 Third Baptist Church is in St. Louis’ Grand Center district, which boasts 12,000 theater seats, 12 galleries and museums and more than 1,500 cultural events each year. |
Third Baptist is a place of diversity. On any given Sunday, the congregation includes everyone from the homeless to millionaires, a variety of colors and ages. “It’s not something we advertise or try to be,” Pastor Warren Hoffman said. “It’s just who we are.”
The church has stood on the corner of Grand and Washington boulevards for nearly 125 years, and has been a part of St. Louis for nearly 160 years. When it first moved to its current location the church was on the far west end of town, said Leslie Limbaugh, minister of students and communication.
Since that time, the church has watched the demographics of the neighborhood change several times. They included the bustling days of 1920 to 1950, when streetcars passed the church, which grew to over 6,000 under the pastorate of C. Oscar Johnson; to the decline of the area, when many St. Louisans flocked to the suburbs; to the rebirth of the district as an arts mecca in recent years.
In the midst of decline, the church received an offer of land in the suburbs but voted to remain in the city. “We suffered with the city as it bled,” Hoffman said.
The church’s history of commitment to the city influences what it is today. “It’s in the DNA of this congregation; there is more elasticity,” Hoffman said.
Today, Grand Center’s boosters describe the neighborhood as “a playground for the senses, full of exotic sights, amazing sounds, tantalizing smells and tastes and overwhelming feelings. We are the center of all that feeds the mind, body and soul.”
| {youtube}NpcHkRcgcbw{/youtube} |
Third Baptist believes their role at Grand and Washington is to be a good neighbor, providing the “fragrance of Christ” in the neighborhood.
To accomplish that role, the church practices hospitality. “We want people to feel welcome here, no matter their station in life. We want to be a safe and worshipful place,” Limbaugh said.
This means that members and visitors don’t stress about what to wear, what is put in the offering plate or what others pay for supper.
There is no “looking over the shoulder of self-righteousness,” Hoffman said. “After four or five years ago,” when the church was in survival mode after years of decline, he said, “we don’t have the luxury of that.”
If an individual or family can’t pay for Wednesday night dinner or a church activity, a wink or nod from the pastoral staff will signal their ability to participate.
“We don’t make a big deal out of it, but we make it [participation] happen,” Limbaugh said. “We work to make sure everyone feels included and engaged. I’m sure it doesn’t always work, but most of the time we are successful.”
Limbaugh said she likes the fact that the lines and tables during Wednesday-night suppers display the church’s diversity. “This is what God’s kingdom will look like,” she said.
Hospitality isn’t limited to people attending church functions, however. Church staff members partner with Grand Center and other community organizations to keep a finger on the pulse of the neighborhood.
“When we hear of somebody else doing something, we ask ‘couldn’t we walk alongside and do this?’ Or, ‘could we piggyback on this event and do that?’” she said.
The church offers their building for community events — sometimes as a concert venue or art space, other times as a place for dance troupes to change clothes. “We have a big space on prime real estate,” Limbaugh said. The neighborhood “looks for venues for events, and sometimes we can provide that.”
During these events, volunteers from the church act as greeters as well as security, crowd-control and concession workers.
 Senior Pastor Warren Hoffman |
“We are still a missional place,” he said. “We see the call to serve right around us, not just to send dollars to others to do it for us.”
The church is home to a tutoring program, staffed mainly by local college students. Third has also served as a host for the local elementary school’s summer-school program. This past summer, the church offered to provide an hour of arts education for each day of summer school. Third utilized its connections in the neighborhood to introduce various forms of music, performance and visual arts.
Hoffman invited the school principal to participate in the Sunday worship service on several occasions, to emphasize the church’s commitment to the school. Recently, the principal came forward to join the church. “That was totally unexpected,” Hoffman said.
With the variety of programs and partnerships with neighbors, “the building is well-used again,” said Hoffman. The church was able to re-open an entire wing of the facility that had been closed due to lack of use. But now, the pastor said, “We need the space.”
Last year, for the first time in decades, Third gained more members than it lost. “We knew the church had reached a turn-around, but this was a demonstrative display,” Hoffman said. While he has no “grandiose vision of thousands” in worship, he believes the church will continue to grow.
Both Limbaugh and Hoffman agreed Third Baptist is what it is today because the church stays true to who it is.
In worship, that means being a “different type of contemporary.” Praise and worship songs may not find a home in the service, but the church pulls from contemporary traditions such as Taizé and jazz. The sanctuary features a full pipe organ, and once a month the pastors wear clerical robes.
“I don’t preach from the Lectionary, but we do follow the church calendar,” Hoffman said, quick to note that they aren’t tied to any particular liturgical trappings.
“We are still Baptists,” he said. “We are free to do it [wear robes and follow the traditional Christian calendar], and we are free not to.”
“The niche is smaller, but you have to be who you are,” he said.
Limbaugh said the church really is blessed to have the facility that past generations built and maintained. “We are able to say: ‘We have this building. What can we do here?’”
“This is who we are and where we are,” she said. “And we’re having fun.”
“People know where they are loved,” Hoffman added. “There is an oasis, a family here. It’s hard to describe, but it feels good; it feels right.”
-30-
Jennifer Harris is a news writer for the Missouri Baptist Word & Way.
Related ABP stories:
Upsurge of urban ‘creative class’ poses challenges to evangelicals (2/23)
Churches respond to challenge of new urban ‘creative class’ (2/23)