Thanks for the welcome, all!
You’re right, avb, it is a bit of time warp. But when our churches–especially the AOG–got all “charismatic” in the Seventies, they lost a precious thing. There WAS something supernaturally uplifting in abandoning pride and self-consciousness to ecstatic praise. All of sudden it seemed to evaporate. Our songs grew more lulling. Our upraised arms dropped to half-mast. And our altar services were drive-by, up-and-down codas, rather than open-ended opportunities to tarry until we “prayed through.” Now, for the convenience of the many, the few who really needed to wait at the altar were shuttled off to a back room while the rest of us decided where to go for pie and coffee.
Corny as it looked and was, it was real, sincere, and oddly pure by being oblivious to keeping up appearances. In the old days, when the church rose up in praise, we’d say “the Holy Ghost fell” on the service. If you’ve ever experienced it, you never forget it. But around here these days, it’s a good bet that most Pentecostals haven’t had the chance in the last 20 years or so.
Where it DOES happen regularly, though, is in our African-American churches. Now they’re called “praise breaks” and they can be spectacular–particularly in larger churches, like the one I attended while living in LA, West Angeles Church of God in Christ. (A Youtube “praise break” search pulls them up by the boatload.)
Now that I’m a Church of Christ boy, when I get homesick for some first-rate rejoicing, I sneak off to one of the black Pentecostal churches in town. And I’m never disappointed–those folks don’t play!
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