The Daily Californian Midweek Magazine
Wednesday, February 4, 1981
Two churches—one black and successful, one integrated and failing—grapple with the future
You've got to serve somebody
By U. Sharon Broussard
This is the story of two Berkeley churches, one fallen upon hard times and the other remarkably successful—and how they are attempting to build for the future.
South Berkeley Church, one of the first integrated churches on the West Coast, once attracted 300 or more worshipers. Now it rarely has more than 50 people at its services. Beset by financial problems and a lack of leadership, it has come close to folding several times.
In sharp contrast, McGee Avenue Baptist Church, has a budget of $150,000 a year, a congregation of 1200 of whom about 400 attend Sunday services, and a reputation of being one of the most socially and politically active black churches in Berkeley.
At each, members are concerned about what their church's future in the community will be. At the South Berkeley Community Church, this concern has been prompted by acrimonious struggles over integration, its low membership, and its financial problems. At McGee Avenue Baptist Church, parishioners are concerned that the church has been pursuing its community leadership at the expense of its religious leadership.
McGee Church's Success
Why is McGee so successful? “It has a humane stance and an educated administration,” said Elaine Piggee, a member of McGee for three years. “And because Reverend Stewart is very political and visible, the church is constantly growing,” she continued.
Undoubtedly, McGee's social programs make it a visible church in South Berkeley. Located at McGee and Stuart, McGee has a Headstart Center which provides childcare and educational services, a limited well-baby clinic and a Federal Credit Union which has approximately $6000 in assets.
It is also noted for its spiritual leader and spokesman for 10 years, Reverend James Stewart, a respected community activist. At the pulpit, Stewart urges support for interests ranging from the United Farm Workers (UFW) to local political candidates.
Yet even in the most active of churches, there is apathy at times. For instance, the church donated money and toys to the UFW at Christmas and in February the Men's club served visiting farmworkers at their annual breakfast. However despite Stewart's appeal for church members to appear at a Black Berkeley Council meeting last spring to oppose the ousting of Laval Wilson, Superintendent of the Board of Education, no one attended the meeting.
What makes McGee appear so conservative and so liberal at the same time? According to Riggins, the church's architect, McGee's congregation is composed of elderly low-income church goers who live around McGee and control the Board of Trustees and Deacons. They maintain a limited outreach program, said Riggins, an Oakland insurance agent. “They are reluctant to reach out to the neighborhood and deal with the dope, crime and prostitution,” he said.
For many people who attend, “Church is a fourth or fifth priority,” Riggins admitted.
Elaine Piggee, and active member and a counselor for troubled teenage girls at Sisters United, agreed that the church has its conservative elements. Piggee joined McGee after she passed the church one day three years ago and saw a bus full of senior citizens, “I said to myself if a church is that sensitive to its elderly, it must be something,” said Piggee.
But Piggee has been dismayed by the church's failure to establish more community oriented programs. “From time to time there are political causes which move the church, but on the whole McGee is apathetic,” she said.
While youth participation could help counter the church's more conservative members, McGee's youth membership has been slowly declining. Both Riggins and Piggee, the children of Baptist ministers, blame the low-level of youth participation in the church on the lack of youth programs. “The church must have an outreach program and be politically active to attract young people,” said Riggins.
They also predicted McGee may have to struggle for survival in the next 10 to 15 years if it doesn't attract more youth. “Youth are the life of the church,” Piggee said.
What keeps Piggee and Riggins active members at McGee is Reverend James Stewart and his concern for the community. “Reverend Stewart is the pulling card for me,” Piggee said.
Leading from the Pulpit
Preaching is one way Stewart tries to get his message of social activism and spiritual redemption to his congregation. In one sermon on McGee's role in the community, Stewart told the congregation the church must serve the needs of the community. In addition, he exhorted the congregation to make McGee “an open church where children can walk through and play.” His suggestion was greeted with a lukewarm chorus of “Amens.”
But Stewart is not discouraged by what seems to be a certain apathy to his appeals. “I came to this church at a time when social concerns were minimal,” he said quietly, “The church was insulated, now it has turned outwardly. Because of our presence here, we've touched other lives.”
Stewart wants to keep McGee active in the community. He has proposed that the church obtain a loan to build a multipurpose community center while others in the church would like to remodel the church's facilities with the money. But Stewart has been slowly selling his idea by making the church aware of its social responsibilities.
On Palm Sunday, for instance, he relinquished the pulpit to U.S. District Attorney William Hunter, who under Stewart's watchful gaze, proceeded to inform the church about the condition of blacks in the U.S. “Black folks have made little or no progress,” Hunter told the well dressed predominantly elderly congregation. “Forty percent of all blacks are at or below poverty level. The black church must assume its role of responsibility and provide fellowship.”
One member called the speech “fantastic.” But the congregation is financially stable, he said. “Those problems don't bother them.”
South Berkeley Church
“I am convinced that if the church is going to be meaningful, it must be integrated—and stay that way, said “Anne Brown, head of the ministerial search committee at
South Berkeley Church, located on Fairview in South Berkeley.
But South Berkeley, once one of the first integrated churches on the West Coast, is now almost all black. When it began in 1944, 75% of the 300 member congregation was white and 25 % black; now 85% of its members are black and 15% white. Fewer than 50 attend church regularly.
There are other differences between the old South Berkeley and the new South Berkeley. Established as a protest against racial segregation by black co-pastor Roy Nichols and white co-pastor Buell Gallager, the old South Berkeley Church was a community center which held dances, bazaars and cultural events that attracted people as far away as San Francisco. The new South Berkeley Church has no community outreach programs and is struggling to keep its doors open.
Many members of South Berkeley link the churches decline to lack of leadership and the bitter disputes of the past. “ Every time we have a crisis we lose some good members,” said Norma Stauffer, 83, one of the four white members of the old congregation who are still active in the church.
A Church Divided
Most of those crises have involved ministers who have not agreed with the church's stance on integration. Two ministers left denouncing integration, apparently frustrated working with such a diverse congregation. And according to Fred Stripp, UC Berkeley Professor Emeritus of Rhetoric, and former co-pastor of the church, one of the church's more emotional experiences occurred when Hazaiah Williams, his black co-pastor, accused him and other whites of eavesdropping and being secret racists. Williams then left the church with 30-40 black members and started his own Berkeley church called the Church of Today. “He split the church down the middle,” said Fred Stripp of Williams' departure.
But the church has other problems besides a lack of leadership. It has experienced a decline in membership over the years and a dearth of new young members. In order to survive, the church may have to turn to the predominantly black community around it. But so far the community has resisted making it services livelier with gospel music, although its choir has included some gospel in its repertory. It has been equally slow in creating community programs.
Last year when Reverend Valentino Melfort pastored South Berkeley, it had a summer youth job training program, a senior citizen lunch program and a tutorial service. Now only the tutorial program exists. The programs we the center of controversy in the tug of war between the church activists and the more spiritually oriented members.
Opponents of the programs argued that they were a financial drain on the church. Anthony Walker, 76, a former treasurer of South Berkeley, called the programs unsuccessful. “The kids in the programs came for the food, not to join the church.”
Also the relationship between the church and its government sponsored programs has not been smooth. Members of the church recently voted to repay $300 to the Department of Agriculture after that agency discovered the ineligible persons had taken advantage of the free food service.
The Purpose of South Berkeley
Walker also opposes church participation in community programs because he wants the church to focus on the religious needs of its members. “You go to church to have your spiritual self repaired,” Walker maintained. “Social work is not a function of the church.”
Ann Brown, who heads the ministerial search committee says, “The church must be balanced between spiritual and social concerns. There is plenty of space for both.” However South Berkeley has decided not to expand its programs until it completes its ministerial search.
Other members disagree saying that community programs attract both money and youth. According to Brown who joined the church over thirty years ago, donations from church members are not enough to keep the church alive. “Some of those who object so loudly to community activities will discover they'll need them,” she said.
But Moderator Marie Ivy, a liaison between the minister and laity, would like South Berkeley to offer the ranging of community programs it offered thirty years ago. She said although government agencies deliver most of these services now, the church hopes to share its resources with agencies.
It was Ivy who kept the doors of South Berkeley open last October by calling meetings and encouraging the congregation to discuss its problems openly. Today the church is a long way from solving its problems. But it has started a search for permanent minister and received a loan which it used to refurbish apartments it plans to rent. And after spending several Sundays at executive council sessions listening to member's complaints, Associate Pastor Chester McCall noted an optimistic mood. “They have a sense of hope. There must have been some healing going on.
The search committee and loan are two signs that the church is on its way to a slow recovery. According to Brown, finding the right minister will make South Berkeley a successful church again. “Good leadership brought Glide Memorial San Francisco around, it can happen at South Berkeley,” she said.
Others are not so certain that a minister can make a difference because frequent conflicts between former ministers and members of the congregation and because of the costs of obtaining a full-time minister. During a recent church council session, members approved a ministerial search committee only at the prompting of interim minister David Finster adding that South Berkeley needs a minister who can devote his life to it.
Finster, a student at Pacific School of Religion who pastors part time at South Berkeley has impressed members who say he visits the sick and has established a rapport with the congregation. “Finster is there when I need spiritual support.” said Beverly Bruce, a member who recently rejoined the church. But because Finster has held the position of acting minister for eight months, he is ineligible for the position of minister.
However, South Berkeley members say they are certain they can find a good minister now that they will be offering a full time paid position made possible by a loan from the Northern California Conference of the United Church of Christ Churches. South Berkeley has used the loan to refurbish its two Victorian apartments located near the church and the rents they collect will go toward the minister's salary.
Epilogue
Eight months have gone by , and the apartments have been rented, but South Berkeley is now without a minister. The ministerial committee did not agree on a candidate before Finster's term expired at the end of December, so visiting ministers help keep the faith at South Berkeley for the small band that attends each Sunday. Yet parishioners of South Berkeley still sound confident. They have survived the integrationist 60's and the separatist 70's, declining membership and a series of ministers – they are convinced that South Berkeley can live out the dream of integration it pioneered almost forty years ago.
What are the futures of McGee and South Berkeley Churches? For McGee, the future seems to be bright, if not entirely clear. While the congregation seems reluctant to follow its pastor's interest in expanding the church's role as a center for its community, they will follow their spiritual leader.
For South Berkeley the future seems at best, unsure. Bedeviled by present doubts of its history as one of the West Coast's first integrated churches, its slowly fading membership, and its lack of a pastor, South Berkeley Church could soon become an empty house of God.