The historic, North Shore Baptist Church is lodged in a residential street in Edgewater, Chicago. Inside, are three pastors that care about the complexity of their congregations deeply; leaving their doors open to anyone looking for God, to find solace, freedom and to connect with people of different languages and walks of life — to find sanctuary.
Michael Ware, one of the pastors at North Shore, reigning from New York, knew that he wanted to be selected by North Shore, because of its history and the uniqueness of their congregations.
“I don’t believe there is another model in the country among American Baptists that is like this, in fact I know there isn’t,” said Pastor Ware.
What he partly means by “like this” is their rich multicultural history that can be tied back to 1903. A church, that Pastor Ware says, started with household names, like the owners of Kraft and the creators of Orange Crush. People who wanted to grow and build a church that would also cater to the community, serving people in need.
While it developed into a social and community staple, during that time, the true mission of the church would come during WWII.
“That mission first began when Japanese would come over during WWII and they needed a place to meet and they were Baptists and so the church opened its doors,” said Pastor Ware.
North Shore Baptist Church became a haven that would extend to the 1960s into the 80s and 90s; like many churches, when Chicago and other cities across the US received an influx of migrants from El Salvador and Guatemala, prompting “the sanctuary movement“.
The movement advocated for domestic communities to host Central American refugees, federal foreign policy changes and created a pipeline for migrants to churches — to provide protection and resources — North Shore Baptist church was one of them.
“So now comes this Spanish language group and they needed a place to go and again based on this missional concept of welcoming in a stranger, the church opened its doors to this new Spanish language congregation,” said Pastor Ware.
Fast forward to today, where there are now three intentional spaces with three different languages, at North Shore, bridged by understanding and empathy, in one place. Here, the term “sanctuary” is not just code for haven in Chicago, where advocates are currently fighting proposals that amend protections; or places, like California and New York, that are considering changing laws to help migrants in a US city — here it also means something more.
“Sanctuary isn’t a need that’s temporary it’s not temporary shelter — sanctuary is something we need our whole lives,” said Pastor Kathryn Ray who caters to the Spanish speaking congregation. She continued, “I grew up [sic] in a White middle-class family who don’t understand the ways in which just moving around in America doesn’t do that for many people.”
People, like North Shore member Gloria V.
“I worked so hard to do something in this country and I try to help people too. Last year a lot of people came to Chicago and in my house, I opened the doors for about ten or 12 people,” said Gloria.
Gloria reflected on how hard it was to settle and find resources when she came to America with her visa decades ago. She eventually started her own business and blossomed with the community at North Shore. Now, she helps anyone she can to find resources too and has become a pillar of support for the three leading pastors.
The pastors have very different perspectives and experiences that coincide with the congregations they oversee. An English, Spanish and Karen (Burma and Thailand origin) speaking congregation.
“I like to be a minister who is working together for different congregations and different cultures and different religions,” said Karen Pastor Eh Lay Taw.
Pastor Katherine Ray looks over the Spanish speaking congregations and the children of the church. “I feel like I’m jumping in between worlds when I’m at a posada or bible study with the Spanish congregation when I’m singing with the Karen — I’m at bible study with the English congregations,” said Pastor Ray.
That’s what it feels like inside the church, different worlds within each space, supporting each other when needed; relishing in their language, in culture, in celebration, in community and in faith.
Pastor Taw is dedicated to not only bringing language and culture to this space, he wants liberation for his people suffering on the other side of the world in refugee camps; at the very least, he wants to provide spiritual freedom for his people, here. “We have to be the church that liberates people from spiritual oppression but also physical oppression. We need justice in our community,” said Pastor Taw.
“We’re called to serve … we can’t be bench-sitters, we can’t assume that someone else is going to do it,” said Pastor Ware.
In the future, as uncertainty on immigrant laws lure in the ether and cities verbalize a focus on codifying sanctuary terms, North Shore Baptist church remains open to anyone seeking God and community with the hope of finding more resources to help more people.
Pastor Ray reflected on the intentions of the church, “As communities work to keep their language alive as communities work to understand what it means to be Karen or El Salvadorian in Chicago, at this moment, having safe spaces to do that are critical – and that, it takes work.”
