St. Louis barbershop patrons inspire church plant

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By Tobin Perry 

ST. LOUIS – You can tell a lot about a community from the inside of a barbershop. Just about everyone, at some time or another, needs a haircut. The barber sees it all.

Yet of all the patrons of Sean and Taquella Boone’s beauty and barbershop in North County, St. Louis, one group stood out to the couple—young African-Americans who wanted no part in the traditional church. The Boones saw them every day. Most wouldn’t have felt comfortable in the aging churches nearby.

But they needed to hear about Jesus.

“There’s this huge generation of people who just have never heard the gospel in a language they can understand,” Sean Boone said.

So three years ago Boone started a church, New Beginnings Christian Fellowship, to reach people who no one else was reaching—the kind of people who frequented his barbershop. Now a North American Mission Board church planter, he is one of a handful of church planters, engaging metropolitan St. Louis with the gospel in new and fresh ways.

St. Louis Southern Baptists hope to see at least 75 new churches started in the next five years through Send North America: St. Louis.

Send North America is the North American Mission Board’s national strategy to mobilize and assist individuals and churches to get involved in hands-on church planting in 29 major cities and other areas throughout the continent. Through Send North America, NAMB will come alongside Southern Baptist churches that are not directly involved in

church planting and help connect them to a church plant. And NAMB will partner with Southern Baptist churches already planting churches to help them increase their efforts.

The Hazelwood, Mo., community that New Beginnings Christian Fellowship calls home has been in the midst of nearly constant change over the last seven years Boone has lived there. He estimates that in that time the African-American population of the city has grown from around 55 percent to more than 75 percent. Much of the African-American population increase has come with the relocation of those living in public housing to the area.

“We still have some Anglos in the community,” Boone said. “But they no longer are doing life with the African-Americans. Their kids no longer go to school with our kids—they’re either in private schools or home schooled. We’ve experienced ‘white flight’ in our area. For the most part, North County has become an urban environment.”

Boone believes the vast majority of the community doesn’t attend church—mostly because surrounding churches are speaking a different language and meeting a different set of spiritual needs.

“Established churches exist to meet the needs of established church people,” Boone said. “A person who has a history of attending church wants to see things done a certain way and wants to have programming that meets their spiritual needs. For the unchurched person, none of those things are important. In fact, most of those things are unattractive to the person because they’re seen as part of a system of religion.”

Boone came to St. Louis seven years ago to pastor a traditional church in the city. He soon realized he didn’t fit the mold of a traditional church pastor

“I was trying to be this professional clergyman, this established church pastor,” Boone said. “And it was costing me too much of my individuality to try to fit that mode.”

Now at New Beginnings Christian Fellowship, Boone has tried hard to make sure the church isn’t doing anything that unnecessarily stands in the way of guests hearing the gospel.

That includes changing a variety of terms for typical church activities. Instead of preaching a sermon, Boone teaches a lesson. Instead of having an altar call, he provides guests with a life-change opportunity. Guests won’t see the terms doxology or benediction either.

Boone loves to tell the stories of people once far from God who’ve connected to the church and turned their lives over to Christ in the process. For example, Boone worked every day with Reggie at the barbershop. After a painful experience at a church, Reggie began searching spiritually and eventually joined a cult. Reggie frequently talked and sometimes debated Scripture with Boone and eventually the two started studying the Bible together regularly.

“Through that, he was able to hear the gospel in his own heart language,” Boone said. “He responded to it, and he and his family decided to come and be a part of our church plant. Now several other family members have responded to the gospel just because the two of us had a conversation in the barber shop.”

Boone believes church plants can reach more and more guys like Reggie when they’re connected with strong partner churches. A partnership with Second Baptist Church in Springfield, Mo., has been particularly helpful for the growth of New Beginnings, which has 50 people in attendance most Sundays. Second Baptist has come to St. Louis and helped the church with a block party, door-to-door ministry and mail-outs.

Since most of the people at New Beginnings are new believers, Boone said many don’t fully understand their part in the church’s ministry. That’s why the partnership with Second Baptist has been so crucial.

“They’re not only helping us with their resources, but they’re giving our congregation an example of what it’s like to live on mission,” Boone said.

To find out more about how your church can be a part of Send North America: St. Louis, visit www.namb.net/stlouis. While there you can also view and download videos about the needs in St. Louis.

Tobin Perry is a writer for the North American Mission Board. 

• NAMB emphasizes church planting in ‘gateway city’ 
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• Send North America: St. Louis

Date Created: 1/23/2012 2:10:51 PM