August 15: A Sunday on the Road

A note for those who read the paper-and-ink version of the "Music Box" in our church newsletter: the September essay should be read in the context of what follows, and is, to some extent, an answer to it. As much as I might like to be in the places I describe, I am not, in any manner other than a tourist and stranger. I am here, now, in the place where God has put me. And that is best. For those who do not see the newsletter, I will append the essay to this posting.
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My principal task for the day: driving from Nashville to my home in the hills to the east. But it was Sunday, the Lord's Day. I decided that I would head up the road and see if a likely-looking church might appear at 10:30 or 11:00.

I ended up at Lafayette Missionary Baptist Church, in Lafayette, Tennessee. From the moment the music started, I knew that I had been led to the right place.

People were pouring into the church from the parking lot. I was glad that I was in white shirt and tie, because most of them were dressed in similar fashion. I followed the crowd into the sanctuary, which was already full at ten minutes before the hour, filled with people of all ages and with the happy buzz of conversation. These people obviously enjoyed one another's company.

I will borrow from the format of the Mystery Worshippers at ship-of-fools.com:

The Church: It was, the sign said, established in 1849. There was an older building with facade in colonial style with white columns, and a much larger new building alongside it to the left with similar facade, connecting by a short passageway.

The Denomination: There are dozens of varieties of Baptist, and at least two sorts of "Missionary Baptists" to which this congregation could be affiliated: the "Old Time Missionary Baptists," whose heartland is this very region of Middle Tennessee and Kentucky, and the more modernistic churches who are closer to the Southern Baptists in practice, but are not affiliated with the Southern Baptist Convention because of its liberalism. The lack of an invitation at the end of the sermon inclines me to think that this might be more of an "Old Time" congregation, as one of their hallmarks is that they consider "decisional regeneration," or choosing to accept Christ as personal savior, to be biblically unsound, while those closer to the Southern Baptists regularly include an invitation to accept Christ as part of their services. Also, the lack of a baptistry might be indicative; the Old Time churches prefer to conduct baptisms in rivers, by immersion.

On the other hand, this congregation would be quite large for the "Old Time" group, whose churches tend to be small, and the use of an organ along with the piano would be unusual. Then again, such congregations are independent of one another, and far from uniform in their practice. In the end, they are what they are. There was a Church Covenant inscribed in a large plaque on the wall above the pulpit; this probably served as a description of their beliefs, but I was sitting too far back to read it. The Wikipedia article linked above includes the "Eighteen Articles of Faith" typically considered to be fundamental doctrine by Old Time Missionary Baptists. I heard and saw nothing in my visit at the Lafayette Church that would not be in keeping with these doctrines.

The Building: As I eventually learned, they were in their third week of worship in a new facility, built alongside their old one, which had been transformed into their church school. It was a plain, square room with plain white walls, red carpet, and heavily padded pews. In the front was an area on the right for a choir, filled with about thirty people, a pulpit in the center with two chairs behind it and the Church Covenant above -- no communion table or cross anywhere in sight and no decorations anywhere -- and on the left, an upright piano and electronic organ. The songleader stood by these instruments.

The Neighborhood: A block from the Macon County Courthouse, in the middle of the small town of Lafayette (northeast of Nashville, near the Kentucky line on State Route 52), with many of the businesses closed and boarded up as they are in most small rural towns -- the center of business activity had moved to the Wal-Mart on the edge of town. Some of the abandoned nature of the downtown is probably the aftermath of an EF-3 class tornado on the night of February 5, 2008, which came to ground in downtown Lafayette, killing fourteen people in Macon County.

The Cumberland Plateau of Tennessee and Kentucky is one of the more isolated parts of America, a region of rolling countryside, farms, and woods, of cornfields, pasture, and burley tobacco, beautiful with its fully mature leaves a bright yellow, much of it already cut and stacked in the fields, ready for drying in sheds over the winter. This was my kind of place.

The Cast: The service was led by an unnamed Elder. Besides the choir of about thirty people (who had no independent part in the service; their function was to support the congregational singing), there was a young man in white shirt and tie, perhaps eighteen or twenty years old, as songleader; another young man perhaps in his mid-twenties at the piano; and a woman in her seventies or eighties at the organ. I did not learn any of their names.

The Date and Time: Sunday, August 15, 11:00 a.m.

What was the name of the service? No name was given, either inside or outside on the church sign, which did not list service times. This was simply what people did; show up at 11:00 on the Lord's Day. It did not need a name.

How full was the building? Filled to overflowing. As mentioned, I arrived ten minutes early; I nonetheless seated myself in a folding chair in the back, because there were no other seats. All of the pews were full, and others continued to arrive, pretty much filling all of the overflow seating. All told, I would guess at 250 people or thereabouts, of all ages, with probably fifty or seventy-five of them under the age of sixteen. Being a new facility, I worried a bit that it was already overflowing, and that on a Sunday in mid-August when our church back home was likely pretty much empty. Perhaps it should have been larger. But perhaps this was all they could afford; it was about twice the size of their old worship space. On the whole, the people looked comfortable, but not at all well-to-do financially. They had the look of hard-working country people. Upon reflection, I realized that part of it was the teeth.

I have bad teeth, three of them missing and the rest crooked. This comes, in part, from not having access to orthodontics in my childhood; only the children of the wealthiest families wore braces in that time and place. The people among whom I live these days all have fine straight teeth, thanks (in many cases) to extensive dental work recently and throughout their lives. The only ones with bad teeth are some of the street people, and immigrants from Eastern Europe or Africa. But back home in the Appalachians, pretty much anyone of my generation has teeth like mine. As did the people in Lafayette Missionary Baptist Church. These were not people who spend thousands of dollars on their appearance.

In this light, it is worth mentioning that two offerings were taken, back to back -- two sets of ushers (all male), two sets of plates going around at the same time while the piano and organ played a couple of gospel songs as an offertory. Both sets of plates were overflowing with cash, with lots of $20's and $50's in evidence. The songleader mentioned the purpose of the two offerings, but I didn't catch it.

Did anyone welcome you personally? No. In fact, no one sat within three seats of me in my row despite the crowded conditions, and some people (especially children) stared at me as an obvious stranger. There were no ushers or greeters. Then again, Lafayette is well off the beaten path, and small enough that people probably recognize everyone in town and are unused to seeing strangers.

Was your pew comfortable? The pews appeared to be comfortable; the folding chair was not.

How would you describe the pre-service atmosphere? Happy. A family reunion. There was something of a sense of anticipation, as well.

What were the exact opening words of the service? From the songleader: "In the blue book, number ...."

What books did the congregation use during the service? There were four songbooks in the pew racks (or on the chairs, in my case), all of them Stamps-Baxter gospel collections in shape-note notation and all of them well-worn. In this service we used only one of them, referred to as the "blue book." I neglected to note its title. About half the congregation had brought their own Bibles, and used them during the sermon. I was sorry I had left mine in the car.

I must describe, for the uninitiated, what a "Stamps-Baxter" book is. They were a publishing house which specialized in Southern Gospel, producing thousands of songs in the genre and printing them in small paperback songbooks with shape-note notation, even though the music bears little relation to the older Sacred Harp or Southern Harmony shape-note singing traditions. It is a unique part of Americana, and of the history of church music in the United States. Donald Hustad describes it in this manner: "In the 1930's . . . the Stamps-Baxter "gospel quartet" emerged to present all-night "gospel sings" and to publish scores of small songbooks which became popular, particularly in rural churches in the South. Most of these "southern hymns" were "up-tempo", combining the call-and-response techniques of spirituals with the word repetition common to the quartet song." (from Jubilate II: Church Music in Worship and Renewal: Donald P. Hustad, Hope Publishing Co., 1993). Such music was obviously this congregation's entire repertoire and delight. While this repertoire is often sung by quartets, in this church all of the singing was congregational, sometimes in parts and sometimes in unison. Sometimes it departed quite a bit from the notation.

In a way, the relation of Southern Gospel to the old Sacred Harp singing is analogous to the relation between Bluegrass and old-time traditional Mountain Music of the southern Appalachians. In both cases, the latter is a genuine folk tradition, and the former is an adaptation and commercialization of it in accord with the differing circumstances of the mid-twentieth century, especially the advent of radio broadcasting and recordings.

What musical instruments were played? Piano and organ together, in the grand Baptist style. From the first notes of the prelude, a lively gospel song, I was entranced. The pianist was a young genius. He played this style as well as I have ever heard it, even in recordings. He combined formidable technique with a solid understanding of the music and the accompanying of congregational song. The organist was good, too, though in this style the organ's role is that of playing sustained chords while the pianist has all the fun. As a team, pianist and organist were impeccable. The songleader was in the stiff, no-nonsense style that one commonly finds among the Latter-Day Saints churches; no emoting, no commentary or exhortation, just the songs, announced and conducted in a thoroughly straightforward way. I loved it.

Did anything distract you? No. I was in heaven.

Was the worship stiff-upper-lip, happy-clappy, or what? Very happy, in a dignified old-school country Baptist manner. Not at all "happy-clappy" in the forced and artificial modern evangelical sense; it could not be further removed from that sort of churchmanship.

Exactly how long was the sermon? I did not time it, but it was somewhat over forty-five minutes.

In a nutshell, what was the sermon about? The presiding elder, a gentleman in his sixties or seventies, began with the "Reading Lesson," which was the entire twenty-sixth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles, being Paul's defense before King Agrippa (in the King James Version, as were all of the many Scriptures that were quoted). But that was merely the lead-in to an account of the Promises of God, beginning in Genesis 3 and running through the "Old Bible," as he called it, right up to Malachi, with a half-dozen or so passages from Acts and the Epistles for good measure, most tellingly Acts 2:38-39 -- "the promise is unto you, and to your children, and to all that are afar off, even as many as the Lord our God shall call." He probably quoted twenty or thirty passages, all appropriate to his point. It reminded me of what we Anglicans do in a different way in a Service of Lessons and Carols. As mentioned, there was no invitation or altar call at the end. His stated purpose, which he fulfilled, was to show what a firm foundation we have in Christ, whose incarnation was the fulfillment of the unshakable and eternal promises of God. There were many "Amens" scattered through the sermon, some of them from me. At the completion, he said "And that is what the Lord has put on my heart for today. Let's have a Christian handshake with one another."

If this was indeed an "Old Time" church, the elder probably had no theological education. It is frowned upon in this tradition. But he had spent a lot of time with his Bible.

Which part of the service was like being in heaven? The music. The congregational singing and especially the pianist and organist. I could listen to them for days on end. And the "Christian handshake." And the sermon; it was good to hear a sermon with plenty of meat on its bones. I doubt that the elder has encountered his writings, but I thought of Lancelot Andrewes more than once.

And which part was like being in... er... the other place? The folding chair got pretty uncomfortable before all was done. We remained seated throughout until after the sermon, a good hour and a quarter or more into the service. The acoustics were horrible, which is typical of Baptists. I thought more than once how much better the singing would be with bare hardwood floors. But it was good enough as it was.

What happened when you hung around after the service looking lost? By this time, several people had spoken with me in the "Christian handshake," which I will shortly describe. After the closing prayer, an elderly gentleman engaged me in conversation; he proved to be the husband of the organist. I spoke with her as well, telling her that I was a church organist "back home." She said "Oh, if I'd known that, we'd have had you play instead of me." I demurred, and told her I could never play this music as well as she and her pianist companion had done. Several other people spoke with me briefly, inviting me back anytime I was in the area.

How would you describe the after-service coffee? There was none. No coffee, no cookies, no nothing. But people hung around for a long time, talking and having a good time. I left after ten minutes or so, and I was one of the first to do so.

How would you feel about making this church your regular home (where 10 = ecstatic, 0 = terminal)? Four. For a one-time visit, I was ecstatic. But I spent many years in a related branch of the Baptist tradition, and left it for the Episcopal Church. As fine as it was, the music was one-dimensional, pretty much all in the same tempo and "feel," and all geared toward the life of eternity. In this style, there is not even the Watts and Wesley that one finds in the old Shape-Note traditions that lie behind the Stamps-Baxter music. There were no Psalms, and no Eucharist -- they probably do it once a quarter, call it the "Lord's Supper," and deny that it has any sacramental character. Bach or Messiaen or Howells would be unimaginable in this setting. There would be neither Matins nor Evensong, and no devotion to the Mother of God or the Blessed Sacrament. I would miss the heritage of hymnody in all styles from plainsong onward, the Sunday Lectionary (which, as one learns in a "free" church, is a safeguard against the whims and prejudices of the clergy), the Nicene Creed and other parts of the Ordinary, the elegant language of collects and liturgy when conducted in Rite One, the liturgical year, the sanctoral calendar. Perhaps the hardest part would be giving up the Anglican choral tradition, and my work with choirs, as well as my playing of the classical organ literature. It would be a lot to sacrifice.

Nonetheless, were I to live in Macon County, Tennessee - with the nearest Episcopal churches probably an hour's drive away and not at all a part of the local community - I would probably join this congregation, learn to live with its limitations, and sing the Daily Office at home. And I would learn from these fine musicians how to play gospel piano and organ.

Did the service make you feel glad to be a Christian? Absolutely. I am pleased and honored that these people are my brethren, and that they (eventually) gave me the right hand of Christian fellowship, even though a stranger. I am very glad that such congregations still exist in this degenerate age.

What one thing will you remember about all this in seven days' time? The delight in my heart at the first measures of piano and organ, playing this music the way it ought to be done. I almost floated out of my seat into the rafters for joy.

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Afterword:
I have mentioned the "Christian handshake." This was a ritual which was new to me. After the sermon, the songleader announced the first of eight or ten songs, and the elder started shaking hands with people in the choir. Gradually, people in the choir and congregation got up, lined up along the right-side wall, and started filing down to the front, shaking hands with all they encountered, often exchanging hugs and entering into conversation. They continued on around across the front and up the left-side wall and aisle and the whole thing dissolved into as fine an example of the Peace as I have encountered, the singing continuing throughout. This process occupied about a half-hour. When it was time, the presiding elder called for the closing prayer, which he delegated to an elder in the congregation, and the service was finished with a postlude, with which some of the people sang along. And people continued to mingle for quite a while.

Partway through this ritual, a few people began to shake my hand -- quite a few had gone right past me at first. Then more and more, and finally nearly everyone. It was if it simply took them a while to warm up to a stranger in their midst. And this was fine.

The order of service: After a short prelude, we began with two congregational gospel songs. The presiding elder then stood, and without any introductory statements or welcome, asked for prayer requests. People spoke up, many scores of people, briefly naming those who were in need of prayer, sometimes adding a sentence describing the reason. After it was clear that everyone had spoken who had something to say, the presiding elder called on "elder ...." in the choir to "lead off the prayer." The elder who was indicated knelt on his knees and started praying. Others joined him, sometimes simultaneously. In the carpeted church, it was almost impossible to hear what they were saying if they were at any distance in the room. The whole process of requests and intercessory prayer took about twenty-five or thirty minutes.

Then came the two offerings, as mentioned, and we sang a couple more gospel songs. After that, the presiding elder stood for the "Reading Lesson" and sermon, followed by the "Christian handshake," a brief closing prayer by an elder out in the congregation (right in front of me, as it happened), and postlude.

Another Afterword:
According to the so-called "church growth experts," a place such as this should not exist. They do nothing that the pollsters and pop-sociologists say a church should do to attract newcomers: they are positively unfriendly to a stranger on first appearance; they make no effort to explain their manner of worship; their music is miles away from the mainstream of Christian pop that is supposed to attract the crowds; they use the King James Bible; they are located in what appears to be a decaying rural community, instead of the wealthy upscale suburbs favored by the likes of Willow Creek; their service is uncompromisingly long, with a sermon filled with Scripture and devoid of any contemporary cultural or topical reference. There are no written materials of any kind other than the Stamps-Baxter songbooks and the Bibles that people bring with them. No video screens, no lighting or stage effects. No announcements, save a brief reminder of the Sunday evening service, and a call to "always pray for the lost." The church does not appear to have a website.

Yet, this church was filled, and not just with old people. The mix of age groups was similar to the contemporary service in our parish; lots of children, including small children with their families, plus more teens than we have in our services. There was no children's chapel, or children's sermon. There was nothing whatsoever that was specifically aimed at children or youth, but the place was full of them, and they appeared to be having a good time. The very young ones enjoyed being with their parents and playing in the pews -- and the congregation happily tolerated the noise and disorder that young children always bring -- the older children and teens tended to sit with their friends in groups, and did a good bit of quiet talking among themselves, but they were there, and seemingly happy to be there.

Two Lists:
Here are some of the songs that were sung. There were many others, but I did not know most of them, and I was so entranced that I was simply flowing along with them, not paying much attention to what they were. I was too shy to sing alto, so I sang melody, tenor, and bass, easily falling into my native hillbilly accent, and had a grand time.
- I'd rather be an old-time Christian
- I'll fly away
- Trust and obey
- Victory in Jesus
- There's a better home the other side of Jordan

After church, I drove for a while eastward on Route 52, finding the "Gone Country" Cafe in the next county seat: Celina, Tennessee, in Clay County. It was a little downtown place run by three women -- one of them young, perhaps the daughter or daughter-in-law of the oldest woman who was working the kitchen. She (the young woman) was, I think, the widow of a soldier killed in Afghanistan -- "Gone, but not forgotten," as the little display on the refrigerator door said, above a collection of fading newspaper clippings and photos.

I had the Vegetable Plate:
- Mixed Beans (pinto and navy, cooked to perfection)
- Hoecake (like a pancake, but made with corn meal. This was what appeared in response to the question "Do you want corn bread or light bread?" That is what my mother used to ask my father when starting to fix supper, and it took me right back to those days.)
- Mashed Potatoes
- Cole Slaw
- Green Tomatoes, battered and fried
- Apple Cobbler with Ice Cream

Once again, I was in heaven. This little place had food that was a hundred times better than the fancy fare at the Doubletree Hotel. May these three women live long and prosper, and may their beloved soldier rest in peace.

Sunset and Evening Star
Evening found me in far Southwest Virginia, after a sultry afternoon on U.S. 58 running up the east side of Cumberland Mountain as the shadows lengthened, along the route of Daniel Boone's Wilderness Road. It is one of the most beautiful drives in America. For a while, U.S. 58 is joined by the north-south highway U.S. 23. Loretta Lynn, the "Coal Miner's Daughter," was born and raised not far north on this highway in Butcher Hollow, Kentucky, before following her husband (to whom she was married just after her fourteenth birthday and bore four children by the age of nineteen) out west, and later driving cross-country with him, trying to get radio stations to play her songs. Some of them did.

Dr. Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys are from around here too, near Clintwood in the next county east, along with elder brother Carter Stanley (1925-66), guitarist and mentor to Ralph. They are among the great practitioners of Bluegrass, Gospel, and traditional music. If one wishes to understand this region and its people, one could do worse than listen to Ralph and Loretta's songs, such as "The Fields Have Turned Brown" (a Carter Stanley song, which Ralph still sings), "When I Wake to Sleep No More," and "Coal Miner's Daughter."

Following this road, I began working my way north, deeper into the mountains. At the top of one of the mountain gaps just south of the city of Norton, there is a roadside overlook. I arrived there shortly past sunset, and walked out the long path to the edge of the cliff. The mountains rolled away into the distance, into the summer haze that softens the contours of the Virginia hill country.

Castanea dentata used to be the dominant tree species in these parts. It loved the steep slopes with their thin, rocky soil, the temperate summers with plenty of rain, the moderate winters. I may walk far from these hills in my journeys, but part of me will always be here.

As I watched, the evening star appeared in the darkening sky.

O gracious Light,
pure brightness of the everliving Father in heaven;
O Jesus Christ, holy and blessed.

Now as we come to the setting of the sun,
and our eyes behold the vesper light,
we sing thy praises, O God: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

Thou art worthy at all times to be praised by happy voices,
O Son of God, O Giver of life,
and to be glorified through all the worlds.

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Appendix: I am here, now
"I am here, now." This remains in my mind from a sermon many years ago in our parish. We are limited in space and time. "I am here, now." That means I am not in other places, some of which I would like very much to be. We can learn much from the trees in this; once the seed commits to germination, it is in that place for the rest of its life, perhaps centuries. It may find the place to be uncongenial -- choked with pollution, too dry or too wet, poor soil, insect and animal pests in abundance, harsh winters. It may find itself in the path of a highway, or a subdivision, or a logging company. But it is committed to that one place, come what may.

We animals have more flexibility. Nonetheless, we, like the trees, are only in one place at a time, and prosper only when we stay in that place long enough to learn its ways. We must cast forth roots and seek to bear fruit, whether the circumstances are favorable or not. We must work for the good of the place where we are, of the people around us, in the present moment, and in the manner committed to us.

We might fail, insofar as we can judge the results of our work. By the time he died, "Old Bach" of Leipzig was an obsolete relic, his ways abandoned by his sons and students, the Lutheran orthodoxy he loved cast aside for modern ways. But his work lay for generations like seeds in the soil, bearing fruit in ways he could not have foreseen.

The work is given to us, but it is not ours, and our personal success or failure in it matters not at all. The work is the LORD's, and it shall not fail.