In many places, the Bible exhorts us to make a joyful noise to God, to sing out our praises. When I was growing up, the good folk at Highview Avenue Baptist Church sometimes took an entire Sunday evening worship service to do just that. The all-music format, known as a singspiration, offered a special joy, for we were a musical church. We were encouraged to call out the numbers of our favorite hymns, even to specify a verse of that hymn if we felt pressed for time. Four-part harmonies were a regular part of my growing up in that church. Even in youth group, which met before the evening every Sunday night service, we sang in four parts. Let me now praise the famous men and women who charmed my life. Evelyn, who became the first woman director of our choir, had trained professionally. She roused her son every morning by standing at the foot of the stairs and trilling an aria, and her soprano solos in church made me regret my alto voice. Mike played hymns on his harmonica while we sophisticated teens rolled our eyes. Evelyn’s brother Arnie played the tuba, then joined three other men to form a horn quartet. There was also a men’s vocal quartet; I was part of a young women’s vocal trio that included Cynthia, who played violin solos as well. And what more shall I say? For time would fail me to tell of the choir that sang each Sunday, despite only a few tenors; of the many fine soloists; of the organists and pianists and the joyful hymn-singing. Of the place that music held in our everyday lives. When the youth group clambered into the church bus—which seemed always on the verge of a breakdown—it was natural to sing hymns in four-part harmony on the way to our youth group events or camp. Hymns were of two styles. They could be lugubrious, for communion service or invitation hymns. We sang an invitation hymn at the end of both Sunday services that created a mood encouraging people to walk the center aisle to the front of the church and accept Jesus as personal savior and Lord. Or the hymns could be metrical and cheerful, incongruously melding happy music and words lamenting our sins. We never got over being sinners, worms, unworthy. Our relationship to God was of grateful deliverance.
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Baptist GirlI was a conservative Baptist girl who grew up to become a career Christian, working first in a Baptist school and then in a Baptist college. For about three decades, it was very good until it wasn’t, and I had to leave. But the Baptists formed me. This is my homage to the good times and good people of the world I left, finally, at forty-three, when I became an Episcopalian. These are my memories; others might disagree with my recollections. So be it. Archives
January 2024
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