Posted: March 17th, 2010 Greg Lacour

In any Crossroads Charlotte endeavor, dialogue is great, but it’s only the first step.

For the past two months, Crossroads has organized Xchange Sermons, in which 31 houses of worship have exchanged pulpits to try to bridge gaps among faiths and congregations. It’s led to some passing of knowledge and understanding, and some new friendships. Now, of course, comes the hard part: How do you translate the talk and trust into tangible action?

On March 16, Crossroads hosted “Building Trust Across the Faith Community,” a forum at Park Road Baptist Church designed to get participants talking about next steps – how they might work on projects in the community to build on the foundation of trust.

The organization doesn’t expect miracles, and it doesn’t think seeds of trust can automatically grow into a forest overnight. But the hope, consultant Brian Foreman told the group, is that such projects can “slowly break down barriers” and keep afloat “honest dialogue that leads to real change.”

The roughly 50 people at the forum broke into groups and brainstormed general ideas. First Christian Church in Dilworth has learned that you have to “be the model” of what you want to see, echoing Gandhi; it opened a twice-a-week soup kitchen that’s linked it to the community like never before, said Pastor Jolin McElroy.

The Revs. Reneé Leboa and Christy Snow of The Spiritual Living Center of Charlotte suggested they reach out especially to people embittered toward all religions and their opposites, Evangelical Christians. This would be tough. The SLC is an extra-denominational gathering place based on the Science of Mind philosophy.

“That whole, ‘Heaven and hell is a state of consciousness’ thing,” Snow remarked, “doesn’t go over so well with a lot of conservative Christians.”

If the group needed any examples of what they might do next, Crossroads provided a couple: Mecklenburg Ministries’ Youth Leadership Council and the Hyaets Community.

The YLC introduces diverse high school students to the disadvantaged by having them volunteer at organizations such as Crisis Assistance Ministry and Second Harvest Food Bank.

Andrew Tait, a junior at South Mecklenburg High, said he once made “Japanese eyes” as a joke in middle school when discussing World War II in class. No more. “I came to understand that humans are essentially the same,” he said. “So that’s what I want to do: break down walls in my lifetime.”

The Hyaets Community is an urban ministry that occupies three houses in the at-risk Enderly Park community, one of Charlotte’s worst. It’s made up of former seminary students who, said co-founder Jason Williams, wanted “to live our faith in a radical way.” Members don’t just use the houses during the day. They live there.

“I can’t go home and escape from these differences,” Williams said. The point of service and eroding differences between communities, he said, is that it’s done “not just when we want, but often when we don’t want it.”

What do you think about the Xchange Sermons?

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