ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI: GATHERING IN FAITH BUT NOT TOO CLOSE

CHURCH PLANTERS BRING ETHNIC CONGREGATIONS INTO A CITY'S WHITE, ESTABLISHED CHURCHES, THOUGH NOT QUITE INTO THE FOLD

Sunday morning at St. Louis' Kingshighway Baptist Church could pass for a slow day at a retirement-home chapel. The dwindling flock is a sea of white hair and bald heads. And the service, which kicks off with prayers for a colon-cancer victim, is heavy with talk of illness and grandchildren. But as a grandfather of 10 gets up to testify, an unexpectedly joyful noise seeps through the floorboards--the sounds of salsa-inflected guitars and tambourines. The musicians, practicing in a basement fellowship room, belong to a fast-growing young Latino Baptist congregation that has shared Kingshighway's building for the past two years. After...

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