A Personal Testimony: Why are you stuck on the altar?
Nerve, I had to focus our last MissioSpark study on the Altar Prayer in the black religious experience during a globally tumultuous period in our history when all focus is on COVID-19. Our attention and rightfully so is on caring for the sick, grieving the dying and of our former ways of life, and noting the not-so-surprising socio-health disparities based on race yet I felt led to write on the altar prayer.
Why? The altar holds a special place in my heart and in my religious experience. At 5-years old, the only daughter of 4 kids, longing for my dad who had left my mother for a woman with 5-kids he met on his job, I was miserable. My mom took in work and later fell victim to a dysfunctional party life, and I became the surrogate mom in the household. By 8 or 9 years of age, misery plagued every fabric of my being. I did my best though especially in caring for my youngest brother. It would be in 1969 at 9-years old that I realized that drugs would be the daily activity and actions in our house, and it did not make me happy. I confronted my mom about drug use on a Sunday morning. I was primarily concerned not with my other brothers, neighbors and friends that engaged but with my little brother. I said, “It has to stop!” In good-ole 1960’s fashion, I was smacked in the mouth. Crying, I walked out of the house with no sense of direction.
(Now I know from a friend and mentor, Dr. Jocelyn Henry Whitehead, educator, pastor’s wife, and mission’s leader through the WMU of Virginia, that “If my mother had known better, she would have done better.”)
I walked a little over a mile down Head of the Neck Road to Station Road in the small hamlet of Bellport, New York on Long Island. Crossing the Long Island Railroad tracks I spotted a little church that looked like a house. I went in and the power of the Lord met me at the door. The fervent singing and praying moved me my soul and comforted my very being. I found myself in the Burning Bush Church of God in Christ (COGIC). A fiery call to salvation through Jesus happened about 2:45 p.m. Of course, it could not have been that late. Time seemingly did not exist. I went to the altar without a doubt in my mind. Raised both hands in the air and arms extended high as the pastor took the bottle of anointing oil and laid hands on my forehead. He prayed. The women in white whom I would later learn were the missionaries and altar workers encircled me and prayed. They said as they clapped in rhythm, “Call on Jesus, daughter!” And yes, I did call. Aloud as if life depended on it, I called. “Jesus, save me!” I accepted, I believed.
The altar would become more than food and more than life itself. As is the tradition in the COGIC, we met there with God and the saints every Tuesday and Friday night and sometimes every night. Oh, I forgot to mention noonday prayers. During these times we would fall on our knees and call on Jesus. A little singing, a little praying, lots of moaning and groaning in the spirit as the scripture tell us in Romans 8:26.
We were at the altar on Sunday mornings after the preached word. Tarrying, oh, that means waiting there in the presence of the Lord until deliverance is wrought. Every Sunday being engrossed in a power that sustains and a power that liberates. Every Sunday in sacred space bringing our burdens to the Lord who cared for us.
The altar as a believer was good. But this was the COGIC where the striving was for sanctification and holiness. (For our purposes, I am not going to argue the various interpretations of such theological concepts here and its differentiations across denominations and socio-economic classes). As a believer the altar was sacred space but it was also at the altar, like the upper room in Jerusalem, that we were taught to wait for Holy Ghost power to fill us with the evidence of speaking in tongues as the ultimate stamp of “I got it!” So it was, I waited. I tarried at the altar for 2-years.
By now I am 11 years old and it was a Friday night in one of many revivals…we had about 4 to 6 a year in 5-night stretches 😊… I waited, I tarried because I wanted more. It was about 11 or 11:30 p.m. and after a powerful teaching from John 17, we went to the altar and fell on our knees. We began to cry out in the theme song of the COGIC “Yes, Lord!” As we prayed through the morning, it was about 12:30 p.m. and as we went to get up, I stood and became overtaken with a power of human irrationality. (As a sociologist, I can argue that it was “ole time religion, traditional African spirituality or even learned behavior” but for me, it was the wonderful power of the Holy Spirit filling me with the Holy Ghost and power. I know that this is not just my testimony for many a folk have a testimony of a conversion experience. I am reading now “The Story of the Lord’s Dealing with Amanda Smith The Colored Evangelist” written sometime in the late 1800’s. This is not just my story). I could not walk, talk, or stand for long and the saints as they only can in Pentecostalism celebrated Jesus and the power of the Holy Ghost on me and in the place.
Many years later, at the altar during a revival in Richmond, Virginia, the visiting revivalist called me to the altar. I was the last one in the congregation of which she would prophesy a word from the Lord. She said, “I see you preaching the gospel, traveling the world and speaking primarily before white audiences.” She then took the anointing oil from her armor bearer, she wet her hands with the oil. She said, “Raise your hands to the Lord.” This was a command and not a question. She laid hands on me and prayed.
The altar until this day, is my peace. Preaching as the revivalist at my home church about 4-years ago on Long Island, the Jefferson Temple Church of God in Christ, I walked in the first night of revival to see the saints at the altar where we always prayed for at least an hour before every service, and maybe more if the spirit did not let us go. I walked up the aisle with my sister-in-law, Evangelist Linda Preston of Roanoke, Virginia. I humbly assumed the position on my knees at the altar and began signing, “It’s another day, that the Lord, has kept me…” and the saints joined in and we prayed through.
So, the altar is a place where we lay down our burdens, negotiate our trauma and are propelled into the world to be witnesses for Christ. I am a storyteller, an evangelist-type and believe in the power of story to draw people to Christ. Criticized at times for my rawness of real-life challenges and God’s power to deliver I make no apologies. Oh yeah, my mom put me out of the house at 15 not because I was a bad girl, but I just preached, talked about Jesus, and loved the church too much. Rough days on the street of 3 of 5 NYC borrows but God…
I was tempted to share this testimony when administering the last survey. However, a researcher learns early to account for her own bias and to aim for “pure” research as much as is possible within human constraints.
MissioSparks next survey will look explore spiritual disciplines before and during COVID-19. The only criteria for taking the survey will be that one attended worship services at least once a month prior to COVID-19.