June 12, 2000

To build bridges, figure out where
you'll land, Miami pastor advises
___By Dan Martin
___Texas Baptist Communications
___GLORIETA, N.M.--If Christians plan to build bridges to their communities, they must know where the bridge is going to land, Bill White said.
___"We need to exegete our communities," White told participants in the National Innovative Church Leadership Conference at Glorieta Baptist Conference Center. "We need to correctly interpret our audience. If we are going to build a bridge, we need to know what

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is at the other end."
___White, a former Texas pastor, has served six and a half years as pastor of University Baptist Church in the Miami suburb of Coral Gables.
___If churches are to reach people effectively, leaders need to know about their communities, "what they look like, what their backgrounds are, what their religious preferences are."
___"Who is my neighbor?" is a necessary question, he said.
___Miami has 3.5 million people and is a multinational, multicultural, multilingual world-class city, with residents from 156 countries of origin, he said.
___"Fifty-seven percent are Hispanic, 20 percent are black, 23 percent are Anglo. There are more Jews in Miami--145,000 --than in Tel Aviv," he said.
___When the Southern Baptist Convention released statements about targeting Jews for evangelism, "it made our job harder," White said. "That did not build bridges.
___"If you are interested in catching fish, you don't throw a grenade into the lake before you put your line in," he added.
___Because of the nature of Miami, University Baptist Church is a church in transition, he explained. In the congregation are people from 50 countries of origin who speak 19 languages.
___"There is just about every religious background imaginable, from Hindu, Buddhist, Islam--all of the major world religions --to every New Age thing you can think of, Santeria with its animal sacrifices, to secularism and naturalism," he added.
___The congregation has studied the people and cultures around it and has structured its outreach and worship service to appeal to people of every nation and language and culture.
___The model worship service presented by University Baptist Church at the conference featured a blend of worship styles--salsa, liturgical dance, praise music, jazz, Caribbean-accented music and others.
___In his message, White likened the community of faith to a quilt and passed out snippets of cloth, which he invited worshippers to touch and see.
___"The Bible tells us we are God's workmanship, knitted together, sewn together. It is God who does the sewing in love. We are no longer spiritual scraps blowing in the breeze, but we are parts of a whole ... God's community ... a community of belonging."
___The vision of University Baptist Church is "to live out the gospel of Jesus Christ together in transformational community, changing lives, changing families and changing our world," White said.
___He listed the five priorities of the congregation:
___ Guiding to Christ, which includes building relationships with seekers, sharing a verbal witness and helping them commit to Christ and his church.
___ Gathering to worship, which is coming together with people of faith to experience who God is and what God does.
___ Growing in community, including participating in a small group for discipleship, mutual support, Bible study and prayer.
___ Giving in ministry, which means generously sharing spiritual gifts and financial resources.
___ Going on mission, extending the love of Christ through acts of compassion and sharing the gospel in Miami and beyond.
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