[Worship] All them counterpoints!

["gabrieli gabrieli" <gabrieli@hotmail.com>]

Dear Sisteren and Brethren--

   I've enjoyed reading the posts and exchanges preciptated by my series 
on multicultural worship. It's amazing the variety and ranges of 
opinions expressed, and I'd like to comment on some of them before
I continue with more posts planned for the list. (NEVER give a choir
director a computer and modem.....) So, LIVE, from Irvington, New
Jersey, is THE MOTHER OF ALL COUNTERPOINTS!---

1. Oddly enough, I'd like to start with the whistles! I have no
    objections to whistles, and I first heard them associated with
    reggae music, NOT nightclubs. By the way, believers should not
    always "believe" that what is done in a nightclub is automatically
    ORIGINATED by the club! A good case in point is the use of 
    electric guitars and drums--black Pentecostal churches were using
    these DECADES before the rest of American Christendom "caught up"
    with "praise and worship music." Most of the so-called "Motown"
    sound was directly STOLEN, BORROWED OR OTHERWISE COPIED WHOLESALE
    from black churches and the Church of God in Christ. This occured
    because gospel singers simply "went secular", exchanging "get
    up off your seat and praise Him" for "get up offa that thing,
    and dance till you feel better" (a la James Brown)!
       In fact, the original funk sound is actually a slowed-down   
    version of black Pentecostal praise music, and much of the bass
    work is church music, again, slowed down in tempo, but retaining
    the original structure. Funk started in GOD'S HOUSE, and even
    most funk artists readily acknowledge their debt to black gospel
    music! So much for "importing the world"...
       The same goes for the use of tamborines in rock and soul
    groups--when I was a kid growing up in the fifties and sixties,
    NOBODY, but NOBODY-- other than black, white and Latino 
    Pentecostals-- were using them other than in symphony orchestras
    for some impressionistic tone poems. I remember hearing white
    rock singers actually brag about how they "went to the revival
    meeting" and borrowed the tamborines, and imitated the people
    lifting their hands and shouting.
       Much of the so-called "hip-hop culture" BORROWS black church
    movements, gestures and even some dance patterns! (They need to
    borrow Jesus, too...)We've been "raising the roof" for umpteen
    years, so do NOT assume that the world is not busy ripping off
    the church! I've seen old church mothers in their eighties 
    "raising the roof" in praise to God, but because the white secular
    media didn't consider black Christian worship worth documenting
    back in 1962, folks suddenly "discovered" a "raise the roof" 
    gesture because some hip-hop promoter filmed a video for MTV...!
       I can tell you from experience, that NO SECULAR CONCERT, CLUB,
    PARTY or PERFORMANCE can surpass ANYTHING done by Christians 
    praising God with "all their might!" That's why the devil works
    so hard to counterfeit praise and can only IMITATE what the
    saints of God do--and it's a pale, pitiful imitation at that.
    No one parties like the Christians, and most church folks I am
    around can outdance, outsing, outshout, and get down LONGER than
    any "club", "rock concert" or "rapfest"--and many times lives
    are radically changed by the HOLY GHOST PARTY because the emphasis
    is on GOD, and what HE did or IS DOING, and the devil is NOT
    PERMITTED TO STEAL OUR JOY! And you can STILL drive the car when
    you leave the service, because the strongest drink you had was
    the "new wine"! People do NOT get liberated from bondages at
    the nightclub, but all kinds of wonderful things can happen when
    we release ourselves, body, soul and spirt, to the worship of
    the Triune God! "Joy unspeakable and full of glory" can't be
    found without Jesus, and we don't require sound effects, light
    shows, dry ice smoke or even sequinned clothing to praise His
    name and shout the victory.* Clubs and secular promoters "have to"
    add gimmicks, because they don't have the Light of the world,
    nor know the Father of All Pyrotechnics--Yahweh, the "consuming
    fire."
         We can get down with Brother Bach or Brother Gabrieli,
    or Rev. Shirley Caesar or Sister Tramaine Hawkins, and the gospel
    proclaimed in any language can deliver the life-changing word of
    God. So much for the "creativity" of clubs...
         What's being said about "whistles" today--as a fad, worldly,
    whatever--was ALSO SAID ABOUT THE ORGAN. It took CENTURIES for
    organs to be accepted into European Christian worship, because
    they were associated with TAVERNS. Read the history of the pipe
    organ, and you'd be amazed!
         As for the little whistle--it's just one more untuned
    wind instrument in the praise mix. I've heard them at my
    roommate's church, used during the song "Holy Ghost Party"--
    and this pastor grew up in a traditional white Pentecostal
    church,yet! When all's been said and done--Christian folks
    have ALL the fun!
         You can also hear the whistle used on the album High Praises
    by Ron Kenoly, who uses them in the reggae song "Jesus is the
    Winnah, Mon."

Give me a whistle and I'll blow for HIS GLORY--

Charity Dell
gabrieli@hotmail.com

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