The Beauty of Small Churches

 

No place do I feel more closer to God and my ancestors both the Christians and those who followed Africa’s religions of various forms, than I do at a rural Negro church. For it was there that, these two great paths towards God mingled and gave us many of the practices we have in the Black Church today and our culture at large. The ring shout, catching the holy ghost, the great Black American Gospel music that is derived from Negro Spirituals, that swing you hear in your favorite Jazz composition, down on to the style of oratory made famous by too many Black preachers to name.

So if you’re in need affirmation, a way to rekindle your connection to community (which is harder and harder to maintain in this age) visit these churches or even the remains of one, its metaphysical impact can be great if you are open it. God bless you.

 

2 thoughts on “The Beauty of Small Churches

  1. Pingback: Father Knows Best: Early Spring 2013 Eclectic Weekend Edition | Patriactionary

  2. As part of the work of voter registration, I once had the privilege of visiting such a church in Lowndes County, Alabama. We were working in that area for the week, and I went to evening Sunday services. It was a very small community of mostly shacks, and (although I don’t at this moment remember the name) it was a peculiar, special community because there was a law that the residents could not marry out of the township. Laws like that existed in Alabama at that time. It was a poor place, so poor, one of the teenagers there was barefooted, many were patched, some had ridden mules up, and they were tethered outside.There were only outhouses. But you could leave your pity at the door. These people loved their God. The music I heard that night was straight up worship, straight up sainthood, of people who accepted the life that God gave them, accepted the poverty and the joy, too, the joy of life in rich, green Alabama. There was one woman there who was white. That is, she had white skin, white hair, white lips. But she spoke black. She had been born there, had lived there all her life. There were people there of all shades, as happens. They grew cotton and lived and worshiped God through the most amazing music in a tiny turn in the road in rural Alabama. They were kings. I am sure it is gone now. It made America great.

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