SPEEDWAY,

from Summer 2023 fellowship! magazine

Staying Power

Speedway Baptist Church was founded in 1956 as a Southern Baptist transplant congregation. In the 1980s, Speedway Baptist started to recognize the important role women played in their congregation. They began ordaining women as deacons. Around 1986, they ordained their first female clergy member and found themselves in proverbial exile from their denomination. Searching for a place to belong, in 1990, Nikki Schofield, a law librarian, read about a group of disenfranchised Baptists gathering in Atlanta. Speedway had found its home as one of the early churches to join the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship.

When current pastor Mark McClintock began conversations with Speedway, it was experiencing an existential crisis. The community around it was rapidly changing. Uncertainty loomed in the congregation. Are we going to wither away trying to stay the same? Will we move to the suburbs to follow the demographic of people that once comprised our congregation? Or will we allow God to reshape us to be the church for this neighborhood?

McClintock was captivated by what the Spirit of God was doing in the congregation. “I was raised to celebrate the uniqueness that people bring wherever they’re from and the fact that I can learn from others—no matter where they’re from.” Since McClintock arrived at Speedway in July 2017, the congregation has changed from being 95 percent white to a 50 percent international congregation.

“We’ve had people from the Philippines, Ivory Coast, East Africa as well as refugees from West Africa (Democratic Republic of Congo), Central America, Jamaica and Haiti. Most families here have come from Nigeria where there is a Southern Baptist seminary,” McClintock explained. “When they moved into the community, they saw the sign and found their way to the church. Here, they found people opening their hearts and minds to whoever came through the doors.”

Becoming a global congregation has demanded changes in how Speedway approaches fellowship and worship. “We started using nametags and practicing Yoruba vowel shapes so that learning names won’t be a barrier,” McClintock chuckled. “We are learning how to incorporate different worship styles into our worship—especially in how we now take the offering.”

During the pandemic, Speedway placed its offering plates on pedestals in the back of the room. As in-person worship began to resume, McClintock asked some international deacons, “How would you take the offering?” He learned that in Benin, Africa, it is traditional for the offering to be a celebration. “So, we put the offering plates down front and used a variety of music; everyone is invited to bring their offering as a gift and a celebration,” McClintock explained.

Perhaps the most visible image of how this multi-national congregation is woven together is Sunday mornings during children’s time. “One thing that made an impression on folks early on,” McClintock recalls, “was when they would see children from all parts of the world coming down front and sitting together on the steps. When you speak with children, you take ethereal theology and make it concrete for them.” The result? The congregants whose native language is not English began to understand the Scripture and where the sermon originated. They began to see the vision for God re-shaping Speedway Baptist Church in the faces of children. This congregation that once faced an uncertain future is now enjoying the movement of the Holy Spirit as they are woven together into a beautiful, global tapestry depicting the body of Christ— inclusive of all nations.

“All the children of the world” help lead worship at Speedway Baptist Church. Some speak two or more languages and some are refugees. All are welcome. The congregation is made up of members from the Philippines, Nigeria, Ivory Coast, East Africa as well as refugees from West Africa, Central America, Jamaica and Haiti.