On this November night, a taste of that vision was on display, as kids from different backgrounds joined together in sincere, Christian fellowship and reverent, joyful, Christ-centered worship.

The schedule said things were supposed to start at 8:45, but this was an event for college students after all. Students started congregating sometime after 8, but the full complement this evening would continue to trickle in well after 9:00. A spirited time of announcements included an invitation to go see the new Harry Potter movie on Thursday and a word about the upcoming Missions Conference. Announcements gave way to music, followed by a sermon, and then snacks. Typical Reformed University Fellowship large group meeting.

Or was it? Hosted on November 16 in the Student Center on the campus of Belhaven University, it had all the trappings of RUF – food, exposition, fellowship – and yet, to the casual observer, there were clearly differences in the context of the familiar. On this night, the Student Center played host to the large group fellowships from Belhaven University, a historic Presbyterian liberal arts institution, and Jackson State University, a historically black college.

This wasn’t the first time these two groups had met. For the past several years, Jackson PCA churches have hosted a joint RUF summer study for all college students in the city, which has brought together students from any number of schools around Mississippi. But the connection between Jackson State and Belhaven has a lot to do with the friendship of their two campus ministers, Elbert McGowan (JSU) and Chad Smith (Belhaven). Chad and Elbert are recent graduates of Reformed Theological Seminary in Jackson, MS, both serving under the Joint Committee for Campus Ministry for the Presbyteries of Covenant, Grace, and Mississippi Valley. The sincerity and depth of their friendship, mutual admiration, and joint desire to see the ministry of RUF transcend and join together what would otherwise remain distinct groups has led to this joint large group meeting.

Predominantly Caucasian and predominantly African American. Historically black, public university and historically private, liberal arts college. A brand new RUF group and a Fellowship with a 30 year legacy. All enthusiastically and self-consciously bridging a gap.

More than one hundred undergraduates from two very different institutions joined together in enthusiastic worship and rich, biblical preaching (at 10:00, Elbert was halfway through his first point on the nature of indwelling sin). Nobody seemed to mind the hour or the poignant application.

Elbert is a gifted speaker who naturally connects with both groups. At one point, in explaining Abram’s actions, he first declared that the man of God was cowardly and had prostituted his wife. Then, in the manner of all good teachers, he rephrased: “Abram put her on the track and told her to bring his money back.”

From a distance, the sight of integrated cultures in the context of a Mississippi educational institution might appear stunning. I remember well a gathering a few years ago of the Twin Lakes Fellowship, when Thabiti Anyabwile began his message with something along the lines of: “Here I find myself, in a room full of white guys, in Mississippi, in the woods, at night…” Lots of laughter.

But perhaps surprising was the ease with which these groups mixed. In fact, it would have been hard to trace anything approximating bright lines between these two “groups.” They sat together in chairs, sang the same songs, sat under the same Word. It was no big deal, which is in part explained by decades of racial integration which has blurred (though not eradicated) the previous bright lines between black and white in the general culture, but there was also a self-conscious, Gospel-centered unity at work. For these kids, it was anything but momentous. What one might assume to be a staggering feat of reconciliation was perhaps most stunning by the subtlety of the event: Of course we’re all one in Christ – why wouldn’t we worship our common Savior together?

Elbert McGowan is doing a good work at Jackson State. There are as many as five African Americans from this group either enrolled or on their way to RTS, some who have a vision to plant PCA churches in predominantly African American parts of Jackson. Elbert has a larger vision for planting RUF campus ministries at HBC across the South (a chapter recently opened at Alabama A&M ), and sees RUF as a way to bring a rich, biblical, Reformed Christianity to the African American community, for the good of African Americans and for the PCA.

On this November night, a taste of that vision was on display, as kids from different backgrounds joined together in sincere, Christian fellowship and reverent, joyful, Christ-centered worship.

Jeremy Smith is a minister in the Presbyterian Church in America and currently is the Executive Minister for First Presbyterian Church in Jackson, Mississippi. He also serves as the Managing Editor for Reformation 21 www.reformation21.org