The spirit of togetherness was on full, uninhibited display yesterday in an old bank call center in North Richmond.

The three congregations that share the renovated space held their first joint Sunday service, bringing together a couple of hundred parishioners for two hours of worship that incorporated elements of each group's traditional offering.

"It's not unity just for the sake of unity," said Harold Wilson, the pastor of Victory Life Fellowship. "We need this. Our city needs this."

The word is usually spread in separate sermons every Sunday when Eternity Anglican Church, Eternity Church and Victory Life take turns opening the 45,000-square-foot building to their congregants.

Pulling them all together was the work of the Rev. J. David Singh, pastor of Eternity Anglican and the nondenominational Eternity Church. When he left his post as pastor of the Third Presbyterian Church in western Henrico County several years ago to start Eternity, he invited Victory Life to join him on Chamberlayne Avenue in a building that once housed a call center for Central Fidelity Bank.

"I found in Richmond, even more than the racial barrier is the denominational barrier," he said. "Here I was, a Presbyterian minister inviting an African-American church with a Pentecostal flavor to join us as equals. In so many ways, we differ. But if we worship together, we can live together."

Worshipping together yesterday were parishioners from 25 nations, Singh said. Wilson's sermon was in English, but the opening gospel was spoken in Spanish.

The message was as traditional as it comes in church: the need to work together. Some people bowed their heads in prayer, others raised their hands in agreement and one woman off to the left of the pulpit kept up a steady call of "amen" and "yes, Lord."

"This is what heaven is supposed to be," said Victory Life member Mattie Murray as she scanned the crowd a little before 11. "Color has nothing to do with it. These are my brothers and sisters."

That's the message Singh had in mind when he started Eternity.

"Let's learn to be servants of each other," he said in his office as he prepared for the service.

Race and nationality don't matter once worship begins, he said. "Everybody knows what happens when the bread is raised."

The groups will meet together on most fifth Sundays. Plans are in place for a November service.

"It almost feels like 30 years of ministry around the world were preparation for this," said Singh, who grew up in southern India, studied in New Jersey and worked in Australia before coming to the Richmond area a decade ago. "I feel this is what God wants."
Contact Zachary Reid at (804) 775-8179 or zreid@timesdispatch.com.