Mississippi day 001-002 - the church

This is the first of a daily series of blogs about my trip to Jackson, Mississippi working the John M. Perkins foundation for a week. Each blog will begin with an explanation of what the day what the day was to look like and then commentary on each daily experience/event that I/we encountered. I apologize for posting so late. It's been go go go go since day one and I haven't been able to blog as frequently as I originally thought I would. Nevertheless this is what i have written so far.



The church 05|19|08

The morning began with John (yes, I am calling him John. We are on a first name basis with him) talked about us having a big vision for the church and showed us how the apostle John had a powerful vision of the church and for Christ’s followers. In today’s society, we should have powerful vision (what he referred to as a BIG BOOM!) for justice and reconciliation within the church. John’s devotion was pretty basic, and it was really a starting point to get the ball rolling (or get the justice rolling).

After John’s message, we loaded up the vans and headed for New Horizon Church, an all black church in Jackson. I was eager to attend church, because I’ve always wanted to experience a black southern church service. The only thing I’d ever known of any African-American church service was what I’d seen in the media. Films such as Blues Brothers and The Preachers Wife were my only “exposure” to a predominantly “black” house of worship.

My experience was more than I expected.

As the hot Jackson sun beamed down on my face, I made my way across the street to the medium sized brick building that was New Horizon Church. The group appeared eager to be there, and we all seemed rather enthusiastic about it.

Like I said, this was my first experience in an all black congregation and I’ll be honest that I felt a bit out of place knowing I was a minority. While there were 11 of us who would have been considered “minorities,” (I knew I wasn’t alone) still something felt a bit uncomfortable. I suppose it was because I didn’t know what to expect. I had a large mesh of stereotypes protruding my uneducated cranium as I neared the doors of the church.

My head raced with questions as I entered the building. Right away I was greeted by several people, both greeters and “non-greeters” alike, welcoming me to their church. They appeared genuinely excited that I was visiting their church and they didn’t seem at all suspicious that a group of white people were there to worship with them. The rush that captivated my body was intoxicating and I couldn’t really explain it. It was like I had this intense feeling that I was home. It felt like I was in a safe environment where people genuinely loved me and cared for me. I was thrown off by how passionate, loving, authentic, and radical the congregation was. The color of their skin never once occurred to me. My heart seemed to pound with Joy as I saw genuine praise to God being lifted up.

I figure a lot more could be said about the service, but I want focus on one particular aspect.

Love.

From the minute I walked into New Horizon Church, I felt a real sense of genuine love and concern that abided within each of the congregants. The atmosphere in the room was thick with emotion, love, and The Spirit. This feeling is something I didn’t get from the “white church.” It seems that these people had a deeper connection with reality than what I am used to seeing in the church.

It makes me wonder about cultural, racial, and class issues within the suburban American “white” church. It seems like white American Christians are really reserved and up tight, especially when it comes to church. We don’t want people to know about our problems and we want people to think we’re doing alright when on the inside, that’s not really the case.

Down south it’s different. Down south, everyone appears to act like their family. People are genuinely concerned about each other, and people are united as the body of Christ. The group was even invited home for lunch, or at least that’s what I heard. You wouldn’t see that in the white parts of America.

We white folk seem to want our own personal space. We want to see a personal Jesus divorced from the rest of the Body of Christ. I think that the people can learn a lot from southern black communities of Faith. I think we need to look past our racial and class barriers and wake up to what we can learn from each other.