November 1, 2026
HOUSTON — A multicultural church plant has emerged from a historically Black area of Houston that now has seen Hispanics and South Asians move in, and the diversity of God’s creation is reflected in a body united by Christ.
“We do not benefit from trying to all be the same,” said Raphael Peters, lead pastor of Southside Fellowship. “You don’t come into our church and get your preference. If you prefer a certain style of preaching, you probably won’t get that. If you prefer a certain style of worship, you probably won’t get that. If you prefer a certain style of community, we’re all fumbling through doing life together.”
God saved Peters from giving up on life when failing to achieve his football and relationship goals left him devastated. After a season as a Christian hip-hop artist and after earning a biblical studies degree, Peters realized a call to reach people with the gospel in hard places.
In 2019, he and his wife found themselves considering a move to Houston’s Third Ward.
“Our real estate agent didn’t want to show us any homes here. She was like, ‘This is not a safe place, especially with your young family,’” Peters recalled. “I was like, ‘We want to be in the darkness. We want to see the Lord do something in this area. We believe there’s still hope here.’”
When everyone else was moving out of the neighborhood, the Lord called them to move in. What they learned, Peters said, was that fear of crime in the community caused people to fortify their homes like a military base and bunker down. That, in turn, seemed to discourage interaction among neighbors.
Peters first partnered with a nondenominational church planting collective that didn’t survive the pandemic, and he almost packed up and moved back to Mississippi. Then he got connected with Send Network SBTC, the church planting ministry partnership between the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention and the North American Mission Board, and Cameron Whitley, lead pastor of West Lake Church in Houston.
Last year, West Lake helped relaunch Southside Fellowship and has provided the support that Peters didn’t have in his previous efforts in the Third Ward. The plant meets in a YMCA, and “in the type of neighborhood that we’re in, what happens is you just have a lot of people who have needs,” Peters said.
One way the church engaged the community was to start a garden at a nearby apartment complex.
“We were going to teach them how to plant some fruits and vegetables, to help them become self-sustained so they can save money and utilize resources and change some of their economic situation,” Peters said.
The garden was so successful, the church added a second garden. “It’s been really cool to see the church surround these residents and love on them,” he said.
Such love is needed in the Third Ward, Peters said, because some people have negative perceptions of churches. One way Peters counters such perceptions is by opening up his home on Sunday nights for what he calls hangouts for men. “At one point I think we had more guys from the neighborhood coming to this hangout than we had people at the church,” he said.
Some of the men are believers, and some are not, but they’re all able to talk about theology while playing card games and dominoes. “I think it’s our front door in a lot of ways because a lot of guys won’t come to church, but they’ll come to the hangout.”
When Peters considered planting a church several years ago, he assumed it would be a Black church. Now he realizes he doesn’t get to decide what God’s church looks like: “He sends who He wants.”
Peters doesn’t speak Spanish, but God sent a Spanish-speaking man to Southside Fellowship, and the man started bringing his friends.
“Then we had a South Asian guy come, a solid brother, and he became a leader in the church, and he started bringing in families,” Peters said. “Then we had a White couple who had adopted Black kids, and they started bringing other families similar to them.”
Since last year, Southside Fellowship has grown to about 60 people, including five who have been baptized. “We’ve had to walk really intentionally with those folks just to see them come from unbelief to belief, and it has been something to praise God for,” he said.
Peters is emphasizing the gospel with his congregation, and “it just seems like our people are really hungry for that.” They are walking through questions such as, “Who is God? Who are we? Where did we go wrong? What do we need?” The church has foundation classes as well as one-on-one discipleship and small groups.
“It’s slow work, but that’s the work that we knew we were getting into,” Peters said. “We’re committed to doing very intentional work.”
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This article appeared in the Southern Baptist Texan.
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