By Marv Knox

Across its first five years, Pan African Koinonia has strengthened both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and its Black members and congregations.  

This year marks the fifth anniversary of PAK, the CBF organization of members with historic ties to Africa, including African Americans, Caribbeans, Africans and others. They collaborate to create a supportive community and to promote increased presence of Black individuals and churches throughout CBF.  

Pan African Koinonia’s predecessor, the African American Network, started in 2015. It began transforming during a reception at the 2018 CBF General Assembly, when participants decided to form a steering committee and brainstormed new names.  

 Then, 2019 provided a pivotal moment for Black identity in the Fellowship. The Angela Project, a three-year multidenominational commemoration of the 400^th anniversary of slavery in America, ended. CBF created the Dr. Emmanuel McCall Racial Justice and Leadership Initiative, and the African American Network relaunched as Pan African Koinonia, or PAK.  

The new name is significant, noted Kasey Jones, CBF’s associate coordinator for outreach and growth. “African American Fellowship” didn’t work as a name because “Caribbean and African CBFers didn’t feel welcome” under that banner.  

“The McCall Initiative is designed to create avenues for God’s imperfect church to move toward meaningful unity between racially diverse communities, and PAK is the inclusion arm,” she said. “It’s the vehicle to bring Black CBFers together, the place where community is found, as well as the source for advocacy to increase Black participation—in leadership, resource development and raising our voices.”  

CBF needs a Pan African Koinonia to expand and transform its culture, Jones said. Lynn Brinkley, CBF’s new PAK field ministry coordinator, extended that thought.   

“CBF’s mission is to be a national and global community bearing witness to the gospel in partnership with Christians across the nation and around the world,” Brinkley said. “PAK represents people of global majority who bring a unique focus on Black Church witness and worship and also engages with intentionality social and racial justice issues. PAK is vital to helping CBF foster a more diverse and inclusive fellowship.”  

Natasha Nedrick Adzudzor, minister of discipleship at Central Baptist Church in St. Louis and a former CBF Global Missions staff member and current PAK steering committee member, echoed those sentiments.  

“In a predominately white organization like CBF, where Black people are the minority, we need holy and separate spaces to gather, share and celebrate,” she said. PAK “serves as that hub, calling together a diverse group of people from within CBF to raise our voices, celebrate our traditions and demand the necessary change.”  

Coach J. Livingston, pastor of Remnant Fellowship in Morrow, Ga., added PAK has been mutually beneficial for both CBF at-large and its Black members.  

“Within every organization, there are inherent built-in silos of thoughts, understandings and beliefs. CBF leadership has been wise enough to invite diversity into its mission and vision,” he said. “CBF required a deeper, more meaningful engagement with various cultures, as Christ did, to spread the word and works of God to all people.   

“PAK is an ethos of a significant part of CBF. PAK’s acceptance into the CBF family provided it with the nourishment needed to impact both the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship and the Pan African Koinonia in a spiritually dynamic way,” he said.   

L. Nicole Stringfellow, leader of two organizations that focus on community development in the Mississippi Delta and former vice president for the Delta region of Together for Hope, the CBF-founded rural development coalition, concurred.  

“PAK can reach populations, communities and churches in the organization’s footprint that generally would not engage with CBF,” Stringfellow said. “PAK is a bridge into Black/Brown-skinned communities for CBF, a good step toward inclusion, belonging. CBF is an advocate for racial reconciliation, and PAK is the beginning of an alignment of words with deeds, programming and policy.”  

Adzudzor, who attended her first CBF General Assembly in 2016, said she’s seen PAK change CBF for the better. Back then, “it was clear the Black Church was not the target audience or a strong consideration. The issues I faced in ministry were not at the forefront, and it felt to me that Blacks appeared as tokens in CBF leadership,” she reported. “However, since the launch of PAK, the inclusion of Black voices and churches has radically changed, and CBF is the better for it. ‘Diversity’ no longer seems like a buzzword, but a deep longing and desire to truly become a beloved community.”  

The development of PAK has been good for both CBF at-large and for its Black members, Jones stressed. PAK helps the Fellowship move toward its ideals of inclusion and diversity, but this only happens “when you have people of like status at the table,” she said. For example, before 2019, CBF averaged only one or two Black members on its Governing Board, but that number has increased to five or six, about one-third of the whole.   

That’s different than including Black people only when they receive financial assistance from CBF. “That can limit their capacity to be full participants—to be able to share honestly and truthfully what they think ought to happen to transform CBF,” she said. “We’re not trying to take over CBF, but to help CBF reflect the kingdom of God. That doesn’t happen if we’re separate. And it doesn’t happen well if people have different power positions.”  

The presence of PAK strengthens the Fellowship within a larger cultural context, Jones added. “With our current societal situation, with polarization and division in the country, it’s important for CBF to wrestle with and be open to being a different model of what it means to be truly diverse,” she said. “We can demonstrate how to have differences but still support ‘the other’ who is different. We need that imagery regarding race in the kingdom of God.”  

PAK also blesses its Black members, Jones observed: “It’s reassuring for Black CBFers to find and connect with one another. We have a common story and common ways to help one another.”  

Stringfellow experienced this firsthand. “Coming into CBF was a culture shock,” she said. “Once I learned about PAK—the work and the purpose—I was able to relax a little. I know my voice was heard, my ideas mattered and my challenges were clearly understood when being in PAK spaces.”   

“PAK serves as my place within CBF where I can authentically unmask and relax,” Adzudzor added. “It’s a place where I am understood and valued for my unique contributions. PAK serves as a place that encourages me to stand strong and be myself in every CBF space.”  

PAK has changed demographics for Black people in CBF, Jones said. “When PAK started, we had Black church starts and individual members but very few established Black congregations that belonged to CBF fully. Our intentional effort to recruit established Black churches that are part of CBF and PAK has been successful.”  

Jones cited a variety of positive CBF developments that flowed from PAK’s success:  

• More Black-led contributions in CBF life. These include Late-Night Worship at the annual General Assembly, more articles written by Black authors and training events led by Black leaders.  
• “There are Black male pastors initiating conversations about how they can support Black female clergy,” she said. “We are attracting Black churches that want to do more than affirm women, but create intentional space for women to lead.”  
• More Black seminarians are finding opportunities to be part of CBF by serving in CBF Black congregations.  
• PAK has “made space for leaders to be seen,” resulting in Blacks occupying more positions of visibility and authority across CBF. “This growth represents advancing a community, not merely an individual who can be isolated and silenced,” she said.  
• PAK leaders in South Carolina worked with CBF South Carolina to host an event that introduced CBF to a solid core of 17 Black pastors, who now are being invited to engage in CBF life in meaningful ways.  

Stringfellow and Livingston stressed CBF should regard PAK’s work as essential.   

“CBF should be willing to learn more and establish a better connection with the populations served by PAK and not be afraid to be uncomfortable during uncomfortable discussions,” Stringfellow said. “None of us can do anything about what happened to our ancestors nor the ancestors of others; but we can dig in harder to learn the truth, accept the truth, and dismantle the myths and lies in order to move forward.” 

“Without PAK, CBF would lack a significant portion of Christian thought while operating under misplaced understandings about the people it serves,” Livingston added. “Knowing, having and listening to the actual voices of the people CBF serves provides the well-being necessary to upbuild the Kingdom of God.”  

And not only is the work essential, but Brinkley sees a bright future for PAK: “My dream is that PAK will build our staff and expand our ministry partners so PAK can inspire genuine Christian fellowship, engage in the work to eradicate racial injustice and cultivate a beloved community.”  

Watch the video above to celebrate five years of the CBF Pan African Koinonia, a group formed to cultivate the presence of Black individuals and churches throughout CBF life.