasions when we asked the first-time visitors to stand, many announced that they had come at the invitation of their spouse or companion because they had seen the change and joy in that person’s life.

Many couples who were not married got married after counseling. Now we have families worshiping together regularly. We stressed that we were family—members of one another—and unless all of us made it, then none of us made it. The Latino community liked this family emphasis, and as a result we have several Latino families actively integrated into our church.

By the end of our first year, 250 members had joined our ranks, and by three years we had 500. It looked as if we would survive.

Meeting community needs

I believe a church should supply every person with a meaningful ministry, and one way to do that is to begin to meet the needs outside the church.

The was the reasoning behind our “Lunch Hour of Power” that we launched in January 1985.

We are located near a business and government center, and many workers would eat lunch on our front steps in good weather. Since my office window opened to those steps, I picked up snatches of conversation from the lunching workers. I’d also take out my lunch and join them on occasion.

A common cry I heard was apathy toward work. Many worked for city agencies or the federal court system, and they enjoyed few advancement opportunities. The pervasive feeling was one of counting days to retirement rather than finding satisfaction and enjoyment in a career. We started our lunch-hour worship service to provide inspiration to help workers make it through the week.

To advertise the new venture, teams fanned out to do “subway stops,” greeting and handing fliers to people on their way to and from work. I made myself visible in this campaign, and that gave many of the commuters an opportunity to meet the one who would be leading the services.

Our children and young people also helped in this leafleting blitz. It wasn’t easy. Many of the children were discouraged that people could be so rude. Hundreds of fliers were just tossed to the ground. I encouraged the kids to be patient, and I told them this could help them learn how not to act when they were older.

The lunch-hour service was a forty-five-minute worship experience with a hymn, prayer, announcements, welcome of visitors, and a sermon lasting no more than twenty minutes. Promptly at 12:45 we would dismiss the congregation and provide a free lunch.

Some in the congregation felt we shouldn’t “bribe” the people with food, but once we considered that the people would be forfeiting their lunch hour and they had to be back at work promptly, many began to catch the vision. I even rounded up our senior citizens to fix the sandwiches each week. That ministry has given new meaning and purpose to their lives.

We had no idea how many would show up at our first service. I hoped to get some from our congregation, and when I asked for a show of hands one Sunday, only about twenty-five went up. We prepared for fifty.

Thirty-eight attended. The attendance doubled the next week. Word of the service spread quickly. The service mixes executives and clerks, local residents and commuters. There was a need, we offered ourselves, and God blessed the effort.

Within six months we were fixing more than 150 lunches, and by the one-year mark, we were averaging 200 every Wednesday.

The first two years I preached nearly all the sermons. Later I arranged for guest pastors and civic leaders who are visible within the church community to preach, and I preached no more than two services a month. We purposely did not announce the speakers in advance so the event would not become personality centered. This service was one of the highlights of our church and community, and it provided my inspiration as well.

We are family

As we thought and planned big, we also tried to keep our church like a family. Inner-city living is draining, and to provide balance for the serious side of life, we mixed in sports and other fun activities. We had pastor’s teams for basketball and softball that played intramurally and challenged other congregations. It was interesting seeing how other churches respond to a female pastor on the basketball court with men.

Yearly our pastor’s team challenged the rest of the men to a game of softball. For months prior to the event we bragged and joked about the outcome. The congregation came out to see who would be the winner. This jesting also served a serious purpose: it brought the men and boys together within the fellowship of the church. We found many of the young boys coming to church were from homes without a male figure, so we challenged the men of the church to become their spiritual fathers. Playing together helped cement that bond.

Another element of family life came as a by-product of ministry to our community. The congregation selected education as a priority area to target. They felt that if we worked on this area, many of the grave social problems that plague our community could be dealt with. With that in mind, we instituted a daily after-school tutorial program for elementary school children in our neighborhood.

Our senior citizens now run that program. It was a joy to watch this intergenerational experience. Minority communities were once run by the extended-family concept anyway. We were just returning to our heritage and traditions in a nontraditional way.

To truly become a church family, we started acting like a family—taking retreats outside the city or “family trips” to visit churches where my friends pastor. We organized boat rides, parades, bazaars, and banquets. We attended concerts and other events.

Like a mother, I’ve encouraged family members to look out for one another and stick together as a family. As soon as a person accepts the invitation to come to Christ, he or she is assigned a sponsor—a big brother or sister in Christ who is already a member of the church—and this person is responsible for showing that person the ropes. It helped to ease the often-felt discomfort of entering unknown into a large group.

Once when a child who was doing poorly in school came in with a good report card after passing a tough examination, we announced it in the middle of worship and had the child come to the front of the church. The people applauded, and we placed that child’s name on the Pastor’s Honor Roll, prominently displayed in the sanctuary.

This kind of recognition has encouraged good scholarship, and the other children are attempting to do well in school so the pastor will single them out. Recently we sent four students to college, three of whom were first-generation college entrants. We celebrated as though there were a coronation.

God has called us to worship and shown us that we have a blessed ministry. Indeed, dry bones can live.