The Forty-Day Journey of Promise
Day Eighteen: More Than Just Sunday Meetings
Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.
Everybody’s Heart in Tune
How did newly converted African American slaves grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? How did they connect to one another in the Body of Christ?
A preacher we know only as the “Preacher from a God-fearing Plantation” offers us a glimpse.
“Meetings back there meant more than they do now. Then everybody’s heart was in tune, and when they called on God they made heaven ring. It was more than just Sunday meeting and then no more godliness for a week. They would steal off to the fields and in the thickets and there, with heads together around a kettle to deaden the sound, they called on God out of heavy hearts.”
The Old Ship of Zion
Another African American Christian described it like this.
“We used to steal off to de woods and have church, like de Spirit moved us—sing and pray to our own liking and soul satisfaction—and we sure did have good meetings, honey—baptize in de river, like God said. . . . We were quiet enough so the white folks didn’t know we were there, and what a glorious time we did have in the Lord.”
“The church was a ‘Noah’s Ark’ that shielded one’s life from the rain. It was the ‘old ship of Zion’ fully capable of sailing the seas of life.”
Life Lessons for Today
Because we all too easily abandon meeting together, we have much to learn from the high priority that African American believers placed upon communal worship and fellowship. One Black Church History scholar summarizes it well:
“Their needs for guidance and comfort were immense. The awesome importance of this spiritual and emotional support can be seen by the fact that the time to engage in worship was taken from the already too-brief free times away from field work. Work time already ran from sun-up to sundown. Time for worship was taken from the brief period left for the personal needs of sanitation, sleep, food, and child rearing. This spiritual nurture must have been highly treasured indeed to motivate the sacrifice of such limited and precious free time.”
Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)
1. “Meetings back there meant more than they do now. Then everybody’s heart was in tune, and when they called on God they made heaven ring.” In what ways does your worship experience already mirror theirs?
2. What could make this statement truer in your worship experience today?
