Friends and Family Day at St. John AME Church Aims to Fill the Pews

There was a friendly contest among members of the in St. Charles to attract as many people to church as possible on July 10.

And so the sanctuary and pews were filled on “Friends and Family Day.” The other goal for the day was to show everyone that smiles and laughter are proper in church and good for the spirit.

During the past few months, I’d received three invitations to sit with different people at the event. Bessie Wilson-Money saw me immediately as I entered the sanctuary.

She waved me up to the front, and I was seated in one of her reserved pews. She was going to have three pews filled, yes she was. The other two people who invited me didn’t have a chance. 

The theme for the day—“The Joy of the Lord is Our Strength”—came from the Bible, the book of Nehemiah 8:10. From the first step through the front door to the front pew, that was the message—don’t let anyone take your joy away from you.

Music and Speech Inspire

The choir came in singing. We opened the worship service with this call and response greeting: “God is good. All the time. All the time. God is good.”

We say and we believe that God is good. I could tell that in this afternoon and in this sanctuary, we were going to feel that God is good.

Scott Holliday came forward during open praise time and told us that as a child his grandmother would bribe him with a quarter to come to church so that she could hear him sing.

He offered a song as a gift and testimony, singing, "His eyes are on the sparrow.” He and his piano accompanist and vocal partner, Shamar Jordan, transitioned into "Great is Thy Faithfulness" and finished with a chorus of "Sparrow."

Holliday’s witness to his love of the Lord was stunning. He shared with us great meaning through his rendition of these familiar hymns. 

Brother Dre, “The Minister of Comedy,” had us laughing, finding the funny flaws in relationships, and in how we mishandle money. The Rev. Karen Denise Anderson, pastor of Olive Chapel AME Church in Kirkwood, wondered out loud how she could possibly follow Brother Dre.

Anderson is an itinerant elder for the denomination. She told us she didn’t want to preach, but as she said, “Preachers preach.” 

"Don't Let Anybody Take Your Joy"

I think preaching can be encouraging when it is led by the spirit, based in the Scripture, and spoken passionately and authentically. I say authentically because Anderson told that she was just going to be herself. I understood that to mean she was going to speak to us as a child of God, who laughs, weeps, smiles, mourns, cares.

“God put joy within you,” she said. “Don’t let anybody take your joy. Remember the world didn’t give it. The world can’t take it away.

This is why the people of God recall from the beginning God’s deeds of power from the Exodus, the parting of the Red Sea, the manna in the wilderness and on and on. Remember the great works of God and then each of us can remember how good God has been to each of us throughout our lives.

“For every dark place, God has put a light,” she said. “We may be bruised, beaten, bent over, but we will not break.”

Preach it, sister! Encourage us for the living of our days.

There was joy and delight, laughter and music that filled us and spoke to us throughout the afternoon. There were words that shook us up and made us shout out as their truth was spoken to us. For all this all we had to do was come and be ourselves in the presence of the Lord, open to hear an encouraging word for our lives.

This truly was worship for a Sunday afternoon.

Correction: An earlier version of this article had the incorrect last name for the Rev. Karen Denise Anderson. Patch regrets the error.