By: Bishop Earnest L. Palmer, Senior Pastor
Cornerstone Full Gospel Baptist Church
Tuscaloosa, Alabama

My mother was a "professional" church musician.... which means she played regularly at two local churches on Sundays, and often toured during the week with her singing group. My father's side of the family was members at Zion's Star Baptist Church, where he was President of the Senior Usher Board. Every Negro church (the ethnic designation at that time) had a Senior Usher Board, and every year all of the Senior Usher Boards in the area would designate a Sunday to celebrate the Senior Usher Board Anniversary. One of the boasting benefits I enjoyed for twenty years was that my daddy was President of the Senior Usher Board.

Relatives (often called "kinfolk") on my mother's side were members of Twenty-third Street Baptist Church because it was located on Twenty-third Street and Fourth Avenue South. Another church had already claimed "Fourth Avenue Baptist Church" as its name, so some bright and probably erudite church-lady probably suggested the name, "Zion's Star." Actually "Zion's Star" was a derivative of what was represented in the Jewish religious community as "the Star of David," but I don't remember any Jews living in our community. Who else would dare claim that name?

There was another church in the community named, "First Metropolitan A.M.E. Church. We never could figure out how they derived the name, but a lot of people attended there and they always locked their car doors when they came to church. (Or so those told me, who by "vocation" had such information.)

Names of churches in the Black Community (ethnic name change) identified more than the church and its location. It legitimized the real source of personal and family identity, which was otherwise obscured and ignored by the majority population but for the presence of this "institutional designation."

When Caucasians would meet for the first time, it was not unusual for them to initiate conversation with an inquiry as to which country club they had membership or at what company or firm each was employed. In the Black Community, the inquiry was more likely; "In what church do you have membership?" Personal identity was purposefully linked to church membership.

It was generally expected that by the age of 8, 9, or 10, you should have "joined the church" or something was wrong with your family's values. You should have confessed your sins, been baptized, and given "the right hand of fellowship," by this age or something was wrong! If not, your family would be next in line for a visit from the local pastor inquiring as to why you hadn't "joined the church." This pastoral visit would include notice that the annual five-night revival services were being conducted in one of the area churches and that the errant child be present each night until the child had gone through conversion.

At the risks of being perceived sacrilegious and stereotypical, this whole exercise could easily be described as "religious drama." The actors (preacher, parents, children) played out their roles in repeat performances (called The Annual Church Revival) every year (during the summer), with the same audience (church members and visitors), and the same results (folk joining the church).

If you did fall asleep, there was always this woman (a bona fide member of the Senior Ushers' Board), dressed in what appeared to be nurse's attire and white gloves who would vigorously shake you out of your sleep, even while the evangelist was preaching. Sometimes the whole Mourners' Bench would be asleep but would all suddenly awaken when the lady in white came around.

Occasionally, there would be the service wrinkle of some neighborhood "lowlife," for whom someone had prayed for his deliverance and brought him, often in drunken stupor, to the church during the revival. Inevitably on the Thursday Night of the revival, this person would publicly and usually in tears "repent" and join the church. The other probable departure from the revival format was the teen-age girl, who had recently birthed a child out of wedlock and was compelled by her parents and other "good church folk" to ask "forgiveness" from the church. Before she could be reinstated to her "right place of membership in the church and subject to all the rights and privileges of other members of the church and provided a copy of the church by-laws by the church clerk," she had to make this appearance. Either of these anomalies heightened the religious fervor of the revival and triggered congregational frenzy. Any child who was still waiting to be saved became caught up in the moment, and joined the church, whether they had planned it for that time or not.

There were a few years when you would have a "stubborn child," on the bench, who was simply unmoved by what was happening. That's when they would bring out the "big guns," -- the "head deacon." Everybody recognized and respected (with the possible exception of his wife) the Head Deacon -- even the pastor. He would approach the child on the Mourners' Bench, inching his way along with the help of a walking cane. Spontaneously, someone in the corner would "raise a hymn," the words of which no one knew but the person in the corner. The Head Deacon would kneel in front of the recalcitrant sinner and pray initially for the child's deliverance from the hands of the devil. Then, he would pray for the removal of the "shackles of sin," "the chains of mischief," "protection from loose women", and other sinful conditions (usually inapplicable to the candidate), until the child would get up or until he was pulled up to save time (on Friday nights).

There was another phenomenon about joining the church, which impacted me during my personal assessment and recounting of the experience, and that was that each new convert had to have a "testimony." Every of us was supposed to be equipped and prepared to explain how he had been "changed." You were to have "felt," "seen," or "heard" something, which brought you to your feet in that church as a "sinner, saved by grace," and you had to be able to tell it.

There were thirteen of us on the Mourners' Bench during my final tarrying days (I had to repeat one year because I couldn't get my testimony right). The minister would ask each person the same questions and each of us would give the same answers or some variation. The first year, I made the mistake (daring to be different) of giving an unacceptable answer and the preacher sent me back to the Mourners' Bench. The question, which changed my life for the next year was, "Do you promise to serve the Lord until you die?" I hesitated at the thought of a decision with a death implication. After all, I was only ten years old.

I was as "saved" as any of the others but I didn't follow the script; and much was at risk if you didn't follow the script. I found out much later that everyone else had been rehearsed on how to respond to the preacher's questions by his or her parents or older sisters and brothers who had joined the church before. When the others in my group had moved on to better things (baptism, right hand of Fellowship, Last Supper celebrations, the choir, and even the Senior Usher Board, etc.), I remained, alone, on the front row of the church, every Sunday, until the next year's revival time. I was viewed as a source of embarrassment to my family and those around me. Worse than that, I had delayed the attainment of my identity by the only known validating institution -- the church.

About ten years after my sojourn towards church membership, I gave serious thought to pastoral ministry, and my subsequent religious studies created some uncertainty about the real significance of what had occurred when I joined the church in 1955. I had gotten all of the words right for acceptance by the church, but I seriously pondered over my acceptance by God. I never wavered in my principles of the faith, but I had some serious questions about the "process" and whether this was an isolated experience or was it characteristic of most folk who claim church membership but who still lack serious intimacy with God. Could a person have church membership, and not have relationship with God?

I worked and volunteered for a short time with the Billy Graham crusade during my undergraduate days and for a while after graduation. Needless to say, much preparation was put in to each crusade before Dr. Graham ever showed up in a locale. Local ministers, counselors, musicians, etc. had already been primed for the event. Yet, there was a heightened drama every night when Dr. Graham would extend the invitation to discipleship and thousands of people would stream from the balconies and down the aisles to the altar and podium, making the decision to at least, ostensibly, "give their lives to God."

I could not help but to wonder what they heard, saw, or felt that compelled them to come to the podium at that time and place and for what reason. What voice did they hear? What words were said to them, which triggered that response? What measure of enlightenment transformed them from agnostic to advocate? What feeling transitioned them from passive acknowledgement of Divine existence to aggressive pronouncement of a personal life-changing experience?

Even now, after thirty-five active years as a pastor of three Baptist churches in three different cities, I have to ask, "Is there a cause? Church growth in Christian churches has increased exponentially in the United States, but the increases in church membership is not linked as much to a denominational upsurge in adherents as a general increase in people seeking meaningful relationships with both God and fellowship with others. For example, the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) has reportedly experienced sharp declines in membership, and retains an older age-base as the primary source of its demographics. Catholics, Episcopalians, and Southern Baptists appear to have experienced some growth, but for various reasons have also experienced denominational divisions due to orthodoxy, apologetic differences, and inclusion.

Since the disaster of 9/11, church membership has increased and people are passionately seeking new relationships with God through the church. Many are joining "non-denominational churches," and non-mainline churches which are essentially, denominational churches without an obvious denominational connection. In other words, their connection is with other non-denominational churches, which makes them denominational. These churches have no association binding them to traditional structure or order, but the members have fellowship, which binds them to God and to each other.

Just as openly as the airwaves boast of homosexuality as a form of self-expression and promotes aberrant sexual behaviors among "consenting adults," they have also allowed the promulgation of televangelists sermons and healing sessions, radio preachers with packaged tape offers, and athletes thanking God for a touchdown. Whatever the stimulus, people are joining the church.

I have concluded that people joining the church is a result of the evaluation of a person's life situation, impacted by his willing receipt of Bible-based information provided through spirit-filled inspiration. There's nothing erudite or profound about this conclusion. In fact, it may represent an over simplified restatement of a Biblical truth already represented in Scripture:

"…And the Lord added to the church daily such as should be saved." Acts 2:47b KJV

God is adding to His church in ways, which have not been experienced before, and the key is in the fact that He is doing the adding.

The contemporary situations, which impact the lives of people, are not the situations of the historical past. Decisions are now demanded which Grandma didn't have to make and, for the most part, were not even in the realm of her logic system. Worldwide calamities and accounts of violent conflicts are delivered to home via media outlets daily. It is because of this barrage of life-threatening situations that the rational person seeks a haven of rest and answers to serious questions.

The church has been a principal resource for those answers. People attend and eventually join the church because they seek a word from God on life-changing circumstances. Is there any word from the Lord? None of the other answers appear to be useable. The behavioral scientists have no viable explanation. The prognosticators of doom are no longer scaring people in to change. Can there be a reassuring word from the church?

Now this is where the story gets murky. The person to whom God has entrusted the pronouncement of his promises is "the preacher." He's not, as some would dismiss, "just any other man" with profound and articulate verbal skills. He is the "authorized and inspired spokesperson for God" on the earth. Is he human? "Yes!" Does he have faults and failures? "Yes!" Is he God's man? "Yes!" And it's precisely because he is God's man that words of personal challenge and inspiration spew from him like a full force water faucet.

His assignment as spokesperson for God does not prohibit the masses nor the classes to speak nor hear from God, but the preacher has a special assignment which has been placed on him since the anointing of the prophets in the Old Testament and the commissioning of the apostles in the New Testament:

"Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you...." Matthew 28:19-20 (KJV)

Simply put: the preacher brings to the table of information that which may be best described as "inspiration", with the authority and power to convict or convince men to intimacy with God -- the Source of rescue and comfort in life. Whether it's in a small rural church or a megachurch in the city, God's plan for man's spiritual progress, maturity, assurance, and acceptance of Divine destiny has been vested and is inextricably linked in preaching.

Let's put it to the test:

1) The Old testament prophets and judges were "preachers" or priests, who called men into obedience to God's Laws;

2) Peter preached and thousands made commitments to God through the acceptance of Jesus Christ and all that He represented;

3) Philip preached to an Ethiopian about God and was baptized on his way home.

4) Paul preached to his jailer and the jailer's family until they made decisions.

5) John, the Baptizer, preached until the Messiah showed up.

In personal reflection, I stayed on the Mourner's Bench until there was a perfect match between the inspiration of the preacher, providing spiritual information, which would change my carnal situation. I eventually accepted an invitation that not just any one could give me. It came from a credible, authoritative, and spirit-filled source. The timing had to be just right in order for me to make a decision to move.

Such is the case with those who come to the point of spiritual decision-making in their own lives. The uniqueness of our faith is in knowing that it is not the will of God that any should perish, so he continuously provides opportunity and challenge for man to seek Him and receive what can only be described as bountiful blessings. The Old Testament texts suggest that it was the adversities in the lives of Israel, brought on by their disobedience to God, which kept them returning to Him. It is God's desire to preserve and keep for Himself those who carry His image.

The "Invitation" to join the church remains open.