Posted: January 22nd, 2010 Ken Garfield

Exchanging pulpits is fine on Sunday, two of the pastors participating in the Xchange Sermons believe. But it’s not nearly fine enough, they share, in a society in which fear and false assumptions can only be shattered by one thing.

“Building relationships,” says the Rev. Donnie Garris of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church.

This Sunday (Jan. 24), Garris (right) will take another step in that direction as he preaches at 11 a.m. at predominantly white Sardis Baptist Church. At 10 a.m. that same morning, the Rev. Tim Moore of Sardis Baptist will command the pulpit at Garris’ African American congregation in the Grier Heights community off Randolph Road.

Garris, who has been preaching reconciliation to his 900-member congregation for 13 years, says he’ll pose a question Sunday – Am I My Brother’s Keeper? – and then answer it.

"I’m going to answer it in the affirmative. Yes we are,” he says, insisting that the only way to defeat ignorance is by getting to know each other, caring for each other, understanding that we share the same hopes and heartbreaks whatever our religion, race, class or culture.

Garris’ congregation enjoys a continuing relationship not just with Sardis Baptist cross-town, but also with Myers Park Presbyterian Church, another white congregation doing its part to nudge the city closer together.

Moore (at right) has devoted his life to the same cause.

Pastor of the 135-member church for 15 of its 21 years, he has helped nurture Sardis Baptist’s friendship with Antioch Missionary Baptist. The Sardis Road church belongs to the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and Alliance of Baptists, considered a refuge for Baptist congregations that wearied of the more politically conservative Southern Baptist Convention. Moore serves as co-chair of the Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools Interfaith Advisory Council, which works to encourage congregations to get more involved in helping students and teachers through tutoring, school supply drives and more. Proving, even on a personal level, that no challenge is too great, he cut his work hours in half to spend more time at home with wife Magay’s and his prides and joys: Eleven-year-old triplets Abby, Hannah and Michael.

The title of the sermon that Moore will preach at 10 a.m. Sunday (Jan. 24) at Antioch sums up his view of the state of reconciliation: "Good News Doesn’t Make Everybody Happy." It’s easy, he says, to preach about the beauty of coming together despite our differences. But then we look around in Charlotte and see that the public schools are re-segregating. Neighborhoods are still largely white or largely black. And no matter what the pastor preaches on Sunday, changing a way of life is a challenge.

As Moore says – and will continue to say as he joins Garris and others in pushing the cause – “The tricky part comes in living it out.”

Says Garris: “Let the Xchange Sermons be the beginning. Let it not be Sunday only.”

Ken Garfield, former religion editor of The Observer, is director of communications at Myers Park United Methodist Church. He often writes on faith and values for Charlotte Magazine and other forums, and will be profiling clergy participating in the Xchange Sermons.

Click here for a schedule of the exchanges and for more information on the faith leaders who are participating.

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