A Sunday color barrier comes tumbling down : Contrary to the cultural norm, two New Orleans churches--black and white--harmoniously merge.

Every Sunday morning, wherever steeple bells summon the faithful to prayer, the contours of American society follow an inexorable black-and-white pattern. It is one of organized religion’s awkward realities that the most unifying of rituals is also among the most segregated.

This was no less true here at Central Baptist Church, which retained a mostly white congregation under a succession of white pastors for its first 88 years. Fittingly, the boxy cream-colored building stands along a stretch of Jefferson Davis Parkway, and a statue of the Confederate leader still directs traffic out front.

But a remarkable transformation--motivated partly by convenience and partly by conciliatory spirit--has changed the face of Central Baptist. Earlier this year, with little fanfare and no publicity, the church’s aging membership voted to merge with Faith in Action, a youthful, all-black ministry that had been preaching without a chapel.

The result is now called First United Baptist Church, an experiment in integrated worship. Most significantly, that racial parity extends right up to the pulpit: Two ministers, both equal partners, both designated as co-pastors, trade Sundays at the lectern without any apparent ambivalence. One, a recovering alcoholic and former oil field worker, is white. The other, a doctor of ministry who is completing a second Ph.D. in urban studies, is black.

“If we’re going to call ourselves Christians, we have to live like it,” said Leona Wheeler, whose husband, H.B., has directed the church’s Sunday school for more than four decades.

Although other churches around the country have tried to build multiracial congregations, it is rare for such a balanced melding to be achieved. Even when blacks and whites are accepted into each other’s institutions, few churches are willing to share power on a genuinely equal basis--especially when it comes to a black preacher leading a Southern Baptist congregation.

“People keep asking me: ‘Who’s gonna be the boss?’ ” said the Rev. Rod Kirby, First United’s white co-pastor, as he relaxed on his parsonage couch one recent Sunday with his black counterpart, Marshall Truehill Jr. “I tell them: ‘The Lord, Jesus Christ.’ Marshall and I are just shepherds.”

With blacks making up 60% of the population and an African American tradition that extends back for centuries, New Orleans doesn’t suffer from the extreme racial tension that has cleaved other large urban centers. Still, many of the city’s woes have been exacerbated by an exodus of affluent, mostly white residents in recent years. Drug dealing and violent crime have flourished in the impoverished vacuums left behind.

The Mid-City neighborhood that surrounds Central Baptist Church is no different. As oldtimers passed on, their children fled to the suburbs. The steps leading to the church’s stained-glass doors began to crumble. The choir folded. Last February, when Central Baptist held its final meeting on the impending merger, just 17 parishioners showed up.

Faith in Action, meanwhile, was a burgeoning, grass-roots ministry without a church to call its own. In Truehill, it had a dynamic, community-oriented leader with a bachelor’s degree in music. His wife, Valli, backs him on the electric organ and their five children sing in the choir. Before the merger, they were allowed to use the Central Baptist sanctuary on Sundays--but only after the white parishioners were done.

“If we can cross those lines, I think we bear stronger witness,” said Truehill, a dapper man who punctuates his suits with matching ties and hankies. “I’m trying to get everyone, black and white, to see our responsibility for the city at large.”

Since the merger, the number of Sunday worshipers at First United has doubled to almost 100, with slightly more blacks in attendance than whites. The red-cushioned pews are now filled with little blonde girls in pigtails and teen-agers decked out in gold chains, with unshaven stragglers in jeans and silver-haired matrons in lace.

“This black minister--he does a lot of preaching, good preaching, better than the white one,” said Jimmy Serpas, a 51-year-old milkman who was married in the church about 30 years ago but only began attending regularly again this summer. “I ain’t prejudiced, but I never thought I’d see black people like this in my life.”

Only a few snafus have impeded the merger’s success. Early on, there was disagreement about changing Central Baptist’s name. When some white members balked, the Rev. Walter Brown, an interim co-pastor who preceded Kirby, joked that the new church should be called “Fudge Ripple and Mixed Nuts.”

After each sermon, Kirby and Truehill walk together from the pulpit, down the center aisle, to the front entrance. Then, standing side-by-side, each holds open one of the swinging doors, leading the worshipers into the morning light.