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Pastors: Joint Fellowship Reaps Rich Benefits
CARROLLTON, TX (January 20, 2004) - Two Covenant churches near Dallas have made
the most of one building in recent years and have grown to become close
friends in the process.
An Anglo congregation, Redeemer Evangelical Covenant Church, agreed to
allow Bethel Bible Fellowship, a predominantly African American Covenant
church, to use their facilities on Sundays and for events at other times
during the week. Bethel, under pastor Terry Woodson, recently found its own
church building to occupy. But the goodwill between the congregations has
given Redeemer's pastor Roland Boyce confidence that the positive
relationship will continue.
On December 31, the two congregations worshiped together at Bethel's new
church for New Year's Eve. Previously, the congregations had combined for a
post-9/11 service, a School of Prayer event in August 2002 and other
seasonal services. Youth groups and Sunday school have been held together,
combined choirs have been used for services and Redeemer's city
recreational basketball team had players from both churches on the same
roster.
"It's been a good and growing relationship," says Boyce, who has been
pastor at Redeemer for two years. I think one of the values of this is to
the community itself. They've seen these churches work collaboratively and
they don't see that often. Two other fellowships have inquired about using
the facility."
Redeemer was founded by pastor Larry Sherman in 1987 and now has about 200
in average worship attendance. Boyce said that Bethel's previous pastor,
Willie Peterson, had inquired about using Redeemer's building more than two
years ago after Bethel decided it could not afford the high rental rates
for the church's previous worship site. Bethel had forged a relationship
with the Covenant through the work of Midsouth Conference Supt. Garth
Bolinder, among others.
Bethel hosted worship services at 8 a.m. on Sundays and Redeemer had its
worship service at 10:45 a.m. A third congregation - Korean Good Shepherd
Presbyterian Church - worshipped at 2 p.m. They began using Redeemer's
facility eight years ago.
To be sure, the Bethel and Redeemer congregations had adjustments to make
in combining two distinct ways of doing occasional combined worship, the
pastors note. However, Boyce has enjoyed building relationships with
Peterson and with Woodson, who also serves as president of the Union
Evangelical Mission while he ministers at Bethel. That has extended to the
congregations at large. Boyce describes Woodson as "an affable and
approachable person" and "the perfect person for this hour of their
ministry."
"Our cultures, both ethnically and ecclesiastically, are completely
different," Boyce said. "But we learned to appreciate and accommodate their
(style of) worship and it was certainly mutual. And we learned something
from them - they brought another dimension.
"It was just like a family," Boyce continued as he recalled the New Year's
Eve service. "And we would like to think that both congregations are
strengthened by the (overall) experience. When you've got another
congregation using your facility, you need to learn to dance gracefully.
But because of this experience, I think this church will be a multiple
congregation church (in its building) for the rest of our time here."
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