How can your congregation bridge tradition with new ideas for ministry? In this episode we speak with Ronald Slaughter, pastor of St. James AME church, who shares how he maintains important traditions while still innovating.

Transcript

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How can your congregation bridge tradition with new ideas for ministry? In this episode we speak with Ronald Slaughter, pastor of St. James AME church, who shares how he maintains important traditions while still innovating.

Doug Powe: Welcome to Leading Ideas Talks, a podcast featuring thought leaders and innovative practitioners. I’m Douglas Powe, the director of the Lewis Center and your host for this talk. Joining me is Rev. Dr. Ronald Slaughter, senior pastor of St. James AME church in Newark, NJ. Our focus for this podcast is balancing tradition and innovation. Ron, we’re happy you’re going to be joining us today. I want to start by having you share with us a brief history of St. James AME church.

Ronald Slaughter: Well thank you so much Dr. Powe. Thank you for this opportunity to be a part of this podcast. St. James was birthed 179 years ago. It was actually, originally, Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church led by Rev. C. Birch. But then, later on, Bethel was disbanded. A few years after that and St. James was birthed at that time. St. James has been in the city of Newark. It was started on Green Street and then it moved to 94 Union St. But what’s significant about our history is that in 1945, St. James moved to its present location here in the central ward, the heart of the city of Newark, NJ. It moved here by purchasing, in 1945 get this, a group of African Americans — it was a nice-sized church, even back then — under the leadership of Dr. Mansfield Jackson, purchased this present building which was known as the Gothic Cathedral. It was owned, at that time, by First Presbyterian Church, or the Presbyterian denomination who sold the building for $35,000. A group of blacks purchased the building for cash in 1945. We’re talking about economics back then, was able to purchase this building for cash back in 1945. And so, we purchased the Gothic Cathedral back then. I have now become, and I am the 50th pastor of St. James church in 179 years. I am also the youngest pastor to lead St. James AME church. What a beautiful family that God has allowed me to be the under-shepherd of these past 9 years.

Doug Powe: Thank you for that brief history of the church. Let’s jump into our conversation. Under you, you’ve been working hard to, you’ve been talking about tradition. So, can you share a little bit about how you have determined what traditions were important to maintain at the church and then what traditions were important to change. The basis of the question, of course, is, many of our congregations struggle because they want to maintain tradition, but those traditions often lead to them declining. But at the same time, we don’t want to throw out the baby with the bath water, because tradition, of course, is important. So how have you figured out how to maintain some traditions but also then, how to change others so the church can move forward?

Ronald Slaughter: I think, Dr. Powe, I must first give credit to my predecessor. My predecessor who, of course, is 30 years older than me, had pastored this church, the longest serving pastor with 27 years, Dr. William D. Watley, in doing that 27 years, he was able to do some things that I don’t think a you