I was invited to Springfield Baptist Church by Henry Miller to take some photos for the paper of the kids doing their Black History Month program, and I really had a good time.
I saw lots of people I knew and the kids did a great job, but the music made me stay for the whole thing.
Black churches really know how to make a joyful noise unto the Lord.
When I got there I was seated in the back so I’d have a good view of everything and then I could go wherever I needed to go to snap photos. Henry saw me sitting there and asked me to move up to the front of the church because the kids would be entering the church through the doors behind me.
When I sat down the choir was singing but it was the piano playing that really caught my attention. As (bad) luck would have it the main pulpit was blocking my view of the piano player. I looked all around to see where the beautiful music was coming from but I couldn’t see a piano.
About the time I had decided that the piano music must be recorded I finally got a glimpse of an arm directing the choir, and there he was, Jaylon Harper. I have heard lots of piano playing in my life but I’ve never heard anything like this.
And not only did Jaylon accompany the choir, he also accompanied Pastor Shawn Hancock when he was preaching. When the pastor said something funny Jaylon would play a chord while everyone was laughing. And that happened often.
This was not my first time in a traditional Black church but I still don’t know the answer to this question: By the time the kids had done their program it was about noon. The preacher stood up to preach and said he wasn’t going to talk long. I assumed it was because of the Black History Month program. Well he talked for an hour
Well he talked for an hour and now I’m wondering if he might have preached longer if the program hadn’t taken place. And he was a very good preacher too. He told us to know our worth. He preached love, albeit forcefully at times.
He got really worked up like you have seen preachers do, then he had a calm down period of preaching, and Jaylon started playing the piano during that part. It was a really fun couple of hours.
There is a white comedian named Gary Owen who you should check out on YouTube or Google. He is married to a Black businesswoman named Kenya Duke and he has a very funny bit about being a white guy going to a Black church and the differences between the two. Highly recommended and hilarious.
My first time in a Black church was at Pure Light Baptist in Houston. Beulah was my coworker and friend whose son had been murdered, so me and another coworker felt we must go to the funeral to be there for her.
It was a very different funeral than any I’d ever attended but the thing that really sticks with me was Beulah’s sister “falling out.” No one had ever fallen out at the white Methodist church I attended.
She ended up falling out a total of five times. A group of men would carry her from the front of the church down the aisle to the front doors. Later she would come back inside and then fall out again. The last time she fell out they left her on the floor to come to on her own.
I write all this to say that you might want to change up your routine one of these Sundays and worship at a church where most people might have a different skin color than your own.
After all, red and yellow, black and white, we’re all praising the same God. Just in different ways.
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