Fudge Ripple at the Rock

The Rock of Our Salvation Evangelical Free Church and its pastor, the Reverend Raleigh Washington, are both firsts. Washington is the denomination’s first black pastor, and the Rock is its first black—or mostly black—church.

“We’re a black church in focus and outreach,” says Washington, 49, a 1983 Trinity Evangelical Divinity School graduate. “But 30 percent of our members are white. So we’re not exactly a traditional black or a traditional white church. We’re a hybrid.”

The Rock’s location in the 95 percent black neighborhood of Austin on the West Side of Chicago makes it an unlikely setting for a “hybrid” church. But on Sundays they gather—neighborhood families, inner-city teens, single moms, middle-class blacks who have chosen to stay in the neighborhood, suburban whites who live from 2 to 20 miles away and, seemingly, hundreds of children. Watching them belt out a chorus of “I’m a Soldier (In the Army of the Lord),” intercede for one another in a 40-minute open prayer time, and sing the benediction while holding hands at the end of the service, you can forget how impossible cross-cultural churches are supposed to be. So how did this one happen?

Building The Rock

For starters, Washington’s personal calling “to reach out and embrace whites, to be a bridge builder,” opened him up to the idea of a multiracial church early on. When the Rock held its first service in October 1983, the first attendees were Washington’s wife, Paulette, their five children, and six Trinity seminary students, two of whom were white. But Washington’s vision of a church that would bring blacks and whites together ignited when he met a white man who shared that vision.

Glen Kehrein, 39, is executive director of Circle Urban Ministries (CUM), a multifaceted ministry whose complex houses the Rock Church. Although the Rock is only one of five “affiliate churches” that contributes money and manpower to help keep Circle operating, it is the only one that meets on its premises—and the only one whose pastor is Kehrein’s boss. Several months after they met, Kehrein asked Washington to join CUM’s board of directors, and eventually recommended him for the position of president, which Washington now holds.

“All my adult life I had been searching for a black pastor who was committed to holistic ministry and who wasn’t threatened by associating with a white brother,” says Kehrein. “My experience told me that would never happen in my generation. Then I met Raleigh, a man who wanted to work in partnership with whites and blacks, to minister to the impoverished Austin community, and I thought, ‘This is too good to be true.’ ”

Circle Urban Ministries, which grew out of the then-multiracial Circle Evangelical Free Church in 1973, is a bustling complex housing a variety of programs: emergency care (food, clothing, and short-term housing), medical and legal aid, counseling, job-placement assistance, housing rehabilitation and management, a youth program, and others.

But the Rock’s and CUM’s partnership came only after much racial pain and struggle on both sides of the fence. Washington was a former lieutenant colonel in the U.S. Army and endured a racially motivated attack against him just before he went to Trinity divinity school. One white colonel told other officers that “if we don’t stop Raleigh Washington in his climb, he will become the first black general in the adjutant’s general corps,” and accused Washington of wrongdoing. The white investigators on the case shared that colonel’s sentiments, and Washington ultimately left the service under unjust circumstances.

Kehrein, a Wisconsin boy who never saw a black person until he came to Chicago, at 18, to study at Moody Bible Institute, was still suffering the shock and pain of Circle Church’s 1976 racial split when he met Washington.

“The Lord had to put Pastor [Washington] and me through certain experiences to understand the commitment it takes to be partners in cross-cultural ministry,” Kehrein reflects. “I think we at Circle Church failed at our agenda of racial reconciliation because we failed to understand the need for individuals to be reconciled to each other, one on one. So Pastor and I have worked on our relationship as a model—that blacks and whites can serve God together. Our personal commitment to each other is bedrock. If your commitment is to a philosophy, an idea, or a dream rather than a person, you won’t make it through the difficult times.”

And according to Washington, the potential for conflict and misunderstanding in a multiracial setting is high: “Any time there is a difference between a black and a white, no matter what that difference is, no matter what caused it, it ends up being a racial conflict.”

The Rock’s answer has been to build forums for frank communication right into the church calendar—“vanilla” and “chocolate” meetings in which whites and blacks can, with the pastor present, discuss what is bothering them in terms of the church’s racial dynamics. (In past meetings, whites have expressed concern that blacks seemed standoffish; blacks have voiced the opinion that whites seem to pry by asking too many personal questions.)

At the “fudge ripple” meeting, Washington helps each group understand the other’s feelings better over—what else?—fudge ripple ice cream.

“You’ve got to be preventive rather than prescriptive,” insists Washington. “Glen and I work together in this. There are whites at the Rock who feel more comfortable approaching Glen with negative feelings toward how things are being done, and there are blacks at Circle who feel more comfortable approaching me about the situation there. We can then deal with those problems lovingly and boldly. We’ve often marveled at how God has used one of us to resolve potentially divisive issues.”

Washington and Kehrein’s need for each other seems to reflect the Rock and CUM’s need for each other, “CUM does a lot of what the Rock isn’t equipped to do but needs to be involved in—such as health care and legal aid,” says Kehrein. “Likewise, CUM was spiritually orphaned when Circle Church split. We needed a pastor and a church who could provide spiritual nurturing to people who came to CUM.”

Is Heaven Homogeneous?

When Adele came to CUM last year, spiritual issues were not on her mind. She needed food for herself and her children. As several black CUM staff members began to develop relationships with Adele, painful details of gangs, alcoholism, and drug abuse began to unravel. She was bitter and angry, especially at whites. Eventually one woman invited her to a Rock-sponsored evangelistic luncheon, where she decided to follow Christ.

Says Kehrein: “This woman would never have come through the doors of a church—or reached out to me as a white person. But because of Circle’s partnership with the Rock, she experienced the gospel and became a Christian. Later she had the opportunity to develop a relationship with me, when I was an elder leading a Sunday school class for new believers. She has now accepted me as a friend and as a church leader.”

As Adele and others from the neighborhood find the Rock, so do a smaller but steady stream of whites drawn by the expressive worship and holistic focus. The percentage of whites seems to have stabilized at 30 percent for now. On some Sundays, with CUM volunteers on hand from as far away as Nebraska and Maryland, that percentage can climb to 50. Hundreds of volunteers, in fact, have passed through the Rock’s doors; many have been so affected and encouraged by the Rock’s multiracial unity that they have returned and brought others.

One white who had a deep-seated dislike of blacks, stemming from his time in Vietnam, reluctantly agreed to come with his church group. Experiencing unity between blacks and whites at the Rock and Circle moved him deeply. Back home, when he related how God was dealing with his prejudice, he broke down and cried.

“The reason the Rock makes such an impact on visitors such as that man is the power of reconciliation visibly at work in the church,” says Kehrein. Churches that are intentionally “racially pure hinder the power of the gospel, because at its core, the gospel is the message of reconciliation: us being reconciled to God and to each other. We don’t have vehicles within our society to act on that reconciliation. Even our present church-growth models stress homogeneity as the easy path to church growth—as if church growth were the goal of the kingdom of God. So we have Bible-believing evangelicals who at their core are very racist, yet they experience very little contradiction with that because they’re never challenged.”

Pastor Washington jumps in on the heels of Kehrein’s words: “I disagree with some of the writers who are saying that the homogeneous church is the way to go. Homogeneous churches may be easier, but I don’t think they’re God’s intent. The first New Testament church at Antioch had elders who were from different races and cultures. That’s our model church. I think what we give to whites—the freedom to say amen and hallelujah, to not let the clock rule the Sunday morning worship event—and the quiet, reverent worship and structure they give to us, is more blessed. When we get to heaven, it’s not going to be homogeneous. Where better for us to start than right here?”

“Thy will be done on Earth as it is in heaven,” says elder Kehrein.

“Amen,” says Pastor Washington. “Amen.”

The minority members of the Rock of Our Salvation Free Church are not minorities—at least not in the wider society. They are white, and largely from white, middle-class church backgrounds. Yet these 51-some people have chosen to embrace and adapt to the Rock’s distinctly black character. Why?

Virtually all say they were first drawn by the church’s holistic emphasis. As a partner in ministry with Circle Urban Ministries, the Rock helps provide neighborhood residents with everything from emergency housing to family counseling. But what keeps white parishioners at the Rock goes deeper than wanting to get their hands dirty doing inner-city ministry. They are finding a dimension of their faith they say was missing before.

“These people don’t talk about faith. They experience it,” says Barb Schrag, a Californian who first came to the Rock a year-and-a-half ago. “Their depth of reliance on God, their way of talking to him as if he were standing right next to them, was new to me. I’ve learned about nuts-and-bolts faith—faith that God will provide basic needs.”

Steve Manock, a medical student who has been a member for two years, agrees: “It’s powerful to be part of a church community that’s constantly helping meet people’s very basic physical and spiritual needs. God seems bigger after you see so many lives changed. You realize in your heart, not only in your head, that God is not just a white, middle-class God, but that he’s working mightily in neighborhoods many whites would be afraid to venture into.”

For Steve, Barb, and others, a big part of experiencing God at the Rock happens at the church’s lively Sunday morning service. Although the Rock’s three hours of worship and teaching may have seemed like a spiritual marathon to them at first (many black church services, incidentally, last up to five or six hours), they now consider it vital.

“The music is victorious,” says Barb, who sings in the choir. “Being in this church choir has been an entirely different experience.” Watching her sway back and forth with the choir, eyes closed, belting out soulful gospel songs, you can begin to understand what she means. It is clear that she’s not performing: she’s worshiping.

“For me, the extended time we spend voicing prayer requests and praying during church has had a big impact,” reflects Heather Thompson, a nurse who lives and works in the neighborhood. “It’s different than the polite conversation and polite prayers I’ve heard in other churches. People are up front about their feelings. Hurts that would never be brought up in most white churches are put out in the open and dealt with.”

The black emphasis on community that fosters that kind of openness has also been a new experience for many of the Rock’s whites. Says Steve’s wife, Jennie, the Sunday school superintendent: “There’s a strong sense that if I hurt God, I’m hurting the other members of the congregation.” Like others, she was deeply moved when one Sunday a black member publicly acknowledged an adulterous relationship and asked the congregation to forgive him—which they immediately did by leaping to their feet and embracing him, one by one.

Of course, cross-cultural ministry is not always as easy as some of the white members of the Rock make it sound. “It takes extra effort to communicate,” says Barb. “I can’t always trust my instincts about what’s right or normal because of cultural and class differences. I have to go by other people’s perceptions, which is hard to get used to.” In addition, trying to meet the neighborhood’s overwhelming needs can easily spell burnout for white members, who are often called on to share skills and resources. “The needs overwhelm me until I remind myself how totally dependent I am on God,” Heather admits. “In fact, I find myself consciously relying on God for strength and wisdom more than ever before.”

Despite the obvious difficulties of cross-cultural ministry, new white faces continue to pop up at the Rock. And in the same way that Steve, Jennie, Barb, Heather, and others have turned for counsel to white elders Steve Henry and Glen Kehrein (who have been in the neighborhood more than ten years), prospective white members are now turning to them with questions.

“One white visitor recently asked me what was difficult or different about being in a black church,” says Steve Manock. “I realized that one-and-a-half years ago I could have given her a clearer answer. But you see, this isn’t just a black church we’re trying to minister to anymore. This is our church. When I talk about how the Rock does things, I’m talking about the way we do things. This is simply our church now.”

By Robert M. Kachur.

Robert M. Kachur is associate editor of U magazine.

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