African-American Worship

Worship is universal. It allows people of various races and ethnicities, backgrounds to come together and pray. However every church and every religion have their key differences. Even in the Christian religion, there are variations existent all throughout Christianity. Some differences are small, while others are fundamental. While attending an African-American Pentecostal Assemblies of the World Church, I was able to see fundamental differences in practice.

For instance, the Church is also recognized as Apostolic or as "Oneness" in that they reject the Trinitarian conception of the Godhead in lieu of a concept of God as one person who is expressed in three modes (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit). As I believe in the Holy Trinity, here in lies the main and fundamental difference in the belief shared by the people of the church and my religious beliefs.

As their baptism rights exclude all other modes of God, they immerse people "in the name of Jesus." My experience with the African-American Pentecostal church was for lack of a better word, eye opening. When looking back into formation of the Pentecostal movement, I think the African-American belief was actually the foundation for the Pentecostal movement. Members of this movement positioned the fundamentals for twentieth-century Pentecostalism by reincorporating John Wesley's notion of entire sanctification into an individual spirituality and devoutness, which they sensed was lacking in their churches.

While I was attending service there, I also noticed how they physically acted and it was different from my own service I regularly attend. African-American Christians bow their heads and lift their hearts up to a God who affirms that people as a whole are somebody. "God has imprinted the divine image on every life, irrespective of color and creed. Since God cares for us, we can cast our cares upon God" (1 Peter 5:7).

It is in these words the people of the Pentecostal Church conveyed a deep desire to connect to God in a very emotional prayer, prayers that come from the gut, the heart. I saw this not just in their words, but their movements. They moved their hands and swayed bodies as if their prayers were being answered by God at that very moment. They prayed a prayer of expectation, not a prayer of asking and saw the word of God as a means of awareness and learning.

"African-Americans express their corporate and personal belief that God in Jesus Christ continues to work for good in every aspect of their lives" (Costen, 2010, p. 3). Although I experience prayer and connection in my own church, the level of passion seen in the Pentecostal church was moving and more importantly, the true eye-opening part of my experience. I believe wholeheartedly in praising the name of God, but experiencing the African-American Church made me see it from a different perspective.

As someone who is deeply connected to Church and faith, some of the things that were similar were the stories and "lessons" told, gleaned from the Bible and its verses. However different their interpretation, the foundations were still place like honoring the Ten Commandments and sharing within the community. It is here I was able to witness the strength of their character through their faith. "They share the reality of a common historical taproot, which extends deep into the nurturing center of the African soil.

The community of faith can attest to the strength and sturdiness of this root by the nurturing it continues to provide Africans in diaspora" (Costen, 2010, p. 3). The offering of praise for blessings and lifting petitions for burdens, this was also similar to my church experience except, the African-American prayer appears more passionate and physically louder than the prayers heard in my church.

Their pleas for Jesus to fix what is broken, to heal what is hurt and to cleanse what is tainted is something that is universal and certainly I have witnessed many times within my own church and many have in theirs as described by Cox in relation to the first Pentecost. "The story of the first Pentecost has always served as an inspiration for people who are discontented with the way religion or the world in general is going.

They turn to it because it is packed with promise" (Cox, 2001, p. 4). Race within America has always been a means of separation ever since African slavery was introduced into Colonial America. But faith and Christianity have become a means of removing this "non-existent" line and provided people of varied racial and ethnic backgrounds, a chance to come together as one as seen in the Azusa Street revival. "Many visitors reported that in the Azusa Street revival blacks and whites and Asians and Mexicans sang and prayed together" (Cox, 2001, p. 58).

When I was in the African-American church, I didn't feel like an odd person or the "odd man out." I felt like I belonged there even though we did not share the fundamental belief of the Trinity. I felt welcomed there and connected to the words of the preacher and the prayers of the people within the church.

Is through these experiences that I have come to realize that Christianity is growing not within the European countries, but rather within the non-European countries like Mexico and parts of the South in America. Jenkins also notes the difference. "In 1950 a list of the world's leading Christian countries would have included Britain, France, Spain, and Italy, but none of these names will be represented in a corresponding list for 2050" (Jenkins, 2011, p. 2). The Christian faith is growing and growing outside of what was traditionally believed to exist in.

This means that embracing the inclusion of churches such as the one I visited, is helping unite peoples under.