On a Sunday morning in Midtown Mobile, the pews at All Saints Episcopal Church were fuller than usual. Members of the predominantly white congregation were joined by worshippers from Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church, a predominantly Black church, for a shared service that has become the centerpiece of an unusual and growing friendship between the two parishes.
The partnership began, by the pastors’ account, with a single sign. The Rev. Trevor Woolridge, pastor of Bethel AME, said he noticed a Black Lives Matter sign outside All Saints and stopped to connect with the church’s rector, Jim Flowers. That conversation grew into a relationship that has carried the two congregations from joint worship into cooperation on practical civic matters, including Mobile city council redistricting.
Common Ground
For Woolridge, working across racial lines is not optional for a faithful congregation.
“To ignore problems and to fail to respond to these needs is to be disobedient to the Word and the will of God,” he said during the joint service. “Jesus never shied away from the difficult subject matters.”
Flowers, All Saints’ rector, said the differences between the two congregations’ styles of worship are small next to what unites them.
“A recognition of our common humanity, that we have the same hopes and dreams, we have the same problems,” Flowers said.
The two churches say they plan to keep gathering, pairing their distinct worship traditions with a shared commitment to addressing racial issues in the city they both call home.