It all began as a friendship. Kenny King, pastor of Smith Chapel in Sikeston with a black congregation, and William Marshall of Trinity Baptist with a white congregation struck up a friendship after a Fields of Faith event in October of 2017. The two pastors began meeting for lunch and talking about their beliefs and their views on the word of God.
Now, the two churches have merged, bringing together black and white at the newly named Grace Bible Fellowship.
The thought of merging the two churches wasn’t even on the radar when Marshall heard King speak at Fields of Faith in 2017.
“I’ve been here for about 14 years and always been looking for a like-minded brother,” Marshall said. “At Fields of Faith he was up there preaching, and I was like ‘I need to know this guy.’ I think I messaged him through Facebook.”
The two started meeting for lunch and talked about their ministries and encouraging each other.
“We realized that we had similar views as far as the word of God and our beliefs,” King said. “We had a similar passion for racial reconciliation, especially within the church. William had been doing some ministry down on the West End, and I came back to Sikeston with the same idea of racial reconciliation.”
What began as conversations over barbecue progressed to visiting the other’s church. King preached at Trinity Baptist while Marshall took to the pulpit at Smith Chapel. Both realized they enjoyed it, and the congregations seemed to like it as well. After doing it again earlier this year, the conversation began to switch to what it could be in the long-term.
“My church was kind of in transition, and his was trying to figure out the next step,” King said. “We were healthy; we were trying to figure out what’s next. So he had the crazy idea of looking into merging the churches.”
Both King and Marshall started talking to their congregations about the merger and didn’t receive any push back.
“Everybody was kind of excited about it, and here we go,” King said.
Both churches voted individually to merge Sept. 8. The first service as one congregation was Sept. 15, and the transition has been a smooth one so far. The charter members of the church, numbering 85, voted Sunday to name the church Grace Bible Fellowship.
Marshall said one of the reasons for the smooth transition is that neither of the churches was in a position where they needed to close their doors.
“I think some people might view this as an act of desperation,” Marshall said. “Two churches are not going to survive, and so they have to come together, but that wasn’t the situation. Both churches were in a healthy situation, and we were able to avoid some pitfalls because of that.”
“I think they were able to not focus on the desperation but focus on the vision,” King said. “This is something God is calling us to do. Focus on the positive and not the negative.”
While the transition has been smooth so far, both realize there may be some pitfalls in the future.“We understand there are going to be some problems, issues that will arise but we want to lean into that,” King said. “The reason why grace is in the name is we’ve been shown grace by God, but we also want to give grace to each other. We want to lead with grace. We want to think the best about people and give people the benefit of the doubt instead of letting these issues divide us.”
Both King and Marshall will share the leadership with each leading the congregation at different times.
“It probably won’t be this Sunday you preach and next Sunday I preach,” Marshall said. “We’ll look down and look at the text; both of us are committed to preaching through books of the Bible, and we want to have a plan. We don’t want to plan just week-to-week, we want to have a good, long-range plan.”
Services are at at the former Trinity Baptist building at 1506 N. Main St. while the former Smith Chapel, now named Grace Community Center, will be used to serve the community.
Marshall said he wasn’t sure what the use for all of the building was going to be at this point, but he would love to see after-school programs, community dinners, and bible studies.
One way they are trying to decide how to best serve the West End is by taking community surveys.
“We went door-to-door last Wednesday night, really just asking the question how can we use (the building) to serve this community,” Marshall said. “We got some great responses. A lot of it is focused on children, finding ways to serve the kids. We love that idea. That’s exciting.”
While the two churches have merged, King said there hadn’t been any compromise in what they believe about the Gospel and the word of God.
“This happens because of the gospel. Not because we are going to sacrifice it on the altar of unity,” King said. “Unity is an implication of the gospel; it flows from the gospel. It isn’t necessarily the gospel.”
Moving forward, the pastors hope that the gospel will continue to unify not just their congregation, but the community as well.
“We realize this community has a history of segregation, of racial strife so to speak,” King said. “We believe that Jesus has promised, as we show our unity in truth, not just a superficial unity, but a unity in truth that the world will catch that vision as well. They will say ‘we are better together,’ and that the gospel of Jesus Christ has the power to keep us together and not keep us separated.”
“It is the good news of Jesus that brought us together,” Marshall said. “We believe the gospel has the power not just to transform the church, but the gospel has the power to transform the entire community and not just our community. We want people to see that and have hope in that.”
(Story used by permission of David Jenkins, Sikeston Standard Democrat)