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"Basically he's just a man who can relate to people at their various points across the ideological spectrum," said the Rev. Bob Sawyer of Winston-Salem, the president of the Provincial Elders' Conference of the Southern Province of the Moravian Church in America.

Musomba, a resident of Tukuyu, Tanzania, and the president of the Unity Board of the Worldwide Moravian Church, is here this weekend for the celebration of the 250th anniversary of the Southern Province of the Moravian Church in America.

"The Moravians in the world, they are quite like brothers and sisters," Musomba, 60 and a grandfather, said with a steady smile.

The unity board that he leads supervises Moravian churches worldwide. Musomba represents the changing face of the Moravian denomination: There are about 450,000 Moravians in his east African country and the number is growing; there are about 50,000 Moravians in North America and the number is declining. And the charismatic movement that several Moravian churches here are experiencing has been sweeping through Moravian churches in Tanzania for years.

Charismatics believe in such gifts of the spirit as speaking in tongues and prophecy. Many Moravians here reject the charismatic movement, but Musomba says that they shouldn't.

"If you fight against charismatics, you are on the losing side," Musomba said.

Musomba speaks out on other issues that frequently divide Christians, including Moravians. Like many Moravians in his country, he believes that homosexuality is a sin. The church should help people reject their homosexuality, he said.

"We have to find a way to get them back."

And while Moravians here have debated whether Christ is the only way to salvation, Musomba said that the answer is clear.

"For those who say he is not the way, they need to accept Jesus as the way. So we have work to do."

Musomba's friends say that he's good at reaching out to those who disagree with him on those and other issues.

"He's a man without enemies," said Sawyer, the vice chairman of the unity board.

Musomba said that he found Christ at 19 while attending a Moravian mission school in his country. Soon thereafter, he said, he felt called to the ministry. He studied at Makumira Lutheran Seminary in his country, then completed his studies at Moravian Theological Seminary in Bethlehem, Pa.

He has spent most of his career in administrative positions with the Moravian Church in his country. His service to the unity board is unpaid, and he balances that service with his job as the president of the Provincial Elders' Conference of the Southern Province of Tanzania.

He was just elected to his second two-year term as the head of the unity board. He travels frequently, along the way reuniting with friends like Bishop Graham Rights of Winston-Salem, a former member of the unity board.

"He (Musomba) seems at home everywhere he goes," Rights said.