Looking for North Carolina License Plates North of the Mason-Dixon Line
Part Three of Stories as Told to or Experienced by George Bullard
Burtt was driving his Volkswagen Beetle along a main street in downtown Philadelphia. He spotted a car with a North Carolina license plate. He jerked his car over into the middle turning lane. Stopped and got out of the car.
His alarmed passenger said, “What are you doing? Where are you going?”
As he left the car Burtt shouted, “That car has a North Carolina tag. I am going to chase him down to see if he is Baptist. I have one out five chances.”
This was not the only time Burtt did this in his first couple years as the city missionary for Southern Baptists in Philadelphia. He did it many times.
Amazingly he often found transplanted Southern Baptists. Not many were interested in connecting with a Southern Baptist church. Some were.
Early Ministry Focus
This speaks to the first stage of strategy used in a place like Philadelphia. Find transplanted Southern Baptists who know the SBC way of doing church, the secret handshake, the code language of Zion, and build a church around them.
That was certainly not the only strategy, but it was an early focus for the first decade or so.
It worked great in a couple of places in New Jersey across the river from Philadelphia where there were two large military bases. Several churches launched and numerically grew significantly near these installations. Military families with an SBC background populated these churches.
The churches knew they would only have the families for three years or so. No more. The Vietnam War dominated the military’s focus in the 1960s and into the 1970s. One church had all its officers and leaders set for the coming year. Then 60 percent of them got orders to move to another location or into the war theater.
Family Ministry
A key focus on church ministry for churches was to help spouses and children. They experienced cultural shock in moving from southern states to northern states.
The primary working spouse had their work career that kept them focused. The other spouse and children did not. This made families very open to an SBC church as it provided familiar social and cultural experiences.
It was not unusual to find that gatherings of female spouses were important mental health gatherings. Their emotions had to be addressed before their spiritual journey could be enhanced. Some never adjusted.
Their children also discovered radically different life experiences in school and elsewhere in this larger metropolitan area than they experienced in small towns to medium-size metros in southern states.
Resistance From Other Churches
The assertive missional engagement of Southern Baptists was not always well received by existing churches and mainline denominations north of the Mason-Dixon line.
A mainline magazine wrote an editorial about the Southern Baptist invasion into northern states. The editorial suggested that what was coming north was not the best of Southern Baptists, but the worst.
The editor was invited to come to a missions week at one of the SBC national conference centers to learn more about what Southern Baptists were doing in the north.
After his weeklong visit and conversations with many people, he wrote a different editorial that affirmed what Southern Baptists were doing. At least for the most part.
In the late 1960s many mainline Protestant churches north of the Mason-Dixon Line were plateaued or declining. The fear was that the assertiveness of the SBC would capture members who would otherwise attend mainline churches.
This was partially true. Any new missional effort is likely to attract people looking for something fresh and new. However, during this first main strategy stage not a lot of that was happening.
What did happen was Southern Baptists were able to purchase or assume buildings that once housed mainline Protestant churches that died. New churches were regularly planted in these facilities.
The SBC church plants saw the emerging opportunities in the communities whereas the former churches saw the community that was lost. Some of this especially happened when American Baptist churches died, and a new SBC church came into the same community context.
I always thought southern states needed northern denominations to come south and plant new churches in communities were SBC churches were dying. SBC churches in southern states also saw the old communities and not the new emerging ones.
Next: We Don’t Want Those Snake Handlers in our Neighborhood!
Part One Post: Reflections on Southern Baptist Missions Efforts North of the Mason-Dixon Line
Part Two Post: Starting Churches in Motel Bedrooms North of the Mason-Dixon Line
George, sounds familiar except our southern migration was for jobs in the auto industry, primarily (my dad was a carpenter in the housing industry). The difference between the military bases in NJ and the auto industry in MI is the autoworkers stayed for 25-30 years for their pensions before they entertained thoughts of returning “home.” Many did, some came back because things down there had changed. Others, like my folks, stayed in MI for the rest of their lives.
George, I remember these experiences well, from my ministry in the early 70s in Western New York. Hey, I remember doing it once or twice myself! Great series. Brings back lots of memories!