When Cornerstone needed a building, the SBC helped the church get a loan. “The church was started with three families who had a burden for the community, and now runs around 350 members before COVID-19 hit,” he said. Yet financial ties to their denominations make it complicated to leave.įrom the beginning, the congregation hoped to meet the spiritual needs of the community but also physical, emotional, and mental needs.

More than half of new congregations started by the SBC’s North American Mission Board are diverse, according to an agency spokesman.īut the nation’s current political climate and national divides on matters of race may make it difficult for pastors like Onwuchekwa to ever feel truly at home. In recent years, evangelical groups have invested heavily in helping start congregations among communities of color, hoping to reach new people at a time when the United States is becoming more ethnically diverse. “But I feel like they’ve failed people like me.”

“The SBC liked me,” he wrote, in announcing his decision to leave. Last week, concerned about support for President Donald Trump among Southern Baptists and a lack of urgency in dealing with racial inequality, the pastor and his congregation decided it was time to leave. Onwuchekwa was part of the family and destined for great things. He attended a Southern Baptist seminary, spoke at the convention’s national pastors conference, was befriended by SBC leaders, started a new SBC church in the west end of Atlanta, and helped recruit other black pastors to do likewise.

For years, John Onwuchekwa was a rising star in the Southern Baptist Convention.

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