There is a saying that Sunday morning is the most segregated hour of the week. But a group of area Christian pastors say they want to change that fact this Sunday with the annual Unity Service.

The segregated sanctuaries of their churches do not reflect the reality of the world we live in today, they say. So the Elizabeth City Ministerial Association say that those who worship in Christian churches should dissolve their differences and come together as one people; God’s people.

“There is a significant amount of division in our community along the lines of race,” says Riverside Methodist Church pastor, The Rev. Shawn Blackwelder. “And for an area that has a pretty even division that way, that’s pretty sad.”

What Blackwelder is talking about is a split in the black and white population in Elizabeth City. The most current numbers place the split at an estimated 56 percent black population and 44 percent white. The numbers indicate, as the pastor points out, that with a split like that there should be more unity.

The Ministerial Association has been working for years to bridge the gap between black and white churches. To this end, they have held an annual service at various area churches, encouraging people of every Christian denomination, and every race, to come together and worship under one roof.

This Sunday’s annual Unity Service will be held at Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church in Elizabeth City.

“The focus this year is to reach for understanding across lines of race and faith with the aim for reconciliation,” says Blackwelder. “There is a biblical mandate to be reconciled with one another.”

The Rev. Charles Foster is one of numerous area pastors involved in the event. He, like Blackwelder, says there is a great need for unity today.

“There is a need for greater unity among God’s people in America,” says Foster.

Foster points out that the association had been holding this event for years and started when the group began to integrate its efforts among black and white pastors. But, he says, the association had “drifted away” from the purpose a bit over the years and it is in recent years that it began to “bring it back.”

As a part of the Unity Service each year, the association offers the pulpit to a guest pastor. This year that pastor is The Rev. Kevin Baker, the Methodist minister from the United Methodist Church of Graham, N.C. Baker, says Blackwelder, has a great deal of experience with reconciliation and churches that cross the racial barriers that exist in the world today.

Baker was the co-founder of the Reconciliation United Methodist Church of Durham. The purpose of the church, according to Baker, was to meet the needs of the South Durham area and establish a church that was open to a diverse culture.

“When they (United Methodist Church leadership) looked at the South Durham area the demographics were diverse,” Baker said in interview from Graham, N.C. “What kind of church to found? So they said target everyone.”

Black, white, Latino: everyone was targeted and perhaps more appropriately, welcome to this new church. And in order to model that diversity, a black and white pastor were put together as the leadership of the Reconciliation United Methodist Church.

“It was challenging but I think there was a lot of excitement around it because I think there were a lot of people who were hungry for that,” says Baker.

When Baker takes the pulpit Sunday, he will, he says, reflect on two biblical passages. From Ephesians he will talk about breaking down the dividing wall.

“Unity is a gift,” he says. “You can’t manufacture it. If it’s not there it’s because we are actively resisting it.”

The other biblical reference in Baker’s upcoming sermon can be found in Acts 2, the first Pentecost. It is, he says, the gift of the spirit, the gift of the church for cross-cultural, and multilingual ministry.

“Everybody heard the gift of the spirit in their own tongues,” he says of the story told in Acts 2.

And so these men and women of faith, the ones who lead their congregations, are now reaching out beyond their own pulpits in hopes of bringing a broader community together for one purpose, worship.

“You can’t be against the world, you’re supposed to love the world like Christ did,” says Baker of the message of reconciliation. “Be in love with the world the way God did.”

The Unity Service will be held at Cornerstone Missionary Baptist Church Sunday at 6 p.m. The church is located at 507 S. Martin Luther King Dr, Elizabeth City.

Everyone is welcome.