Sutton Wirt, the oldest son of the pastor, stuck his head into the sanctuary of Burkeville Baptist Church and exclaimed: “There's more people in there than I've ever seen at church.” He was referring to the gathering of two congregations, Burkeville and their guest, First Nottoway Baptist Church.
The two congregations brought blacks and whites together in the Southside Virginia county of Nottoway. The occasion on a Sunday last month was Burkeville Church's 135th anniversary. The two congregations also were learning that it does not require a special once-in-a-blue-moon occasion for the churches to assemble together. The two, led by their pastors, already are building relationships.
About a year ago, Kevin Wirt, pastor of Burkeville Church, was talking on the telephone with Robert Easter, pastor of First Nottoway Church. Wirt was telling the African-American minister about Almshouse, an inter-denominational social ministry in the Burkeville area which distributes food. “Bob surprised me,” recalls Wirt, “when he asked if I would speak for his church's 176th anniversary and he also invited our choir to sing.” The African-American church is four decades older than the Burkeville church. First Nottoway dates to 1831.
Wirt's anniversary message was scheduled for a Sunday afternoon. A deacon substituted in the Burkeville pulpit in the morning so that, in the pastor's own words, he would be “all primed up for the preaching” in the afternoon. “We had a wonderful time,” remembers Wirt, “and a lot of the Burkeville members attended.” First Nottoway had prepared lunch for their guests.
And there have been other opportunities to come together. A community-wide Thanksgiving service was held at Ward's Chapel, a Methodist church which has an historical connection with First Nottoway and Robert Easter was the speaker. A community-wide Lenten service held at the Burkeville Church also featured Pastor Easter as the speaker. On Easter morning, First Nottoway held a sunrise service and served breakfast. Several from the Burkeville church attended. Some members of both congregations again were present.
At the Burkeville Church's anniversary, the youth of Burkeville Church stood along the street and in the church's parking lot to greet their guests. At the doors of the church, older adults “put their guests to home.” In the worship service, the First Nottoway choir presented several selections; and the Burkeville Church served lunch in their spacious new fellowship hall. Pastor Wirt kept hearing members of his church saying, “We know a lot of the people from First Nottoway. We have known them all of our lives yet we have never worshipped together, never been in each other's churches and the gatherings have been a wonderful thing.”
Kevin Wirt credits one of his predecessors, Clyde Shelton, as well as a local African-American pastor and educator, Macio Hill, for establishing good race relations in the Southside area and for paving the way for easy exchanges between the churches. These leaders have been active in the Crewe-Burkeville Ministerial Association.
Kevin Wirt and Robert Easter have something besides friendliness and openness in common. They also are serving in their first pastorates and came to the Southside churches at about the same time. Easter is bi-vocational. He also is a professional architect in a Richmond firm.
Burkeville occupies one square mile with the railroad tracks running down the middle. From the Burkeville Baptist Church one can hear the squeaking and bumping of the freight cars as they rumble through town. First Nottoway Church is located a few miles east of town along Highway 360. Both churches occupy attractive brick buildings which are large enough to accommodate a guest congregation. Both congregations exhibit hearts and minds large enough to invite another congregation. Both groups of people have hands that reach out to clasp neighbors' hands and express welcome.
This columnist was the speaker for the Burkeville anniversary. Dressed in costume as William E. Hatcher, the noted 19th-century Baptist minister, he referred to another inter-racial relationship of long ago. Hatcher, then pastor of Grace Street Baptist Church in Richmond, used to take his deacons to visit Sixth Mt. Zion Baptist Church, where the famous John Jasper was the preacher. Hatcher studied the life of the black preacher and wrote his biography, thus boosting Jasper's reputation to a larger audience.
When it came time in the message to talk about Baptist distinctives and principles, this columnist quoted not from notable Baptist divines of the distant past or from oft-quoted Baptist books. He lifted his remarks from the very words of black Baptists spoken in Nottoway over a century earlier. (Look back to this column in the Religious Herald of April 17 for the message from the past.) The most powerful message of the day was the one unspoken. It was the testimony of blacks and whites, all Baptists, building relationships together.
Fred Anderson is executive director of the Virginia Baptist Historical Society and the Center for Baptist Heritage and Studies. He may be contacted at [email protected] or at P.O. Box 34, University of Richmond, VA 23173.