I hesitated in the door, feeling all of a sudden very, very white. But the beat continued to rise and the man on the piano had nimble fingers. Then a kind woman was handing me a program and inviting me inside, telling me to sit anywhere. Within a few minutes I was clapping and swaying my body to the sweet sound of two hundred fervent voices lifted in serious praise.
This is not how I usually spend my Sundays. For the most part I would rather be outdoors than in any church, but my friend Ashley Hulsey had invited me to the service as she was singing in it. She’s a member of the University of Alabama at Birmingham Gospel Choir and this was their last recital. She confided beforehand that she was nervous, as her director only taught them half of each song and she supposed he expected “the holy spirit” to teach them the rest. Due to my epsicopalian background, I naively assumed they would just be singing a few numbers between the sermon and the reading of the psalms.
Um, no. This was the New Hope Baptist Church Music Ministry and the entire service was in song. Loud, joyous song. The choir director, dressed in a black suit with sparkly lavender stripes, worked the crowd like James Brown in The Blues Brothers, punctuating each verse or spontaneous meditation on the love of Jesus with an earnest Can I get a witness? to which the room shouted back Amen! passionately. It was an amazing display of joy and praise. Being one of three white people in the room (Ashley and her mother were the others) I was just concentrating on staying on beat at first, but the music was so good, and everybody was loving it so much that before long I was immersed. And when the preacher told us to embrace six people around us and thank them for helping us survive I grabbed the big black lady in front of me and we hugged like best friends. The songs were long and flowed into one another, segued only by moments of quiet piano and the preacher praying softly. Then another song would emerge and soon we were all back on our feet clapping and shouting to beat the band. During the climax of “Take me Jesus” a woman in the front row went into a fit, her body rigid and shaking and people gathered around supporting her, praying for her sprit. We sang until everybody was exhausted.
It was the darndest thing I’ve seen in years. I don’t know if I’ll go back anytime soon, but I probably should. Sometimes it doesn’t matter what you praise as long as you do it with sound and passion.
