By the time you read this, another Interdenominational Ministerial Alliance (IMA) City Wide Revival will have come and gone. For five nights, IMA held revival at Union Baptist Church featuring some of the most well known and respected Preacher/Theologians/Pastors in the country. I think all of the pastors featured were under fifty, began preaching early in life, and have strong Social Justice ministerial perspectives. Representing no less than three main line traditions (Baptist, UCC, AME Zion), the preachers featured have been (are) known to draw a large cross-section of Black generations from teens to seasoned saints when they preach. And for sure, two of the preachers featured, have large cross sections of a very elusive God conscious group - Young Adults (18-40).
However, even at this annual City Wide Revival with three preachers known to "say it," the packed crowd featured mostly Seasoned Saints, with very few people under 40 sprinkled throughout the cavernous Baptist church. Some would say that this is business as usual for mainline Black church traditions, particularly in a place like Durham, North Carolina. However, Durham is teeming with young adults who are attending one of the three powerhouse schools: the prestigious Duke University, the large historically Black North Carolina Central University, and the flagship University of the state, University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Again, I say, Durham is teeming with entrepreneurial young professionals and families who have moved to Durham because of its economic development and careers in research, education, sciences, medicine, and engineering. Again, I say, Durham is teeming with young adults who are creative types, entrepreneurs, social justice advocates, and just really cool people looking to make this city a unique and innovative community. If I'm honest, I run into them all the time...out for dinners, at concerts and plays, at my job, in Greek life...they have even lived next door to me. And if I'm really being honest, most of them are having a hard time finding a place to practice and share their faith. If I had a nickle for every time somebody asked me about where to go to church in Durham, I'd be a rich man.
One would assume that since I had gone to divinity school at Duke and thus know quite a few seminarians, that we would all have the answer about where to go to church in Durham. Unfortunately, for most of us, just like our non theologically trained counterparts, we are all having difficulty finding church homes in a city packed with churches, with few options actually available.
It goes a little something like this. If you go to, let's say, Church A, that is theologically sound, meaning the pastor/congregation is studied, you will not see a single young person for the rest of your young adult life. There won't be any young adult programs at Church A (because you are it). You will never hear any music that is remotely connected to where you are...or message about where you are. Contemporary music is defined as hymns...and Richard Smallwood...seriously, Richard Smallwood!
If you go to say, Church B, and be clear, there is only one Church B, you will be in a sea of young adults (7-10K of them). But, the church will not have a clear polity or theology, different from those of us raised in say a Baptist, AME Zion, or UCC church context. You will not be connected to actual Durham, because Church B is situated on the outskirts of Durham, and the pastoral leadership of the church is not involved with the city, outside of the concerns of Church B, which seem to be only aimed at recruiting students from the local colleges. Church B also has a horribly sexist reputation in dealing with women...so there's that. But in Church B's defense, the music is really good contemporary Praise and Worship. If you are looking to see elder saints, they won't, in the main, find them at Church B. Also, I would like to note that all of the other churches hate this church because they feel like it has created Young Adult drain (taking Young Adults, like a theological Pied Piper from all of the other churches in the city). So, you will never see Church B's pastor in the company of Church A, C, D or E's pastor.
If you go to Church C, you will hear the thickest most problematic prosperity theology you will have ever heard in your life. Let's just call it the church strip club because there will be $25, $50, and $100 lines. Worship will be charismatic, but you will feel like you are constantly being hustled to keep the doors of the church open by giving resources that you might want to go elsewhere. And, there will never, ever be a word or mention from the pulpit of Sandra Bland, Tamir Rice, The Charleston 9...nothing. There are lots of these types...so be careful.
If you go to Church D, it is literally DEAD. The pastor might be well meaning, but his/her church is on life support. And at these kinds of churches, their are usually many reasons why a church would be on life support...and all of them amount to a mix of inhospitable behavior, worship clashes, and church politics. Again, there are no young people here...because young people's lives are messy enough that most of us don't want to go to churches like that.
If you go to Church E, you will be an ornament. They will have 10 young people (who visit church B on occasion), which sit quietly biding their time to lead or sing or pray. But ultimately, you haven't been in town long enough to do anything there. To be fair, there are quite a few E's around town. Too, you will notice something off that will make you question your membership...like an over the top theology of hell, or only a few people are favorites, or lack of pastoral leadership, or you are in church for 4 hours regularly...etc.
Then, if those don't work, there is always Church X, the multicultural/multiracial church...filled with a multicultural/racial congregation...but...most (if not all) of the staff are white. Most of the traditions are culturally white. Most of the songs are culturally white. Let's just be honest and call it what it is....it's a church plantation. So there's that.
And after you visit those churches for a few weeks/years/months, you are either resigned to fill your car with a tank of $2.50/gallon gas to travel to Raleigh, or to sit at home and stream your pastor from another city. You could also accept defeat, and thus sit and whither away any life you have in A, B, C, D, E or X's congregation...ultimately hoping that God moves you to another city where the church culture is "poppin!"
Now from the established Durham church community, they are going to say that you are looking for too much - a perfect church. When you run down what you are looking for in a congregation it doesn't appear to you that it is lofty: Tradition and Innovation, Clear Polity/Theological Framework, Inter-generational, Youth/Young Adult/Family Programs, Music for a Variety of Age Groups, Regular Sermons that acknowledge the need for Personal Holiness and Black Liberation, Pastoral Mentors, and Connection to Durham. In all honesty, its really not a challenging list of things that you are asking for. Now people will say that it is, but you will have the experience of living in other parts of the state/country...and thus you can create a laundry list of churches from Winston Salem to Augusta, GA, to Atlanta to Philadelphia to DC that meet these basic criteria - and thus flourish because of it.
But just maybe established Black Durham churches have given up trying to provide opportunities for new comers who want an IPod experience in a haven of "record player" kinds of churches. It also could be that there is no major pastor under the age of 40 who is a part of the black church landscape creating a voice and visual for those of us wanting more from our Durham community. Maybe, people have grown accustomed to really bad church, because they don't know any better. Or maybe the seminaries in the area, who provide the lion share of education to preachers/pastors in the area have mis-shaped the theology of a community leaders who do not benefit from having young people in any of the churches, unlike the Durham community. Who knows.
The sad reality is that there are quite a few people who live in Durham looking for church homes only to realize that what is here is ultimately toxic to what they've been given in other spaces already...and so they resign themselves to drift. The real question is what would it take for Durham to have an actually dynamic and engaged Black church community? A lot of my friends believe that we need to start more churches. But I don't know if that's the answer. Some people I know think that we will just have to be patient, until some pastor dies or is put out of his/her pulpit? But, what about the myriad of young people grappling with spiritual crises now.
I don't know the answer, but my thought is for Durham churches (and their leadership) to evaluate their strategic engagement plans (hoping they have some) for reaching the people who are charged with keeping the doors of the church open in only a few short years. Moss, during the revival, mentioned how churches might need to adjust the way in which they engaged younger generations. I'm personally thinking this is overdue, because even though we like vinyl for its nostalgia, the technology that produces the Ipod is the environment that we live and work in. That's simply my way of saying that it is time that Black Church Durham engage its community...not as it was in 1990 when John P. Kee still lived here. Instead, Black Durham must seek to push ahead sharing its legacy with new people who have a new way and bring with them all of the innovation that their work week requires of them. From my eight years of living here though, it seems like Durham's old vanguard may simply be bent on standing alone in legacy...as it dies a slow and painful death.
Until then, a few young people will wait patiently until the next IMA revival to be fed by pastors whose sermons speak and resonate with where they are. Until then, seminarians will dream about when they are pastoring and how they will change things. Until then, Black Young Adults will have to make choices that are all...well...underwhelming. What's more unfortunate is that the Black Church community really could do a great work by forming Black Young Adults at a time when quite a few are now giving up on the church altogether. And, Black Young Adults could create the dynamic church environments lacking in much of Durham's Black Church landscape. Maybe this is a great time to place a scripture. Jesus said it best, "The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few."
