Salvaging a Sinking Ship
Suzan D. Johnson Cook
It is my job as lookout on the wall to scan for the signs that give clues to what my people need.
—Suzan D. Johnson Cook Mariners' Temple was, by all definitions, a dying church. People, playing with the name, referred to it as "a sinking ship." The congregation had dwindled to fifteen members in a facility that holds more than a thousand, so it took some unusual circumstances to bring me there as pastor. During my last semester in seminary, I was working part-time in our local denominational office. I learned about a vacancy in a church in Chinatown on the Lower East Side of New York, the Mariners' Temple Baptist Church. The only contact I had had with this community was my childhood trips to Mott Street for an authentic Chinese meal. And in January I had preached for Mariners's pastor when he was on vacation. Now that pastor had decided to resign, and the last voice from the pulpit the congregation remembered was mine. They inquired if I would serve as their interim pastor. The Sinking Ship
The ancient Mariners' must have been some place. It is the oldest Baptist church in Manhattan, a once-grand congregation that formed to serve the seafaring crowd and thrived for decades. But now, it seemed, I was being sent for the final benediction. "At least," some said, "it will give you an opportunity to pastor a church," no matter how brief. The rumor in denominational circles was that the congregation could not sustain itself. It was six thousand dollars in the red, and its credit rating was horrible. Action was imminent to dissolve the church. Without extensive repairs, the grand building was about ready to fall down on the members' heads. Can these bones live? I wondered as I wandered the facility my first day. But I made up my mind ...
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