Smile Politely. Speak Directly. A Champaign-Urbana Culture Blog

This past Sunday, April 27, my family and I attended St. Luke Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in Champaign. I had never attended a CME church before and so I really did not know what to expect. The only things I really knew for sure were that this church has, like me, a Methodist heritage and that it has, unlike me, a black heritage.

I have visited or attended many Methodist churches (e.g., Urbana First UMC, Champaign First UMC, Wesley UMC, New Horizon ) but they have all, unfortunately, lacked in the area of cultural diversity. I have also visited a few black churches (e.g., Love Corner, Salem Baptist, Canaan Missionary Baptist ), but none of these had Methodist roots.

So I was quite curious about St. Luke CME, for here is a church that has both a black and a Methodist heritage. How, then, would it come across? Would one of these heritages win out over the other? Or would this church somehow manage to marry Methodist and black culture into a cohesive whole?