Let the Church say Amennnn

In recent years I have seen many videos or depictions of people’s first experience in a Black church. Now, usually it is a white person, like Gary Owen, sharing his experience of the Black church, but it is typically always in comparison to white church. Now before I go into the pros and cons of attending a Black church, I have to make a few disclaimers. First, although there seems to be a shared Black church experience, differences exist by region, denomination, and size. For example, in the south, there are a lot of similarities between a white Baptist church and a Black Baptist church, although, of course, there are still some differences. Basically, The comparisons we commonly see are generally between the practices of an American Catholic church and an American Black Baptist or Pentecostal church. Now, I am sure you have an understanding of region and size, but denomination might be a new one for you. Denominations in church are similar to genres of movies. Some people like romance, some like comedy, others enjoy horror and so on and so forth.  However, even within those genres there exist difference. For example, all horror movies aren’t created equal.

A church denomination is important, as it will likely tell you everything you need to know about the church before even walking through the doors. Methodists are typically the more reserved, laid back crew. They are like the documentaries of denominations. Some might describe a Methodist service as dry and boring, while others view it as reverential and reflective.  All I know is, I dated a guy in high school who attended a Methodist church and invited me to attend with him.  The choir, which consisted of three people, began to sing and I made the mistake of clapping. He grabbed my hands and placed them in my lap and shook his head no.  Let’s just say I haven’t attended a Methodist service since, and I never saw him after that day either.

Baptists are like action comedies.  We enjoy good music, good sermons, and good praying. However, the expectation is that each of these things takes at least an hour. In a Baptist church, if pastor preached less than an hour, the old lady gossip wheel would run, “something musta been wrong with pasta today.” In a Baptist church you have to specifically ask the choir for an A & B selection (two songs), because you know each song will be sung for at least 30-45 minutes. For some reason, in a Baptist church, the end of the songs always gets good to us, so we run it over and over again (that just means we repeat the same three words for 20 minutes – sometimes longer). And prayer… let’s just say we had something called “All Night Prayer” that occurred on a weekly basis. I remember being asked, “why don’t you invite your friends to church?” My response, “because I like my friends.”

Then you have the Pentecostal/COGIC folks.(don’t come for me, I know there are differences) but uh… basically… ish just got real. They are definitely a mix of comedy, suspense, action and horror. while baptists are saved, Pentecostals and especially cogic folks, are saved saved. You might catch a deacon of a baptist church smoking a cigarette and cussing out a trustee. not so in the church of god in christ, tabernacle of praise, jesus is lord sanctuary!

First of all, there are typically a million rules in this denomination – at least for women. Women cannot wear pants (cuz that means you smoke reefer too #mattiemoss), or jewelry, or lipstick, or go swimming, or a bunch of other things.  Also, church literally lasts all day, all week, all month, all year.  There is not one day of the week, in which church ain’t happening. Also, you have to be fit, if you belong to this denomination. It is a prerequisite for membership, as you are expected to engage in cardio for the entire time you are at church, or as we say in churchy terms – shout. Shouting is the equivalent of doing double high knees and the chicken dance all at once. Imagine doing that for hours at a time. This exertion of energy is the reason food is often provided after service.

With that said, let’s talk about some of the strange but meaningful things that occurred in my church, growing up.

I would say my church was a mix between Baptist and Pentecostal. One of the things I did not mind as a child, but for some reason avoid as an adult, was revival. Revival was fun and exciting. Two or more churches would come together for a mighty good time. However, if I had not grown up in church, I would have likely been scared out of my mind after attending a revival service. Let’s talk about the prayer line. Typically, a charismatic, asthmatic, sweaty preacher would line folks up and lay hands on them (pray for them while placing their hand on the person’s head). The preacher would sometimes speak loudly (yell) to the person and forcefully push their head back. Frequently, this would result in the person falling out on the ground and convulsing. They would seemingly be in an unconscious state while the saints continued to pray for them. Scared yet?

Then there was speaking in tongues. How do I explain this? Tongues is a spiritual foreign language. It’s like Spanish to English speakers, with a mix of gibberish. A tongue may sound something like “hetanamashanda.” (How many times did you try to say that?) Anyway, tongues were spoken often as people entered into the Spirit. Once this happens, the person or people are no longer speaking to you, they are speaking to the Holy Spirit/God. ee-tea-ah-boh-sha!! (you said that one too didn’t you?)

I think one of my favorite things to witness growing up in church was something lovingly referred to as quickening. A quickening is equivalent to your response to feeling a chill. It’s like a shiver with some umph. Some folks, like my grandma, quickened with her head. Usually, a tongue or a “thank ya Jesus” accompanied this. Some folks quickened with their torsos. So they would appear as if an invisible person karate chopped them in the back. Other people quickened with their arms. Their arms would literally shoot out or up for about 2.5 seconds and then return to their normal position. My absolute favorite type of quickening combined all three and included a yell, such as “ayeeeee!” However, it did not last long – hence the name quickening.  All of the above mentioned things were just signs of how good, God has been!

Anyway, because we haven’t been in a church in a while, I thought I would pen something to my fellow church folks or curious about church folks. I say all of that to say, “you wanna come to church with me after quarantine?”