Theologies, Philosophies & Practices of Worship

Using Poetry in Worship

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As a highly compact form of speech capable of stimulating the imagination, poetry can be effectively used in almost any of the various dimensions or acts of public worship. This article catalogs a variety of ways that poetry can be used in worship and gives guidelines to worship planners for selecting poems and readers.

When we come together to worship God, we are participating in an ancient ritual expressed through many traditions. The unifying factor is that we come as God’s children to enter into a dialogue with him.

Though our worship may be experienced and expressed in various ways, a major dimension of worship is verbal. We hear God speak through his Word and through the words of his people. We respond in words and songs of praise and thanksgiving as well as confession and supplication. While many of the words come directly from Scripture, we often use words from other sources, including the words that spring from our own hearts and minds. The songs we sing, the prayers we pray, a call to confession, a litany of praise, an introduction to an offering, or a parting blessing—all of these may be human compositions of language used for divine worship. At its best, the language for such various elements of the worship service is thoughtful, artful, and edifying. Though this language need not be poetry, carefully selected poems can at times significantly serve the verbal dimensions of worship.

Poetry, by nature, is writing that articulates a concentrated experience or emotion or thought through image, sound, and rhythm. Like all arts—music, visual arts, dramatic arts—poetry is a creative gift from God that can be used to edify God’s people and glorify the Creator. The Bible gives us many examples. The Book of the Psalms, the Bible’s richest source of poetry, gives expression to a wide range of emotions, experiences, and thoughts (a point Luci Shaw makes in her “Poetry’s Permanence: the Psalms”). Poetry is also found in Job, Ecclesiastes, Song of Songs, Isaiah and Jeremiah, and other prophetic books, and occasionally in the New Testament, as in 2 Timothy and the glorious prose-poem of 1 Corinthians 13. These are God-inspired examples that give evidence of the wealth and uses of poetic language.

The hymns of the church offer another rich example of poetry used in worship. The case has been made in other places for the use of hymns (in addition to the singing of psalms) in the church. Many of our favorite hymns were originally written simply as poetry and set to music much later. We may think, therefore, of religious poetry as an unsung hymn, appropriate for adoration, celebration, thanksgiving, invitation, supplication, and confession.

But a good poem can also serve other purposes in worship. It can powerfully present the truth of human experience. It can make an old truth new again. It can so dramatically render an implication of God’s truth that none can fail to listen. In all these ways and others, poetry can fulfill a sermonic function in worship.

There are many ways, then, to use poetry in worship. Poetry can be incorporated occasionally within any general service, or it can occasionally serve as the primary verbal medium of the service.

The Occasional Uses of Poetry in Worship

It’s possible to find a poem whose rich imagery, poignant emotion, or profound thought expresses a particular idea so well that it could almost constitute the sermon. But it might be most appropriate to use such a poem as a complement to the sermon. The poem, such as the following, could serve as an introduction to the theme or as an opener for the sermon, or it could be used within the sermon as an illustration or clincher for a point made, or it could be used at the end to reinforce the main thrust of the sermon or to bring it into sharper focus.

I’m Tired

i’m tired, so tired
i can’t …
oh Lord, i can’t go on.
i’m going down
and i’ll never rise again.
what use am I
if i am lying in the dust?
if i am fallen in the pit?
are you tired indeed?
then come to me
for i am meek and lowly.
and if you would have rest,
then come to me
in lowliness of heart,
and i will give you
my precious burden
my easy yoke
for it is never you who till alone
nor carry by yourself.
so come to me
and i will give you a parched
and thirsty land to till
and i will give you rest. (Debbie Wallis)

There are many fine poems that were inspired by certain verses from Scripture or by certain biblical characters. If those verses or characters are key to the theme of the service, either the sermon or the reading of Scripture might be enhanced by an accompanying poem, such as “Prophecy” by Luci Shaw. Some poems also work very well paired with certain songs and hymns; for instance, George Herbert’s poem “Let All the World in Every Corner Sing” could be used to introduce the hymn “Praise to the Lord, the Almighty.”

Special events such as baptisms and professions of faith offer unique opportunities for the use of poetry. For example, when a child named Blake was baptized, his aunt read “The Lamb” by poet William Blake as part of the baptismal ceremony. An appropriate poem read by a special person (as is true of a special musical selection) can add both significance and emotional impact to the occasion.

There are a number of good poems about the Eucharist or Lord’s Supper service. Some might work well as an introduction to the service of communion; others might be appropriate as an offering of praise at the conclusion of the feast. Madeleine L’Engle’s “After the Saturday Liturgy at Montfort” might be a fitting poem to use in this context, or “Covenant Celebration” by Nancy Todd.

In addition to being used to accompany or complement various elements of the service, poetry can also be used in place of a particular element. A good example of this is the offering of prayer. Prayer can be taken directly from Scripture, the words of a song (even the singing of a song can be a prayer), the words of St. Augustine or other Christian writers, the original words of the person praying—and from poetry. Examples from literary history abound, from Donne’s “Batter My Heart” to e.e. cummings’ “i thank you God.” But poems can substitute for other elements of the service as well. A poem may serve as an invocation or call to confession or assurance of pardon, as Carlisle’s poem illustrates:

Next of Kin

God remembers our structure and our texture our congruity with the grass our continuity with the dust. More than a father feels for his children He senses our need. Even when we are too foolish to fear or heed Him He keeps His love invariably available. (Thomas John Carlisle)

Expressions of praise and thanksgiving can come from the wealth of poetry that celebrates God’s creation or His work in the human heart. Such poems might also be used as a response of gratitude or poetic offering (like a musical offering along with the offering of monetary gifts). “Pied Beauty” by Gerard Manley Hopkins is one that might work well; another possibility is “Individuation” by Nancy Thomas. There are even good benedictory poems that could be fitting at the conclusion of the service. Clearly, possibilities for the occasional use of poetry in worship are numerous.

Primary Uses of Poetry in Worship

Services can also be designed with poetry as a primary verbal expression. This can be done especially effectively within a particular liturgical season. Some of the most profound poetry deals with the suffering and sacrifice of Christ; carefully selected pieces can be combined with Scripture readings and music for a moving and meaningful service during Lent. Other poems are very appropriate for use in special services around Easter and Christmas.

There may be other occasions in which poetry can be a key ingredient of the service: the celebration of a church anniversary; a prayer day; a service with a biblical theme such as God’s creation, sins of the flesh, the parable of the sower, or a Bible character. For example, the poems of Thomas John Carlisle in You! Jonah! could shape the design of a service about Jonah.

For any of these services, the planners must consider the congregation’s interest and aptitude for poetry and allow that to guide both the number and type of poems used in a particular service. A worship service that consisted entirely of poetry would perhaps be neither judicious nor theologically sound. But if the poems are carefully selected and paired with readings from Scripture and appropriate songs (whether for choral or congregational singing) into a seamless worship experience, members of the congregation may discover in new ways the power of God’s word and his gift of language.

Considerations for Selection of Poetry and Readers

Careful selection is critical to the successful use of poetry in worship. The primary consideration should be the thematic appropriateness of the poem. A pastor’s favorite poem may not fit well into a particular service even though he or she may be tempted to make it fit. But a poem that does not enhance or enrich the thematic center of the service forfeits its function.

Many fine poems do not lend themselves to oral presentation. They are difficult to read aloud, difficult to listen to, and difficult to understand. Therefore, poetry for use in worship must be chosen for its readability, listenability, and comprehensibility.

This means that the language of worship poetry should be fairly contemporary and concrete. Imagery should have the power to engage the listeners’ imagination readily. The rhythm should be close to that of natural speech. End rhyme, if it’s there at all, should not be forced or artificial. Poems should not be so long as to become taxing to listen to. In sum, the best poems for oral interpretation in worship are those which evoke and enrich genuine experience within a spiritual context.

There may be only a few gifted poetry readers in any congregation. The people who actually read the poems aloud in a worship service should be carefully chosen and given ample opportunity for oral rehearsal, ideally with the help of a qualified coach. A reader should prepare thoroughly for the presentation of the poems and consider such aspects of delivery as these: poetry should be read at a pace that gives time for the images to take shape in the listener’s imagination; the lines should be read according to the phrasing of ideas, not according to the length of the lines; the appropriate use of pauses and stresses for emphasis is crucial to conveying the ideas or emotions of the poem.

It is usually preferable not to print the text of the poems in the liturgy or bulletin because the poems will be better understood by hearing them read well than by reading them for oneself. When a service is planned which incorporates several poems, it might be helpful to provide copies of the poems after the service (making sure to follow any copyright rules) for those people who will appreciate being able to read the poems for further reflection.

Hymns as Poetry in Worship

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The most common use of poetry in worship is the singing of poems as hymns. Despite their common use, however, hymn texts are rarely thought of in terms of their poetic qualities. Yet hymn writers are among the finest wordsmiths the church has known. Appreciating their art enriches the experience of all who sing.

Hymns are usually seen as low art and sub-zero theology. Theologians file them under “music.” Literature departments file them nowhere. C. S. Lewis detested them. John Ruskin described hymns of his own day as “half-paralytic, half profane,” consisting partly of the expression of what the singers never in their lives felt, or attempted to feel, and partly in the address of prayers to God, which nothing could more disagreeably astonish them than His attending to.

I want to suggest that at its best, the hymn is a complex minor art form, combining theology, poetry, and music. As such it merits attention from theologians and artists alike. But first I must admit the truth in the criticisms. Hymn-texts range from doggerel to poetry, just as hymn tunes range from cliché to classic. Yet we have moved on from the hymnody that repelled Ruskin and Lewis. Since 1960 there has been an explosion of new hymn writing in the English-speaking world, beginning in Britain and spreading to Canada and the United States. Its styles range from praise music through folk song to the classic stanza form, reborn in contemporary English. I work at the latter end of the spectrum and do theology through the hymn-poems I write.

At their best, hymns are a complex art form. When read aloud, as a poem, a hymn text is time art. Each reading is similar, yet unrepeatable. When the poem is sung as a solo or choral item, it moves the listener as songs do. When sung by a congregation, it invites commitment. Though some congregations behave as if they didn’t have bodies, singing together is an intensely corporeal, as well as corporate, activity. Diaphragm, lungs, larynx, tongue, lips, jawbone, nasal cavities, ribcage, shoulders, eyes, and ears come into play. When body attitude combines with deepest beliefs, singers are taken out of themselves into a heightened awareness of God, beauty, faith, and each other. Finally, hymns deserve to be seen as visual art: like other poems, their appearance on the page enhances their attractiveness or detracts from it.

As a writer of hymn texts, I am a theological poet serving church congregations. The title “poet” once seemed pretentious. I claim it now because I’ve repeatedly seen the power of hymn-poetry to move people at a deep level. I have also gathered evidence showing how strongly our language habits shape thinking and behavior so that the way we sing about God and each other is cardinally important. The hymn is an art form through which a congregation expresses and commits itself to a theology. Sunday by Sunday, most Christian traditions sing their faith and are shaped by what they sing. It is therefore a great mistake to classify hymns as “church music,” as if they only mattered to singers, choir directors, and organists. They matter to preachers, theologians, and anyone concerned with the interplay between theology and the arts.

Good hymns are theological poetry, not theology in bad verse. The classic hymn poem is formally strict, with exact meter, stress-rhythms, and usually rhyme in each succeeding stanza. It needs imagery and phrasing clear enough to grasp at first sight (singers can’t stop to look in the dictionary), yet memorable enough to give pleasure and meaning through repeated singing. It cannot give free rein to the poet’s imagination because it is poetry in the service of its singers. The singers of hymns need poetry that will express their faith and enable them to be truthfully themselves as twentieth-century worshipers in the presence of God. The greatest compliment a hymn poet earns is an unspoken YES from singers who grasp, delight, and identify with the hymn-poem in the immediacy of singing it, yet rarely know or care who wrote the words or composed the tune.

As with any art form, these restrictions both cramp creativity and enable it. The possibilities of the form are exemplified by Thomas Troeger’s hymn, “These Things Did Thomas Count as Real.” The briefest analysis of this poem would note its strong visual and tactile imagery (stanza 1); its economic use of paradox and antithesis (stanzas 2 and 3); its full, apt rhymes (including the brilliant “Braille/nail”); its careful attention to stress and sound sequence; and the achievement of all this in sixteen eight-syllable lines which evoke the story yet break it open afresh. Read aloud, it compels attention. Sung, we find ourselves critiquing Thomas while stepping into his psyche so that Christ’s “raw imprinted palms” reach out to us and question our post-Enlightenment assumptions about reality.

An example of my own work is a wedding hymn (No. 643 in the new United Methodist Church hymnal), written for a well-known folk tune for ease of immediate singing. Its four-syllable lines compel simplicity since it is hard to be polysyllabic in such a short line. I wanted to sing truthfully about some of the experiences of partners in a long-term relationship. The first stanza came quickly, appearing almost fully formed in consciousness;

When love is found / and hope comes home,
sing and be glad / that two are one.
when love explodes / and fills the sky,
praise God and share / our Maker’s joy.

“When love explodes and fills the sky” is a simple but strong metaphor. It may derive from firework displays, but the allusion is indirect, enabling me to crystallize varied experiences in one phrase. People know what it means for them when they look in the crystal.

I then had to decide where the hymn was going. What I had already suggested was that the first line of each stanza could set out the theme developed within it, which led to the following outline:

—When love is found …
—When love has flowered …
—When love is tried …
—When love is torn …
—Final wrap-up stanza of praise.

In the second stanza, I wanted to avoid a cozy image of the home as a private castle, so I tried alternatives till I got the lines “that love may dare/to reach beyond home’s warmth and light/to serve and strive for truth and right.” The third stanza recognizes that personalities change over time so that relationships have to be restructured or broken. The fourth stanza deals with betrayal. I can’t remember how long I waited for “when love is torn” to appear as its first line, but there was some waiting time between deciding on the theme and getting that first line. Finding the rhyme fade/betrayed also took time, and involved listing some of the possible rhyme words and trying out phrases. I was aware of quoting from 1 Corinthians 13 in the New English Bible in lines 3 and 4. At some point, I opted for the relaxed rhyme scheme ABCB that came with the first stanza.

Love Song

When love is found and hope comes home,
sing and be glad that two are one.
When love explodes and fills the sky,
praise God and share our Maker’s joy.

When love has flowered in trust and care,
build both each day that love may dare
to reach beyond home’s warmth and light,
to serve and strive for truth and right.

When love is tried as loved-ones change,
hold still to hope though all seems strange,
till ease returns and love grows wise
through listening ears and opened eyes.

When love is torn and trust betrayed,
pray strength to love till torments fade,
till lovers keep no score of wrong
but hear through pain love’s Easter song.

Praise God for love, praise God for life,
in age or youth, in husband, wife.
Lift up your hearts. Let love be fed
through death and life in broken bread.
(Copyright 1983 by Hope Publishing
Company, Carol Stream, Ill. 60188. All
rights reserved. Used by permission.)

The writing process always has this partnership between rational and intuitive. Metaphors and phrases have to be set in order, rhymes collected and selected. Ideas must be clarified, then wait for the appearance of suitable phrases and metaphors. “Appearance” is itself a metaphor, suggesting the way in which phrases come to consciousness from the part of the mind which constructs them, and which is outside conscious control. Though much theology is still done as if we were talking heads inhabited by controlling rationality, the creative process shows otherwise. I am emboldened to question the patriarchal dualisms of our culture (mind over body, reason/logic over imagination/feeling, man over nature, the masculine over the feminine, and the root dominance of men over women) because they are not only dangerous and unjust but untrue to the creative experience.

I said earlier that like other forms of poetry, hymns are visual art. Most Americans never see the poetry of hymns, because the only way they encounter them is with their poetic structure dismantled, the words cut into syllables and interlined (arranged between musical staves for ease of singing). Thankfully, the needs of an aging population are obliging hymnal producers to provide large-print editions, in which the poetry of hymns is once again seen on the page. Christian educators will find this makes poems easier to teach. Pastors and congregations will find hymns more readily available as poetry, fit for public reading (by solo voice or the congregation) and devotional use, and beautiful to look at: an art form in their own right, and a useful part of seminary courses labeled “Introduction to Theology.”

Writing Prayers for Worship

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Writing prayers for worship calls for the creativity of a poet, the sensitivity of a pastor, the insight of a theologian, and the foundation of a living relationship with God. Weaving together these concerns, this article gives advice to the worshiper who is given the task of writing prayers for public worship. It suggests an approach that will be accessible for beginners and challenging for experienced worship leaders.

Prayer is the heartbeat of worship—our living, vital entrance into the presence of God.

It is also often the part of the worship service in which most people’s minds go to sleep.

Is it possible to write prayers for worship that powerfully bring people into God’s presence? Can written prayers help us to shake off the lethargy of our congregational prayers? Yes, it is possible—given some basic spiritual principles.

A Levitical Tradition

If you are writing prayers for worship, you are part of the tradition of Levites that goes back to the time of Moses. God set apart an entire tribe to be in charge of the Israelite worship, and many of our most beautiful prayers and songs come from Asaph and the sons of Korah. Written prayers, whether spoken or set to music, from the heart of the earliest Jewish and Christian worship.

Your calling, as a modern-day Asaph, is to find language and imagery that engages people’s minds and hearts in honest, worshipful, heartfelt prayer to the living God. But why written prayers?

First of all, there is nothing wrong with spontaneous prayers. These can be as eloquent, moving, and effective as written prayers. But not everyone feels comfortable making up a prayer on the spur of the moment in front of a large group of people. Sometimes the pray-er forgets things that he or she had wanted to say—or says things later regretted.

Writing your prayers allows you to think out beforehand what the congregation needs to be saying to God in prayer at that point in the service. It enables you to word your prayers so that they apply to the entire congregation (especially important in prayers of confession and repentance or commitment).

Writing down the prayer beforehand also challenges you to use fresh language, to find images that will focus the congregation’s hearts and imaginations on God. It will keep your prayers from being unnecessarily long and repetitious.

And written, responsive-type prayers allow the congregation to join you not only with their hearts and minds but with their voices as well.

Choosing Language Wisely

Choice of language is where the creative part of your worship gifts comes into play. Language, a gift from the Creator, can be a powerful force in touching people’s spirits and bringing them to God.

It’s too easy when praying “off the cuff,” to use prayer language that is overused and worn out. For example, O most holy God, we come to Thee in the evening hour of this day to thank Thee for all that Thou hast done for us. We come before Thee now to ask that Thou wilt be with us, that Thou wilt bless us and guide us in all that we do. Hear us now, we pray, in the name of your Son, our Lord, and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.

There is nothing wrong with the thoughts expressed in this prayer. They are reverent and proper and have probably been used, with some variation, in many church services down through the years.

But there’s the rub. Like stones that have been rolled together for a long time, these words and phrases have tumbled through our consciousness so often that they have lost their sharpness. Even substituting “you” for the “Thees” and “Thous” does little to bring this prayer alive. There is no “edge” to the language. It has lost its ability to move us, to catch our imagination. Sadly, it will (and often has) put us to sleep.

Choose your language wisely. Use images for God that help people to picture the living Eternal One. There are many images we can use, of course; think of the one most appropriate to the service or mood or theme of that day’s Scripture. (This is especially important, as the Scripture should shape and influence the whole of the worship service.)

If the focus is on God’s tender care of us, for example, images like shepherd, father, mother, brother, and comforter come to mind. If it is on God’s sovereign power, work with images such as wind and fire, the Creator who stretched out the heavens, or the “Lord who will march out like a mighty man, like a warrior.”

Don’t be afraid to use concrete, specific images for God: rock, water, fire, shepherd, friend, shield, mother hen, lamb, bread, and so on. God, knowing that we are unable to comprehend fully his nature, gives us these images in Scripture so we can at least understand him on the simplest of levels. And the wealth of scriptural images reminds us of the many facets of God’s nature and his dealings with us. Focusing on one of these in prayer and using Scripture’s own language to make it come alive is one of the most helpful things you can do in writing prayers.

Using visual imagery in language helps to touch people’s imaginations and hearts, making them more aware of God’s presence. But you have only a brief time—a few minutes at the most—to do this. So use only one picture or several related ones in each prayer. Make the picture as clear and sharp as it can be; avoid general, cliched language (without going overboard in poetic extremes).

Once you’ve chosen a scriptural word picture to use, work at making it a unifying theme of your prayer. For example, Lord Jesus, you are our living Head. Teach us to be your body here on earth—your hands, your feet, your eyes, and compassionate heart. Lord, send the impulses of your love into the sinews of this church. May your will and thoughts direct us. Let your hands, through our hands, supply food for our neighbors’ hunger. Let them hear your voice as we visit and talk with them. Let the children come to us and sit in our laps, as they sat in yours. Without you as our Head, Lord, we are lifeless. We wait for your power, your word, your instruction. Fill us with your life and love, Jesus. Amen.

One other consideration in your choice of language is your congregation’s preference for formal or informal liturgy. There are some beautiful prayers taken from the language of “high church” liturgy in the traditional responsive mode. Here is one example that can be used as a call to worship at Pentecost, taken from Praise God: Common Prayer at Taize:

L:     Blessed be our God at all times, now and always and forever and ever.
P:     Amen.
L:     Glory to you, our God! Glory to you! Holy Spirit, Lord and Comforter, Spirit of truth everywhere present, filling all that exists, Treasury of good gifts and Source of life, come and dwell in us, cleanse us from all sin and in your love bring us to salvation:
P:     God, holy; God, strong and holy; God, holy and immortal; have pity on us.

But if you prefer a more “low church” informality, you might use this Pentecost prayer instead:

L:     Holy Spirit, you are the fire of holiness that surrounds the throne of God. You burn away our sin and blindness; you fill us with the beauty and purity of Jesus, our Lord.
P:     Come to us, Holy Spirit!
L:     Burn in us this morning, Holy Spirit. We give you the places of our hearts that have been choked by the cares of this world. We give you our tiredness, our sin, our struggles with apathy. We wait your fiery cleansing.
P:     Come to us, Holy Spirit!
L:     May the Word of God this morning burn in our minds, our wills, our feelings. May we sense the light and heat of your presence in that Word. Speak to us, O burning power of God!
P:     Come to us, Holy Spirit!

Praying the Scriptures

Much of Scripture is prayer: the Psalms, portions of the prophets, David’s beautiful prayer in 1 Chronicles 29, the simple prayers of our Lord, the magnificent prayers of Paul’s epistles. Use them as part of your written prayers; combine them, reword them, find the best places to break them into a back-and-forth echo between leader and congregation. For example, consider this adaptation of Psalm 84 as a responsive prayer to open worship:

P:     This sanctuary is lovely to us, O God—O living, powerful Lord almighty! Deep within our spirits we long to be near you, to stay here in your courts and to worship you.
P:     Our heart and our flesh cry out to you, O living God.
L:     Even the sparrow is welcome here, to build her nest by your altars, O Lord of all the worlds!
P:     It would be our greatest joy to live in your house and to praise you forever!
L:     Those who find their strength in you will find this place full of living water, even if they pass through the valley of weeping.
P:     To spend one day here in worship is better than a thousand elsewhere!

Pastoral Considerations

Appropriateness. If you are writing a prayer for your congregation, be sure that it applies to them. Do not make the congregation say something they are not ready or willing to say about themselves. Do not say, “We confess that we ignore our neighbors and fail to pray for them,” for example, when it might be true of you but not true of 10 or 20 percent of the people participating in the prayer with you. A safer way is to say, “Forgive us when we ignore our neighbors … ”

Brevity. Keep prayers as brief and as honest as possible. Take as your example the prayer of the publican: “Lord, be merciful to me, a sinner.” Say what you need and want to say—no more than that. Avoid the length, flowery language, and self-congratulation of the Pharisee. As Jesus said, “When you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words.”

Honesty. Make honesty the hallmark of your prayers. People want and need honesty in religion—plainspoken honesty that gets past the nice words and speaks the truth with God’s love. If your prayers lack an honest, direct grasp of the truth—by avoiding mention of divisions in your congregation, for example, or by smoothing over your lack of effectiveness in outreach or your struggle to make ends meet financially—then the congregation will get the message that prayer is just for “nice” things and not for the difficult, specific problems facing your church.

Audience. Do not use prayer as an opportunity to preach to anyone. You are not making points to remind your listeners of certain truths; your listener is God himself. Always be aware of this and say to God what you would if you were directly in his presence.

Here’s a good thing to do as you are starting to write a prayer for worship: Before anything else, use your God-given imagination to place yourself in the court of heaven. See the God of Isaiah, who is high and lifted up, and whose train fills the temple. Smell the smoke and incense of the God of Revelation, and see the blinding white throne and the unbearable majesty that radiates from God’s holiness. Hear the angels cry around the throne, “Holy, Holy, Holy is he who is and who was and who is to come!”

Hear also the gentle invitation to “approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that you may receive mercy and find grace to help you in your time of need.” See with the eyes of your heart the figure of Jesus, our high priest, and brother, standing and pleading before the throne for the needs of you and your congregation.

Then write your prayer, conscious that this is no ploy or trick of the imagination but rather the highest glimpse of reality that you will see. Do not write your prayers first of all with the people in mind; write them with the presence of God in your mind and heart. Then your prayers will speak; they will also lift people to the throne and presence of God. Your language will be reverent, humble, holy, full of praise, calling participants to join you in the Holy of Holies.

A Final Word

To write for worship is, in a sense, to be an Old Testament Levite. The Levites’ calling required spiritual preparation: ritual cleansing, donning white linen garments, and so on. Before you begin to write for worship, make sure that you have put on the white linen of forgiveness and righteousness, having confessed your sins and asked God’s Spirit to cleanse and fill you.

Does this sound pretentious or unnecessary? Not if you take God’s holiness and his call to worship seriously. Even the most beautifully written prayer or litany is lifeless without the quiet presence of God’s power. And that power can make the simplest prayer come alive for those who listen and participate.

The Language of Prayer

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The text of a prayer is only one element important in the act of public prayer. For the way in which a prayer is spoken, the attitudes that accompany it, and the nonverbal gestures which complement it often communicate as much of the meaning of the prayer as the text itself. This article looks at the whole act of public prayer, offering worship planners pastoral, liturgical, and aesthetic guidelines regarding prayer.

It is a sign of health and a cause for rejoicing that the shelves of bookstores carry so many resources for prayer in worship and books about prayer. In my reading, however, one crucial part of prayer in worship draws scant attention: namely, the ways that prayers are spoken and experienced in worship. This act of praying in worship is the focus of this article.

We have all had the experience of sitting in a congregation and having prayers spoiled by the way the leader speaks them: prayers of thanksgiving voiced in a desultory, dejected fashion; prayers of intercession undercut with a mean or arrogant edge, as though the congregation was being scolded for insufficient concern for the causes in the prayers. Several years ago, I was asked to speak briefly to a church study group. The assignment was to speak about love in the most thoroughly unloving fashion I could manage. I remember, incidentally, that I found it a disturbingly easy assignment and wished there was more demand for such speeches. That experience is called to mind when certain prayers are spoken in worship: the mood of the speaking violates the content of the words.

It is a bit surprising, then, that the voicing of prayer receives relatively little attention in the literature. Perhaps that inattention is because many of the people who write frequently about prayer have a nearly magical view of the power of words. There is, I suspect, an unvoiced assumption that the words for prayer if written beautifully enough, will necessarily be prayer simply because they are so forcefully written. Such trust in the power of the right words can lead also to a kind of smugness about the worship being led and the prayers being offered. It occasionally seems as though we leaders of worship feel that as long as we have the right prayers to say, no criticism can touch us.

Some years ago, I heard a comparison of the worship of black churches with that of “high church” congregations. The worshipers in a black church, it was observed, knew that if Christ were to return and visit their worship, all their frail human attempts at praise would be burned away by the presence of God’s holiness. In high church Protestantism, however, if the Lord were to return to worship, the leaders of worship would expect the Lord (a) to be impressed by the splendor of the style and the seriousness of the content, and (b) to take a seat quietly in the back and not disturb the flow of worship. This comparison might serve to point to a certain belligerent rightness, a false pride in some of our prayers which can make worship very difficult.

The concern that prayers in worship not be ruined by the way they are voiced is somewhat akin to a concern expressed by Professor Ralph Underwood (“The Presence of God in Pastoral Care Ministry,” Austin Presbyterian Seminary Bulletin 101:4 [October 1985]). Under the section of his article “Guidelines for Pastoral Prayers,” Dr. Underwood calls for “prayer as authentic response … [as] opposed to the conventional prayer at the end of a visit, the pastor’s ritual escape.… ” He then offers three guidelines that would encourage this authenticity in prayers in pastoral settings. These guidelines are in the form of three questions:

1.     “Is the prayer we have with people a response to God?”
2.     “Is the prayer a response to the person or persons in whose presence we find ourselves?”
3.     “Is the prayer a response to the God of Scripture?”

It is obvious that prayer in worship is different from prayer in pastoral care. Prayer in worship should not be as personal or unguarded as the prayer in moments of pastoral ministry. Prayer in worship has far more people praying with the leader and has some educational effect on these people; those who lead prayer in worship must strive to take account of them. In spite of these obvious differences in the kinds of prayers, there is still a great deal to be learned by using Dr. Underwood’s guidelines to assess our prayers in worship, particularly those prayers spoken by the leader for the people.

Response to the People

It will be helpful to begin with Dr. Underwood’s second question: “Is the prayer a response to the persons in whose presence we find ourselves?” Prayer in worship, like prayers in pastoral care, will be more nearly alive and authentic if the people invited to pray with the speaker recognize some of their experience reflected in the prayers. When the prayers voice thanks for what the congregation feels thankful and when they pray for what the congregation feels needful, those prayers are more likely to enrich and energize the worship of the people.

This reflection of the experience of the people will require both pastoral content with the people and some focused attention on that experience. Dr. James A. Jones, in a classroom lecture printed as an introduction to a volume of his prayers, told of following the example of F. B. Meyer (Prayers for the People [Richmond: John Knox, 1967], 11). Mr. Meyer would go into the church and walk the aisles during the week. He knew where people sat, would sit in their pews and pray for them there. A discipline like that can make the prayers in worship an authentic response to the people.

The prayers in worship will be more nearly alive and authentic if the people find them reflecting not only their own experiences but also their own prayers. While we can never know fully the prayer life of a congregation, we can safely assume that people know their prayers are imperfect and inadequate. An awkward question needs then to be faced: can prayers in worship that are always carefully crafted and elegant be authentic prayers of the people? The question could be turned around: when our prayers in worship are always well turned and controlled, do we not teach the people that only perfect prayers are acceptable? Do the people not conclude that prayers less than elegant will (to use Dr. Underwood’s phrase) “require suppression”? Raising a question about the effectiveness of well-prepared prayers could be misused, of course, to justify the worst kind of sloppiness in worship prayers. Recognizing that danger does not, however, change the need for prayers that reflect, at least to a degree, the prayer life of the people in the congregation.

Dr. Underwood argues that prayers in pastoral care settings can be offered even out of our false consciousness or our confusion and still be an authentic response or, at least, can lead to that authenticity. The same argument can be made, given the proper guards against overuse, to apply to prayers in worship.

Mrs. Merel Burleson, a member of Trinity Presbyterian Church, Midland, Texas, an artist and art teacher, told me of her “blue bead theory” about certain types of Mexican art. Her theory developed out of two experiences. The first was a remark to her by her art teacher when she was a child. As she worked so very hard on a project to make things exactly right, he tried to ease the pressure on her by saying, “Only Christ was perfect.” The second experience was in watching necklaces being strung with colored beads. The colors formed a repeated pattern: black, yellow, white, again and again. The pattern was perfect except for a solitary blue bead, a built-in flaw, spoiling the perfection. The two experiences set her looking for other “blue beads” in the works of artists, deliberate flaws which could serve as reminders that there is no pretense of perfection. She reports finding large numbers of works where patterns are set up and, in what is obviously not just an oversight, the pattern is broken. “Only Christ is perfect.”

Perhaps if our prayers in worship had an occasional “blue bead” to remind us that prayers need not be perfect, our people would feel those prayers as an acknowledgment of and response to their condition. This presupposes that the pattern set up in worship is one of the carefully prepared prayers. While it makes no sense to build in awkward prayers deliberately, it could be helpful to leave open a possibility of a prayer that stumbles. Perhaps one prayer—such as that for illumination or of dedication or one part of the intercessory prayers—could be left open to the moment. Or perhaps the prayers could, from time to time, acknowledge the inadequacy of all our prayers. The hope is that our people learn that prayers can be offered before they are perfected.

Response to God

Dr. Underwood’s first and third guidelines ask us to examine whether our prayers are responses to God and, more specifically, to the God of Scripture. For purposes of brevity, I will treat these two guidelines as one: our prayers need to be authentic responses to the God of Scripture.

The often-heard criticism of “read prayers” by people in the pew needs to be taken seriously. What that criticism longs for is not necessarily a spontaneous bravado in praying or spiritual exhibitionism; it may be asking for some sense that the prayers are an authentic response to God. There are styles of speech and tones of voice which communicate nothing of life and involvement and which signal a mere going through the motions.

It is, I suppose, conceivable to deal with this problem by encouraging certain characteristics of voice and inflection that sound “sincere.” That would run several dangers: trying to create a contrived authenticity and promoting prayer as a performance, among others. The only alternative I can see to that manipulation of prayers is to ask a very personal question of those of us who lead prayers: are our prayers in worship authentic responses to God? In this regard, Dr. Underwood’s “Catch 22” can be paraphrased: there is no prayer in worship that has not begun before worship. If prayer in worship is our only prayer, it has little chance of being authentic. This demands that we pay some attention to the connection between our private life and our prayers in worship. It does not require that this private prayer be perfect or even exemplary; we all share the feeling, I suspect, that our prayer life is inadequate. It does, however, stand as a guideline and challenge: we need not expect that our prayers in worship will be (or will be felt to be) responses to God unless that response is well-practiced in private.

There are various ways to conceive of this continuity between private and public prayers. Some of the variety can be hinted at by looking at three forms of prayers in worship which are spoken by the leader for the people: spontaneous prayer, a prayer written by others, and self-prepared prayer.

Spontaneous Prayers

The dangers of spontaneous prayers are obvious: while they may feel spontaneous to the one praying, they most often sound like a reshuffling of stock prayer clichés; also they tend to overlook important elements in worship prayers because these are not thought of on “the spur of the moment.” Some of those dangers are minimized, however, if spontaneous prayer is part of the private prayer life of the worship leader. In that discipline, a sensitivity that avoids overworked phrases can be developed, and the habits of including the basic elements of prayer can be well-practiced. If spontaneous prayer in worship is not deeply rooted in the long use of this style of prayer, however, it will scarcely seem an authentic response to God.

With spontaneous prayer in worship, the leader also needs to arrange for some feedback from the people in the congregation on how these prayers are being heard. The one who voices an extemporaneous prayer may intend the words one way, but the people can hear them in ways altogether different. For example, persons who use phrases such as “I just want to thank you … ” or “I just pray that … ” may well intend the phrases as efforts at humility, avoiding pretense. These phrases can strike others, however, as calling undue attention to that humility or even as devaluing the reality of the prayer. Feedback as to how prayers are heard is helpful regardless of the form of the prayer; it is crucial when that prayer is spontaneous.

Prayers Written by Others

The dangers of using prayers written by others are easy to name: the temptation to read the words in a rote detachment, using these prayers as a substitute for one’s own life of prayer. However, if the leader’s own prayer life is rich in the use of these prayers by others, then these prayers will likely be alive in worship. A private prayer life that is guided by the prayers of others will discover particular prayers that are more readily made one’s own and certain prayers that will be useful in giving voice to the hurts and hopes of the people. When these prayers have been prayed before, they can certainly be felt as authentic responses to God in worship. This is not to excuse, however, grabbing a book of prayers five minutes before the service and selecting a few we think we didn’t use last week to get us through the prayers of the people.

Self-Prepared Prayers

The discipline of preparing one’s own prayers for worship may have fewer necessary dangers than the other two forms. The most obvious danger is to give the preparation so little time that it consists of little more than a few notes to remind one of who is in the hospital. A second danger, perhaps not frequently encountered but nonetheless real, comes from spending plenty of time on the prayers but making them so self-consciously pretty that attention is called to the words rather than to the focus of prayer. The most frequent offenders are strings of alliterative words that do nothing but show off and analogies so graphic as to be grotesque.

Both of those dangers are avoided when prayer in worship grows out of prayer in private. One way to do that is to use a prayer diary in which are kept phrases, sentences, even full prayers that came out of a particular time of private prayer. Such a diary of prayer can serve as a resource from which to select those elements of prayers that fit in corporate worship.

In preparing one’s own prayers for worship, the writing needs to be done for the spoken content. A part of the writing process involves speaking aloud the written prayers in order to judge, not only if they make sense, but also if they can be when spoken, authentic responses to God and to the people. Spoken tests can be the occasion for inspired revision—and rejection.

The reflections in this article take aim at an event that can not be controlled, manipulated, or guaranteed. The intent and hope is that in our corporate worship the words spoken in prayer may so resonate with the lives of those praying, including the leader, that they claim God’s reality in the present hour and give a faithful response.

Liturgical Language in African-American Worship and Preaching

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Language used in black preaching has a musical ring and rhythm. The spirit and delivery of this language has much to do with the emotional vitality of worship in black churches, a fine example of how the aesthetic qualities of language shape the meaning and experience of worship.

The Pervasiveness of the Idiom

One who observes the black church from within the context of its life as a worshiping community is soon struck by the degree to which the preaching is musical. The spectrum of musical expression ranges from the sonorous delivery, which has a pleasant melodiousness, meter, and cadence, to the full-blown chant or song. To those who are a part of the tradition in which musical delivery is normative, such a form often emerges as the criterion for preaching. This valuation categorizes other styles of delivery as mere speech, address, or lecture, but hardly as preaching. Consequently, the preacher uninitiated in the customs of this segment of the black church may be thanked for his or her “talk” as a courteous intimation that “preaching” per se had not occurred. Although few credible preachers and even fewer homileticians would make musical delivery a measure for preaching, it remains a highly treasured aspect of the culture.

The manner in which black preaching speaks to the black experience in America with a divinely inspired word is doubtless its most distinctive feature. To a situation characterized by bleakness, despair, oppression, and frustration, a word of hope is declared, offering to a people the promise of a brighter day and strength to endure the times in which they find themselves. This preaching is not solely “otherworldly” nor simply “protest.” Emerging from the depths of a religious consciousness in which God is trusted against all odds posed by history, black preaching is an affirmation concerning the will and power of God before it is a protest against or a gesture away from this world. It is a celebration—that point to which the preacher leads the congregation in moments of thanksgiving and transport—wherein the skills of musical delivery are unsurpassed in attaining the exalted moment. Not only does such celebration enhance the understanding and retention of the gospel; it is, as Henry Mitchell asserts, essential to faithful communication of the gospel, without which there would be a “defacto denial of the good news” (The Recovery of Preaching [San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1977], 55).

This “celebration” is, of course, distinct from what Mitchell calls “celebration.” “Celebration” is more effective and emotional than “cerebration,” which is reflective and intellectual. This is not to diminish the significance of the cognitive aspect, for celebration does not stand independent of responsible exegesis, careful penetration of the teachings of the church, and sensitive theological insight. The detail that is supplied by careful and tedious exegesis, analysis, and the application of theology and doctrine supplies the material used in celebration. Musicality expresses that which is beyond the literal word; it takes rational content and fires the imagination. Indeed, at the point of celebration all that has been generated in the cerebral process is offered up in the moment of exaltation.

The persistence and pervasiveness of this form of delivery from one generation of black preachers to the next are astounding when one considers the paucity of reflection on the idiom. Among those who appreciate and practice the art, it is almost as though it were a secret of the guild’s oral culture. Whereas some academicians ignore or disdain the idiom, denoting it a vestige of “folk religion,” black preachers who have come under their tutelage not only maintain the tradition but also practice the art with consummate skill. Restricted neither by denomination nor by educational status, it continues to span the gamut from the preaching of Father Andrew Bryan and Andrew Marshall at the beginning of the nineteenth century, to Martin Luther King, Jr. and Charles Adams in the twentieth century, from the “cornfield preacher” to the “Harvard Whooper,” from the “No D” to the Ph.D., and “every D in between.” It is no surprise, then, that contemporary black preaching resembles descriptions of preaching within the slave community (see Jon Michael Spencer, Sacred Symphony: The Chanted Sermon of the Black Preacher [Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1987], 1-16).

This skill of musical delivery is not possessed by all black preachers; neither is it a feature unique to black religion. On occasion, it is found among white Pentecostals whose worship style is more closely aligned to that customarily found in the black church. Among these white preachers is television evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, who (perhaps because of his style of preaching) attracts a substantial black audience. However, the larger American culture greatly influenced by the Enlightenment and the rise of modern science offered little support for a genre of preaching that even hinted of the mystical. In African-American culture, the idiom has been highly appreciated as a form of religious expression, and it is in this latter cultural context that insight can be gleaned into its religious meaning. Such a focus eliminates the necessity of having to account for an aberration in larger American culture by reducing the idiom to some modality that is an epiphenomenon of a truly religious expression. (An epiphenomenon is the representation of an event that is regarded as incapable of explanation in terms of itself. A religious experience is regarded as an epiphenomenon, for example, if it is considered explainable solely in terms of nonreligious categories such as psychology or economics.)

Any overlap between black and white cultures (between a Charles Adams and Jimmy Swaggart, for instance) invariably invites inquiry as to who is mimicking whom. Although perhaps valuable for determining the origin of the practice in North America, such questions do little for the description, interpretation, and preservation of the form. Therefore, the concern of this essay is not to validate musicality in preaching by recourse to homiletical canons. Rather, it is to explore the character of this musicality in the context of the culture which sustains it as a normal occurrence.

Musicality as Surplus in Preaching

The very definition of Christian preaching is an attempt to account for its transcendence over ordinary speech. Nearly all homileticians address this dimension wherein the preacher is “outside of self” and speaking on behalf of a divine power. Gardner C. Taylor, one of the most influential black preachers of this generation, correctly argues the awesomeness and presumptuousness of the task undertaken by one who supposes to speak for God:

Measured by almost any gauge, preaching is a presumptuous business. If the undertaking does not have some sanctions beyond human reckoning, then it is, indeed, rash and audacious for one person to dare to stand up before or among other people and declare that he or she brings from the Eternal God a message for those who listen which involves issues nothing less than those of life and death. (Gardner C. Taylor, How Shall They Preach [Elgin, Ill.: Progressive Baptist Publishing House, 1977], 24)

John R. W. Stott, the Director of the London Institute for Contemporary Christianity and one of the foremost evangelists and lecturers of the day, attends to the same dimension of this reality by noting that the preacher can speak only because God has spoken:

No attempt to understand Christianity can succeed which overlooks or denies the truth that the living God has taken the initiative to reveal himself savingly to fallen humanity; or that his self-revelation has been given by the most straight forward means of communication known to us, namely by a word and words; or that he calls upon those who have heard his Word to speak it to others. (John R. W. Stott, Between Two Worlds: The Art of Preaching in the Twentieth Century [Grand Rapids, Eerdmans, 1982], 15)

Stott illustrates the implication of this insight with a somewhat humorous anecdote from the career of George Whitefield, the eloquent and spellbinding preacher of the eighteenth century. During a preaching campaign in a New Jersey meeting-house, an old man fell asleep during Whitefield’s discourse, provoking him to exhort:

If I had come to speak to you in my own name, you might rest your elbows upon your knees and your heads on your hands, and go to sleep! … But I have come to you in the name of the Lord God of hosts, and (he clapped his hands and stamped his foot) I must and I will be heard. (Ibid, 32–33)

In spite of the keen and penetrating focus on “this world,” preaching through the ages has been uttered as a word coming from another world. Because the order which it assumes as normative does not exist in history, human beings have found it difficult to utter in ordinary speech the extraordinary pronouncements which preaching requires. The ancient prophets often resorted to signs; the apostles of the early church accompanied their words with signs and wonders; the saints were known to retreat into prolonged silent contemplation, only later to emerge with pronouncement; still others have incorporated the enchanting and mystical powers of music in their delivery. Black preaching is an instance of this latter employment.

The very word music is derived from an ancient view of the world which considered the art forms essentially enchanted. Music was a means for evoking and expressing the rapture of the soul. To the present day, it has been integral to the cultic life of nearly every culture and, by implication, inseparable from religion. Analysis and reflection by the ablest scholars of religion have revealed further that music, celebration, and ecstasy are crucial ingredients differentiating religion from philosophy. Anthropologist R. R. Marrett, who pondered and explored the threshold of religion, concluded, for instance, that “religion is more danced than thought out” (Handbook on Religion [London: Metheun and Co., 1914], xxi, 175).

Within the comparative framework of religion, black preaching (as a human phenomenon) employs music in the delivery of meaning from another world. In a skillful and stalwart way, music is one of the instruments which bridges the chasm between the world of human beings and God who speaks to them through preaching. Establishing a direct link between the spirit within the preacher, the word being uttered, and the worshiping congregation, the surplus of musicality operates beneath the structures of rational discourse, producing a mystical and enchanting effect upon the audience waiting to hear what saith the Lord. There can be no denial of the potency within this form of preaching, which has been a source of untold healing and motivation for the strivings of the people.

Music in the African Tradition

One of the greatest errors that can be made in attempting to understand black culture is to assume that it is but a carbon copy of some monolithic American culture. Invariably when American culture is projected as such a mythical caricature, it is viewed as a reflection of European culture, thus obscuring the rich interpenetration of African and Amerindian civilizations and authenticity of the truly American genre. Hence, there is no chance of coming to terms with the musical aspect of black preaching without a backward and sideward glance to Africa, for in African culture we can clearly observe the structures of meaning embedded within the religious consciousness of its people, which has allowed for the sustentation of music as a means of communicating the “surplus.”

In traditional Africa, human life exists in synthesis with other forms of life and in relation to rhythmic patterns observable in the natural order. These patterns—the coming and going of daylight and darkness, the phases of the moon, the periodic varieties of rainfall, planting, and harvest—indicate an essentially rhythmic structure to the forces that sustain life. Even biological life has a rhythmic fundament—the conception and bearing of children, the process of reaching puberty and adulthood, and the phase of aging and passing on to join the ancestors. The connection between rhythm and life is the primal nexus from which the manifold expressions of culture flow. In its unity, rhythm/life surges forth in the multifarious forms through which the world is known: language, art, society, religion, government, and so forth. It is therefore only a short step to the realization that the very force of life that pulsates through individuals and communities is given objective tangible expression in rhythmic motion and music, and that musical rhythm is the aesthetic sanguification of the force of life-sustaining the people.

In traditional Africa, one can find this principle of structural unity from one tribal group to another. Among the Fon of Dahomey, it is Da, represented by a serpent coiled under the world. Among the Dogan it is the nommo pair, which signifies a word full of power. Among the Bantu it is ntu, the root from which all categories of life are derived. This principle of motion graphically illustrates the pulsating force of life that connects all living things (including plants and animals) and establishes the tie between them and the cosmos. During moments of ecstatic dancing in the cultic shrine, the powers of the universe coalesced and surged through the living being in question. Rhythm, which undergirded trance possession and the resultant “preaching” gave extensity to the African soul and in turn to those Africans who were taken as slaves to North America. Every conceivable effort was made by the enslaved to preserve the primal connection between the noumenal world of deities, ancestors, and spirits and the objective world in which they found themselves. This consciousness, which Gayraud Wilmore calls “hierophantic nature of historical reality” (Black Religion and Black Radicalism [New York: Anchor/Doubleday, 1973], 4), preserved within Africans and their descendants an openness to spiritual power. However, the surplus of deep stirrings, intensity, and zeal within the African spirit, easily expressed in African languages by means of rhythm, tone, and pitch, found little correspondence with the vocabulary of the strange land. And drumming, a precise means of communicating with human beings and the deities was strictly forbidden in the slave regime. But rhythm and musicality were sustained within the worship of the slave community, a portion of its residue being deposited in black preaching.

The presence of rhythm within the African and African-American worldview corresponds to the oppugnancy slaves felt toward the world. To them, rhythm was essentially numinous: it was the property of the deities, and it moved the community backward away from present reality into the time of the deities. The same atavistic influence operated upon the adherents of Afro-Christian faith: rhythm and music in preaching, operating beneath the structures of rational and discursive communication, moved the hearers away from the history that unleashed terror upon them (Cornel West, Prophesy Deliverance: An Afro-American Revolutionary Christianity [Philadelphia: Westminster Press, 1982], 19; Mircea Eliade, The Myth of the Eternal Return [New York: Harper and Row, 1959], 139). Only through perpetuating their quarrel with history while simultaneously sidestepping its terror could they forge a positive identity for themselves.

That the direction of black preaching has ever been “a gesture away from history” has understandably given rise to the charge that it is otherworldly. However, because there has never been a historical epoch in which blacks could behold their dreams fulfilled, the rhythm and music in Afro-Christian preaching, correlative to the content of the message, is an affirmation of the atavistic and the primal—the world that God has truly willed.

Preaching as Kratophany

Within the tradition of the black church, preaching is truly a manifestation of power, or (in a word used by Eliade) a kratophany. As in a “theophany,” which is a manifestation of deity, some object is present which opens to the transcendent while simultaneously being rooted in the world of tangible, historical reality. With a theophany, the object may be a tree or a stone, as in African traditional religions, while with preaching the kratophany is spoken word and rendered gesture. Further, within the context of the culture that sustains black preaching, there is no modality more indicative of the presence of deity, power, and intrusion from another order than that of the preached word entrenched in musicality.

As kratophany, more must accompany the preached word than the claim that it has power or a theory of preaching. Because the Word is like “fire shut up in the bones” (Heb. 4:12; Jer. 20:9, 23:29), something special is supposed to happen in preaching. Replete with drama and musicality, its performative power is expected to move people and to cause reaction. Nodding the head, shedding a tear, holy dancing, speaking in tongues, singing, humming aloud, and saying “amen” are responses to the power manifested in effective black preaching.

Words thusly preached are akin to ancient Hebrew tradition, wherein words were believed to have accomplished and performed the action contained in them, especially when spoken on behalf of God. Moreover, the spoken word could by no means be retracted. When, for instance, Balaam, the Mesopotamian diviner, was summoned by the king of Moab to curse the Israelites as they came up from Egypt, Balaam instead blessed Israel, declaring that he could not retract the spoken word under some circumstances (Num. 22:12–18, Jer. 23:29). Again, when Jacob surreptitiously received the blessing that should have gone to his brother Esau, their father Isaac insisted that once the word bestowing inheritance had been spoken reversal was impossible (Gen. 27:36–38). The prophets declared too that the word they spoke for the Lord would not return without doing what it was sent to do, and that word was like “a hammer that breaks a rock into pieces” (Isa. 55:11). When caught up in the more intense musical phases of speaking the word, the trance-like state of the black preacher parallels that of the early Old Testament prophets, the nabiim, who claimed no responsibility for their speech under the conditions caused by the Spirit of the Lord upon them. They spoke what “thus saith the Lord” without fear of punishment or death (George T. Montague, The Holy Spirit: Growth of a Biblical Tradition [New York: Paulist Press, 1976], 17-33; see also Amos 1). The preacher who genuinely enters this state of spirituality is able to deliver discourse far exceeding that which had been prepared.

Down through the ages music has provided the added dimension of communication through which one spirit could reach another. This non-discursive level of communication is apparent in the way listeners experience musical performance. On the one hand, there is the objective dimension that can be set on the bar and governed by the scale, whereby a musician correctly executing the score will produce the expected sound. Technical correctness aside, there still remains the subjective element—the surplus. The exceptional artist is able to “touch the spirit” for the sake of the audience. Similarly, the music of black preaching can be understood as a sort of “singing in the spirit” (1 Cor. 14, 15), for there is a surplus (glossa) expressed in music that accompanies rational content (logos) expressed in words. The rational portion is contained in the formal structure of the sermon which reflects the homiletical soundness and the doctrinal tradition in which the preacher stands. For the glossal portion, the preacher becomes an instrument of musical afflatus: a flute through which divine air is blown, a harp upon which eternal strings vibrate. For the sake of the audience, the preacher becomes an oracle through which a divinely inspired message flows.

When preaching attains the level wherein rhythm and musicality are unrestrained—wherein the preacher “lets the Lord have his way”—it is customarily said that the preacher is “under the anointing” and is “being used of God.” In the vernacular of the culture, we say, “the preacher has come.”