Every month a group of pastors from churches in Warren County gets together for prayer, fellowship and to find ways to build bridges in the community.

The Mission Mississippi Vicksburg Pastors’ gathering has met monthly for about 12 years, the Rev. Brian Ivey, pastor of Highland Baptist Church, said.

“Mission Mississippi’s mission statement is changing Mississippi one relationship at a time,” said the Rev. Reginald Walker, pastor of World of Faith Christian Center. “We go across racial and denominational lines; all of our churches are different, with different agendas. We all may look a little different on the outside.”

“But we’re all God’s children,” said the Rev. Beth Palmer, pastor of Church of the Holy Trinity. She said the benefit of the monthly meetings is “that we build relationships with each other and among our congregations and hopefully, our community.”

Linda Sweezer, pastor House of Peace Worship International, said over the years the participating ministers have been able to form relationships and mentor others “to show the importance of people coming together who are different from each other, and the diversity is one of the big pictures we are demonstrating.

“We formed the alliance through prayer and fellowship,” she said. “We have joint worship services. On the monthly meetings we alternate churches. We really just continue to get to know each other and form stronger partnerships and relationships, and doing activities in the community that will involve people from all races. We meet at a different church each month.”

By coming together, Ivey said, the ministers are trying to be models for their congregations “of what everybody should do. So in order to lead our churches to get together in the community, we do this as ministers.”

“We’re all of the same blood,” Walker said, “And God’s desire is for the body of Christ to be one. So we get together so we can know each other.”

And the relationships extend to outside the meetings, Palmer said. Some of the members fish or play golf together, she said.

In the past, the group’s monthly meetings have been breakfast meetings, but it was changed to a lunch meeting for April in hopes of attracting younger pastors. The April meeting, Ivey said, was a trial to see if they can involve more pastors than just the usual group.

Palmer added the group had received comments that a lunch meeting might work better for some people.

Discussions during the meeting range from information about activities at the individual churches to plans for community events like the annual National Day of Prayer observance, and an interracial picnic to bring people of all races and faiths to come together.

“Sometimes we discuss current events that deal with racial disharmony,” Walker said. “We discuss them and try to find ways that we may be able to create interventions to prevent that from happening here. We try to develop relationships. People fear what they don’t know or understand, so we try to clear up some of those areas.”

Palmer said the relaxed atmosphere of sitting down to a meal makes it easier to discuss issues.

“It was an epiphany for me,” she said. “We break bread together and we chat, except when we get closer to the picnic, but it’s usually ‘what’s going on for you’ and then we pray. It’s a safe place.”

Ivey said the meeting also allows the members to get to know racial issues from someone else’s perspective.

“It’s been very helpful for me to develop some friendships with my brothers here and understand things from their point of view,” he said. “We discuss controversial subjects sometimes just to get each other’s insight and hopefully learn from each other, we still don’t always agree on everything.

“We trust each other. We’ve become friends and we trust each other, and we agree on Jesus; we all agree Jesus is the way,” Ivey said.