Macedonia Missionary Baptist Church

Kailey:

We arrived at 10:45. Service started at 11. The sermon began at 12:22pm. (I checked.)
The first hour and twenty-two minutes of the Macedonia Missionary Baptist church service was like being in a musical. Only in real life. The enormous 70-person choir belted out soulful melodies and harmonies. The pastor stood up to the podium looking stoic, and then suddenly without warning he would bob his head and sing out a single line, like, “Ohhhhh Looooord. Mmmmm Hmmmm…” And then return to looking stoic. They did choir right.

There were big ladies in big hats, clapping and dancing in the isles. There was prophesy. There was yelling “amen!” This service had it all. It’s interesting. In a Summit church service, I would have been completely distracted by someone standing up and clapping and yelling amen. But here, it was so completely appropriate to the ambiance of the service, it would have seemed more odd if no one had stood or clapped or yelled at all. What would ordinarily be distracting to me did nothing but enhance the service at Macedonia. It was like worshipping in another language. A beautiful language. I loved it.
The scariest part of the service for me was when the pastor asked all the visitors to stand. This was fairly normal. However, after we were standing, he then let us know that we were going to be introducing ourselves to the congregation, giving our name and home church. This might not have been as terrifying, had Macedonia not had roughly 800 people in the room. And if we weren’t the only two white people there. (There was one other white guy, but he was married to a black lady, so I don’t count him.)
I was one of the last two people to go. Thank goodness for that. I got to see the pattern. Greeting. Name. Home Church. City. Pastor’s info. Thanks. “Good morning! My name is Kailey Hamilton, and I bring you greetings from Summit church in Orlando Florida, and our Senior Pastor Isaac J. Hunter. Thank you so much for inviting us to worship with you today!” I said, “us,” and they thought I meant “Summit.” I meant “me and Becka.” But Becka did not stand. She was clearly a visitor. Sketchy.
My only trouble with this was that I feared it might make visitors feel unwelcome, or scare them off. But it didn’t seem to do either of those things. This may be a cultural difference that is simply lost to me. Everybody (except me) seemed perfectly happy with the situation, and not at all caught off guard.

It was cold when we’d arrived, but by 10 minutes in, the place was blazing, and people were fanning themselves in every direction. Dressed to the nines. It was awesome. This was easily one of the most fun churches I’ve been to. It wasn’t so much just a worship service as it was a worship experience.

And the singing.

Oh, the singing…


Beck:

Culture-shock-wise this church was the closest experience to the Quaker visit. Although aside from that, it really wasn’t in any way similar. For example,
a. The friends were silent; Macedonia had a seventy person choir (dressed in brown and pink)
b. There were fourteen friends but 800 Macedonians
c. The friends mostly wore jeans, but the Macedonians dressed up.

Well, I guess the one other thing that was similar is that we didn’t blend in either place. It’s hard to melt into a crowd of fourteen, especially when they’ve all come in to find you singing. But it’s also hard to blend into a crowd of 800 when you are two of the three white people in the room.

The overall impression I had of this church is that it was a lot of fun… in that way where you know you don’t belong and you know everyone else also knows that because these people share an entirely different culture built on shared stories and experiences that have produced ways of interacting that I can see enough to slightly understand and (politely) imitate but not enter. It was spending real-life time in a culture I’ve mostly only read about (and thanks to Zora Neale Hurston, this statement is even more true than it would ordinarily be from me).

Anyway, I watched God in Eatonville. There was a lot of singing. Unsurprisingly in a much different style than I was used to. With lyrics like, “Do I have good religion? Certainly, Lord,” “What did you come to this service for?” “I may not have this chance again, so while I’ve got it I want to take this chance to praise the Lord,” and “I’m gonna trust in the Lord till I die.”

The sermon was on Blind Bartimaeus (by Reverend Willie C. Barnes – I mention that because when the visitors were asked to stand and introduce themselves, they were also asked to give their home church and most went ahead and gave the pastor’s name as well). This sermon did not restrict itself to the story of Blind Bartimaeus or to making one point (as at least one mega-church pastor feels should be the case). But my favorite thing the pastor said was related to that story: “This blind beggar chose to be delivered,” he said, “If you want to be delivered, you can be delivered.” Amen.

Last notes about the church: a lot of women wore hats. And pantyhose. The ushers dressed in white and passed out tissues during the service, as necessary. Not everybody remained seated the entire service. And there were fans. Real printed-cardboard fans. Just like in a book.

Of course I fanned myself a little.