What sanctified energy! After listening to this, don't be surprised if you find the music rising in your spirit days later.
The Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir lifts you into the presence of God. A number of YouTube videos are available including these favorites: "Gloria," "High and Lifed Up," "The Light of That City," and "I Bless Your Name."
I especially like "I'm Amazed." (I'm not sure what language is used in the subtitles. It looks very similar to Spanish, but I don't think it is. Can anyone help me out?)
In 2009 the Choir gave a concert at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola deemed "one of the most moving concerts ever given by The Brooklyn Tabernacle Singers." A video playlist can be found here. It's terrific. Don't miss it.
What accounts for the joy, enthusiasm and palpable spiritual energy of this choir? Carol Cymbala, the director/composer wrote a must-read article about the choir and its ministry, and also a book, He's Been Faithful, which explains many things. I read it some time ago. Following are excerpts from the book:
- “If you join the choir, you’ll be asked to do things that are only possible if you’re very serious about spiritual ministry and sincerely walking with the Lord.”
- “We realize our job is not to perform but to lead people into the presence of God.”
- “Those who really minister are those whose hearts have been emptied of self and filled with the grace and love of Jesus Christ.”
- "Over the years, the choir has learned that a surrendered life is the key to experiencing God and being used by him to accomplish his purposes. When our lives match the lyrics, then we are truly singing.”
- "The choir has a sense of a particular calling and turns down other invitations. “It’s true that we’ve had our share of opportunities to appear with well-known entertainers. We’ve been asked to perform at national political conventions, to appear in various motion pictures, and to back up top performing artists. But we haven’t felt right about any of these invitations, because that’s not what God has called us to do. Our ministry is to lead people to an encounter with Jesus Christ. For us, performance would be a giant step down.”
- "Choir members are expected to be at two of the four Sunday services (3:00 P.m. and 6:00 P.M) and we encourage them to attend the Tuesday night prayer meeting as well. Members know that pouting and moods are never tolerated because you can’t lead others in worshp when you’re thinking about yourself and all your problems.”
- “Whenever our praises go up to heaven, the Holy Spirit gives us fresh revelations of who God is, showing us how great his glory is..."
- “When the choir sings, the Holy Spirit sometimes moves upon people in ways they don’t understand. Suddenly they begin to feel peace or joy, despite the fact that their lives are anything but easy. People who don’t know the Lord may not realize what’s happening to them. They have to hear the message of the gospel to understand. That’s why we no longer do concerts unless Jim or someone else preaches or someone shares the story about how their life has been changed by the power of God. It would be like working hard to prepare the soil in a garden and then forgetting to plant the seed into the ground afterward.”
Carol includes stories of individuals touched by the Choir:
“Stephen (Wells) grew up a black Muslim, practicing a form of Islam that mixes black nationalism with hatred of white people. “I grew up believing white people were evil and cruel... Every night my dad would sit down with my brothers and me and teach us about God. He would talk about Allah and about the ways of Islam and about the submission required of a Muslim. We prayed in Arabic five times a day facing toward the city of Mecca as all Muslims do. We were a very religious family, and I believed it all until I was about fifteen years old.
“When I was in my teens I started playing basketball with a boy who was always talking about Jesus Christ. But the Jesus he talked about didn’t match the one I read about in the Koran. The Jesus I knew was a prophet who paled in importance next to the prophet Muhammad. But the Jesus he spoke of, the Jesus of the Bible was a Savior who was also God. The more we talked and argued about our different versions of Jesus, the more confused I became.
“One of five kids in my family, I was always curious about everything. My brothers used to call me ‘the brainy one’ because I loved reading and always wanted to know how things worked. Now my logical mind had to find out the truth about Jesus. So I kept looking for facts and more facts. In addition to gathering facts, I started perceiving that Jesus actually worked in people’s lives. That’s when things changed for me. It wasn’t just intellectual curiosity that was fueling my search. I really started to thirst for him. I got to the point where I not only wanted to find out the truth but I wanted to accept it, believe it, and live it.
“The Jesus I came to know was human and close to me. He came to earth to seek me, to show me compassion, to show me God’s love. That view of God was foreign to me because the Muslim God is far away. He has no real contact with you on a personal level. But I began to see that Jesus is the one who comes down and touches you, he talks to you, and he’s precious to you. He feels what you’re feeling and is touched by your infirmities. And that was what drew me and caught me and won my heart.
“Becoming a Christian revolutionized my life. It became clear to me that God had created the different races and that he wanted them to worship him together. Hatred of any kind, I began to see, was anti-God, and it would rob me of the true blessing of finding God. Because I was serious about embracing the God of the Bible, I decided I would have to learn to love everyone, including white people.
“That wasn’t an easy thing for me to do at first because it went against everything I had ever learned about the differences between blacks and whites. But once I realized that the love I needed didn’t come from me but from God and that it was shed abroad in my heart by the Holy Spirit it got a lot easier. I could do it through the grace of God.
“My faith in Jesus created a huge rift between my father and me. Things got so heated that one day he finally told me: ‘Just leave my house. I can’t have anyone worshiping the Jesus of the Bible in a Muslim home. It just won’t work.’ That was when my journey with God moved to a whole new level.”
(To be continued)