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The Lord ‘led us to Darwin’
A predominantly White, 96-year-old Nashville church names its first Black preaching minister.
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NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Celebrity sightings here in Music City are regular occurrences, from Dolly Parton to Justin Timberlake to, of course, Taylor Swift.
But no one expected to see “Coach Prime” himself in the parking lot of the Hillsboro Church of Christ on a Sunday night.
In his Deion Sanders gear, Hillsboro minister Darwin Mason Jr. Trunk or Treats with his dad, Darwin Sr., daughter Deryn, son Levi and wife Kayla.
Sporting a cowboy hat, shades, a gold whistle and a University of Colorado hoodie, Darwin Mason Jr. fit right in with the procession of Power Rangers, Princess Peaches and Pokémon making the rounds at the church’s annual Trunk or Treat.
Not long after Deion Sanders shook up the world of college football, Mason added a level of energy and excitement at Hillsboro when the Black minister took the pulpit of the predominantly White church.
That shouldn’t be news in 2023, but, “oh, it’s definitely a news story,” said Mason’s mother, Norma, as she and Darwin Mason Sr. walked from trunk to trunk with their grandkids, Deryn and Levi.
Sixty-three years ago, Martin Luther King Jr. told “Meet the Press” that “it is one of the tragedies of our nation, one of the shameful tragedies, that 11 o’clock on Sunday morning is one of the most segregated hours, if not the most segregated hour, in Christian America.”
Despite decades of progress, churches have integrated at a slower pace than schools and sports. In a survey conducted nine years ago, the Pew Research Center found that 57 percent of churchgoers worship with a predominantly White congregation. However, a 2020 study by Baylor University found that racially diverse churches have tripled in the past 20 years.
Norma Mason enjoys the Hillsboro Church of Christ’s Sunday evening Trunk or Treat.
During morning worship before Trunk or Treat, Norma and Darwin Sr. placed membership with the 96-year-old Hillsboro church. Formerly, the Masons were members of the Schrader Lane Church of Christ, a historic, predominantly Black congregation in Nashville where their son served as assistant minister.
Their son was the No. 1 reason for the move, Norma Mason said. “And I think it was a godly move. So we decided that we would make this godly move with him.
“I love it here,” she added. “I love Schrader Lane, and I’ve gotten up and said that we miss our family. But we have a new family along with that family. And we love it. They treat us so good. And I think God is here.”
Understanding each other
In a more recent survey, Pew asked Americans which was the bigger problem facing the country on matters of race: People overlooking racism when it exists or seeing racism in places where there is none. About 53 percent of respondents said that the former was the bigger problem. But 72 percent of White evangelicals said that claims about nonexistent racial discrimination were the bigger problem, Bob Smietana reported for Religion News Service in August.
Joseph Mankin
During the tense years of the COVID-19 pandemic — especially after the 2020 death of George Floyd, a Black man who died in police custody — Hillsboro members reached out to their Black brothers and sisters in Christ for dialogue and understanding. Joseph Mankin, Hillsboro’s youth minister, introduced the congregation to Darwin Mason Jr. In addition to his ministry duties at Schrader Lane, Mason was head of the middle school at Ensworth, a Nashville independent school.
Related: George Floyd: Links to Christian Chronicle videos and stories
Teaching and worship ministry — not preaching — were Mason’s passions, he told The Christian Chronicle. He earned a bachelor’s in vocal performance and psychology from Fisk University before earning master’s and doctorate degrees in education from Tennessee State and Lipscomb universities.
Mason was serving as assistant worship leader for Schrader Lane when William Prowell, an elder of the Hart Street Church of Christ, another predominantly Black congregation in Nashville, asked him to be a guest preacher.
“And I told him, ‘No, I don’t preach. I just teach,’” Mason recalled. “And he said, ‘Why don’t you teach a class on Sunday morning around the same time that our preacher normally preaches?’”
Six months later, Mason was Schrader Lane’s associate minister.
“This was a God-led decision.”
Sue Richardson
In January, as Hillsboro minister Mark McInteer stepped down from the pulpit, the congregation assembled a search committee to recommend candidates for the position.
But “this was not a committee-led decision,” said Sue Richardson, who served on the search team. “This was a God-led decision. He led us to Darwin.”
The church invited candidates to speak, and Mason preached with a mix of credibility and inspiration, team member Grant Bobo said. He also connected with multiple age groups, added Halle Jo Smith.
That included 14-year-old Eli Huffard, whose father, Ethan, was on the committee. After hearing Mason, Eli asked, “Do you think Darwin would ever be our preacher? He probably wouldn’t ever want to be our preacher, but that’d be awesome.”
Previously, Eli had told his father, “I wish my church looked more like my school.”
After hearing Darwin Mason Jr. preach, Eli Huffard said, “He probably wouldn’t ever want to be our preacher, but that’d be awesome.” Previously, he had told his father, “I wish my church looked more like my school.”
The church’s 10 elders, all of whom are White, unanimously chose Mason, said elder Philip Hutcheson.
In doing so, the 600-member congregation became one of a number of Churches of Christ in metro Nashville that have made cross-cultural hires. In 2020 the 110-year-old Rural Hill Church of Christ in Antioch named Joshua Jackson as lead minister — and its first-ever Black staff member. The 500-member church is about 40 percent Black, 40 percent White and 20 percent Hispanic.
In 2021, the Antioch Church of Christ named Patterson Morgan, who grew up in Trinidad and Tobago, as its first preacher of color. The 500-member church is roughly two-thirds White, with Black and Hispanic members making up the remaining third.
Related: How five Nashville churches came together
Mission-minded amid prosperity
The transition to Hillsboro required a few adjustments — for both minister and members.
During his Sunday sermon before the Trunk or Treat, Mason challenged Hillsboro to take the Gospel to its community, citing God’s call to the prophet Isaiah, “Whom shall I send?” and Isaiah’s enthusiastic response, “Here I am! Send me!”
When he asked the audience the same question, only one person yelled back — Norma, his mom.
In a video produced by the Hillsboro Church of Christ, Ethan Huffard talks about serving on the selection committee that chose Darwin Mason Jr.
“I don’t think they understood that we were doing it collaboratively, that it was call-and-response,” the minister said with a laugh. Later in the sermon, he asked again, and “the church grabbed on to it.”
Hillsboro member Jan Crowder said that the new minister “knows exactly what we need to hear. He preaches to you, not at you.”
A week after his appearance as coach Deion Sanders, Mason and his fellow Hillsboro members celebrated the church’s 50th year at its current location, Forest Hills. In the past half-century it has grown into an affluent suburb that’s home to celebrities and musicians including Sheryl Crow.
The Masons: Kayla, Levi, Darwin Jr. and Deryn.
That makes it a tough field to reach — and yet ripe with opportunities for ministry, the minister said.
“We’re not a place you just drive up to,” he said of the church’s building. “We’ve got to be really intentional about getting out.”
His father, Darwin Sr., also has served as a minister. He’s proud of his son and proud to serve alongside him at Hillsboro.
“We felt it as a kingdom calling,” Darwin Sr. said, “not so much as Hillsboro calling us, but as God calling us — and the Holy Spirit working through us to be in this place at this time.”
Orpheus J. Heyward, right, minister for the Renaissance Church of Christ in Atlanta, preached for the Hillsboro Church of Christh to help the congregation welcome his longtime friend, Darwin Mason, left, to the pulpit. Heyward also met with church leaders to discuss congregational growth and development.
