The Voice of Prayer is Never Silent
The explosive growth in the inner city of Black-led, or new Christian churches (there is much disagreement about appropriate titles) has put great pressure on available space for worship. A drive around Hackney reveals an array of former factories, shops, warehouses, and disused traditional buildings being used by new church groups for worship and ministry. They number from a handful of family members to the largest church in the country with over 10,000 members.
Dalston Methodist is in the happy position to be able to act as host church to several of these new churches and my involvement with them has offered me a valuable insight into the variety of Christian worship within what are often indiscriminately clubbed together as ‘Black-led’ churches. Just as a modern multiplex cinema offers the cinemagoer a wide choice of films covering an array of different experiences, so the worship offered in the buildings of Dalston Methodist Church offers a worshipper a similar opportunity.
On a Sunday morning, before the Methodists arrive, the drums, amplifiers and equipment of the Life International Gospel Centre are being unloaded and set up in the Church Hall. Worship is led by the pastor, Revd John Oladimeji, and a growing number of mainly Nigerian families arrive once worship is underway (including Toke, Tayo and Alice on the left). The service, conducted in English, begins with an extended time of prayer, led by the pastor, and then there is singing worship for at least twenty minutes, led by a group of young women with a young boy on the drums. It is a noisy and stirring rendition of chorus old and new. Afterwards there is a more traditional service with Bible readings, a preached word and prayer. The atmosphere is warm and welcoming, although the children tend to sit at the back on their own.
During this time the growing Methodist congregation comes to worship in the Church, led by a large beautifully-gowned choir which processes in during the first hymn. Worship is recognisably Methodist, although the ‘Amens’ and ‘Praise the Lords’ are noticeable after hymns and a sermon. The congregation is about two-thirds Caribbean and one-third African in composition. The large Sunday School leaves after the opening worship, returning for Holy Communion and baptisms.
As the Methodists leave, Mother Hamilton, of the Church of Jesus Christ (not to be confused with the Latter Day Saints) takes over in the Hall from the LIGC. She, as did her late husband before her, has led a small Caribbean congregation, many of whom are her extended family, with a warm dignity. Hymns are sung unaccompanied, very slowly, but with great passion and feeling. The service is very participatory, with members of the congregation invited forward to share their reflections on the Bible text, which had been discussed the previous week. They are also invited individually to offer a text for the week. The Hall is carefully decorated with flowers and a sense of quiet dignity pervades the worship.
On Sunday afternoon three Christian groups are worshipping at the same time, in the Church and in two halls. In the Church, Pastor Reuben Saunders leads the small Spiritual Baptist Church. He is also, during the week, caretaker of the Dalston Methodist Church premises. The Spiritual Baptists are a church of Caribbean origin, and much of their worship would be recognised by other Baptists. However, at the start of the service, two or three women kneel in front of the Communion Table and pray ecstatically, in English. The Communion Table contains symbols of worship, including oil of healing, water of the Spirit, a bell, flowers, and one flower on its own.
Meanwhile, Pastor Santos Gomez leads the Pentecost Evangelical Merciful Church in the main hall. The PEMC is a mainly Congolese church, with quieter and more melodious music than some African churches. Worship is conducted in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. On one of my visits I delivered a few words in French, which were received in silence. They were then translated through all the languages, and back into French. This time the French speakers applauded loudly. The congregation sit in three blocks, one for women and babies, one for men and boys, the middle one for young people. Worship is warm and Pentecostal in nature, with much congregational involvement. On one occasion a lay leader came forward and, kneeling in front of the congregation, apologised for causing an upset. Although part of what he said was translated I could not learn any more.
Just as they are reaching the climax of their worship Pastor Festus Tete-Djawu arrives with a minibus containing half his congregation for the Church of the Lord (Brotherhood), which meets in the Church. This is a church of Ghanaian origin, in which worship is formal and European rather than African in content. Hymns and Psalms are sung slowly and unaccompanied, the preached word is powerful and relies on the inspiration of the Spirit. On one visit I was asked to lay hands on members of the congregation and then preach an extempore sermon. I will be better prepared next time.
Finally, the Deeper Christian Life Ministry meets two evenings a week for prayer and Bible study. Its members worship elsewhere on a Sunday. This multiplicity of churches and Christian groups offers ground for further reflections and comment. First, although there are eight of them their total attendance is little more than twice the number at Dalston Methodist on a Sunday. In spite of the explosive growth of ‘new’ black-led churches, it is not often recognised that the vast majority of black Christians are found in the traditional churches, Roman Catholic, Anglican and Methodist, on a Sunday.
Second, none of these churches, although within the parameters of Christian orthodoxy, are members of any of the established groupings of Black-led churches, such as the International Ministerial Council of Great Britain, or the more recently established Apostolic Congress of Great Britain. Most of the churches inevitably remain quite isolated and vulnerable, relying on the qualities of individual leaders, without the ‘connexional’ support of traditional churches. They also feel a strong desire to be recognised by the traditional churches, which can offer them a much needed sense of Christian legitimacy in the ecumenical world.
Whilst at Dalston, I have seen my ecumenical imperative to be one of developing a relationship with these churches, to which we are hosts, and also to the IMCGB and the ACGB, rather than along the more traditional lines of a cup of tea with the local vicars (both of whom are female and black). I invite all the pastors to an annual meeting where we share together news of our churches and a time of prayer. This meeting has increased in value as the years have gone by. As a result, I have received the warmest of welcomes whenever I have joined the worshipping congregations of these churches(including the Life International young people on the right). (How many Methodist Churches would stop their worship so that the leader can come forward and hug and kiss a new arrival!). This has also helped to counter a feeling among some black-led churches that their host church is only interested in collecting what they feel to be an exorbitant rent.
When I am not in any of these churches and listen to the sound of worship from the building of Dalston Methodist Church, I reflect that God may at times be confused by the variety of music, accent and expression. But God knows that ‘The voice of prayer is never silent, nor dies the strain of praise away.’
John Lampard was formerly minister of Dalston and Clapton churches.