BLOG BY DAVE SEIVRIGHT – July 11, 2016
My specific calling from God (when I was in the UK in 1977) was to start a multi-ethic, multi-cultural, multi-national church in Miami, like the church at Antioch, described in the Biblical passages of Acts chapter 11 and Acts Chapter 13 verses 1-3. God spoke to me through these passages of Scripture to move to the USA, after studying for nearly three years in Switzerland and England. That is the ONLY reason I moved to the USA in 1979 with my wife and children. I started such a church while I was studying for my Master’s degree in Theology. At that time Westminster Theological Seminary had a campus in Miami for final year students who also had to do a two year internship at local churches.
I knew that God was very unhappy about the fact that the church in the USA was divided along ethic lines. This is NOT the Biblical model we see in the book of Acts in Antioch! The church I started was officially founded in 1982 when I graduated from Westminister and was ordained as the first pastor. Dr. J.I. Packer, who had been my professor and mentor at Trinity College, England, gave the sermon at this milestone occasion in my life. I was humbled. The new church was originally named International Communiity Church, to reflect the nature of the church which was multi-national, multi-racial, and multi-cultural. In fact, although the services were in English, we had to use German or French translators, when relatives from Europe of some of our members visited. Yet the core group of our church was Jamaican of all colors, with some young white American families, and some Europeans. When our church merged in 1987 with Immanuel Presbyterian Church, which was primarily white, the calling and vision which God had given me 10 years earlier was finally fulfilled. Now the multi-racial make up of the church attracted Hispanics, the fastest growing demographic group in Miami.
After the merger God gave me the freedom of leaving the pastorate and becoming an evangelist, mentor and disciple-maker of young professionals here in Miami, also in Germany, and around the world. My family and I, at the request of our children, decided to attend Key Biscayne Presbyterian church after the merger. The children liked Steve Brown, the senior pastor there. However when I would attend services at Immanuel I would sit in the back with tears in my eyes, because in only 10 years, God had completed and fulfilled what He called me to do. About 8 years ago, at my suggestion, Immanuel became associated with Redeemer Presbyterian Church of New York, where Tim Keller is Senior Pastor and the church changed its name to “CrossBridge Church”. We now attend CrossBridge and have a wonderful Brazilian Pastor of a church which is just like the church in Antioch. This multi-racial model became a catalyst, encouraging the other churches in Miami of our PCA denomination to follow. (The PCA – the “Presbyterian Church of America” is a Bible-Believing, evangelical denomination; this should not be confused with the Liberal PCUSA who have rejected the inerrancy of Scripture and even ordain practicing homosexual ministers).
In closing, I find it interesting that God has used both a Jamaican and a Brazilian as part of building a genuinely multiethnic church, because it is well known that even with all their faults, Jamaica and Brazil have stood out for many generations of having very low racial discrimination to the point of racial intermarriage, compared to most other countries of the world.
