Archive for the 'Invisible Institution' Category

Everybody Could Be a Somebody!

Tuesday, February 9th, 2010

The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Twenty-Two: Everybody Could Be a Somebody!

Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.

Sharing Stories of Encounters with God

In the Invisible Institution (hidden Christian worship services on the slave plantations) everybody could be a somebody because they could participate as the Spirit moved them. Every believer had the opportunity, as led by the Spirit, to testify. In testifying, men and women told the stories of their encounters with God. In narrative fashion, they articulated common spiritual realities, provided proverbial wisdom for life’s journey, shared advice concerning the normal problems of life, offered consolation, and, when necessary, confronted the community.

Aunt Jane testified to and discipled Charlotte Brooks.

“She would hold prayer-meeting in my house whenever she would come to see me. . . . She said people must give their hearts to God, to love him and keep his commandments; and we believed what she said.”

Sharing the Word: Exhorting

“Exhorting was the next “level” of speaking ministry. Exhorters ranged from unofficial prayer leaders on the plantation to lay people licensed to deliver short sermons, often traveling from one plantation to another. James Smith shares about his exhorting ministry.

“Soon after I was converted I commenced holding meetings among the people, and it was not long before my fame began to spread as an exhorter. I was very zealous, so much so that I used to hold meetings all night, especially if there were any concerned about their immortal souls.”

Shepherding God’s People: Preaching and Pastoring

Of course, none of this suggests that it is Christ’s plan for His Church to be without called-out leaders—pastors, shepherds, soul physicians. The Invisible Institution maintained a remarkable equilibrium between lay and pastoral ministry. W. E. B. Du Bois submits a compelling portrait of the African American plantation pastor.

“He early appeared on the plantation and found his function as the healer of the sick, the interpreter of the Unknown, the comforter of the sorrowing, the supernatural avenger of wrong, and the one who rudely but picturesquely expressed the longing, disappointment, and resentment of a stolen and oppressed people. Thus, as bard, physician, judge, and priest, within the narrow limits allowed by the slave system, rose the Negro preacher, and under him the first Afro-American institution, the Negro church.”

All Participants; No Spectators

In sharing the Word, the Invisible Institution modeled for us a host of ways to engage every believer. No one came or left feeling like they were simply a spectator. Everyone came with anticipation, participated with meaning, and left encouraged that God had used them to encourage others.

 Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. What steps could you take to more boldly and effectively share God’s Word?

2. How could our churches today better practice the biblical truth of every member a minister?

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More Than Just Sunday Meetings

Friday, February 5th, 2010

The Forty-Day Journey of Promise

Day Eighteen: More Than Just Sunday Meetings

Note: Welcome to The Journey, our forty-day blog series from MLK Day through the end of Black History Month. We’re learning life lessons from the legacy of African American Christianity. The series is based upon material from my book Beyond the Suffering. To learn more about Beyond the Suffering, including downloading a free chapter, click here.

Everybody’s Heart in Tune

How did newly converted African American slaves grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ? How did they connect to one another in the Body of Christ?

A preacher we know only as the “Preacher from a God-fearing Plantation” offers us a glimpse.

“Meetings back there meant more than they do now. Then everybody’s heart was in tune, and when they called on God they made heaven ring. It was more than just Sunday meeting and then no more godliness for a week. They would steal off to the fields and in the thickets and there, with heads together around a kettle to deaden the sound, they called on God out of heavy hearts.”

The Old Ship of Zion

Another African American Christian described it like this.

“We used to steal off to de woods and have church, like de Spirit moved us—sing and pray to our own liking and soul satisfaction—and we sure did have good meetings, honey—baptize in de river, like God said. . . . We were quiet enough so the white folks didn’t know we were there, and what a glorious time we did have in the Lord.”

“The church was a ‘Noah’s Ark’ that shielded one’s life from the rain. It was the ‘old ship of Zion’ fully capable of sailing the seas of life.”

Life Lessons for Today

Because we all too easily abandon meeting together, we have much to learn from the high priority that African American believers placed upon communal worship and fellowship. One Black Church History scholar summarizes it well:

“Their needs for guidance and comfort were immense. The awesome importance of this spiritual and emotional support can be seen by the fact that the time to engage in worship was taken from the already too-brief free times away from field work. Work time already ran from sun-up to sundown. Time for worship was taken from the brief period left for the personal needs of sanitation, sleep, food, and child rearing. This spiritual nurture must have been highly treasured indeed to motivate the sacrifice of such limited and precious free time.”

Join the Conversation (Post a Comment for a Chance to Receive a Copy of Beyond the Suffering)

1. “Meetings back there meant more than they do now. Then everybody’s heart was in tune, and when they called on God they made heaven ring.” In what ways does your worship experience already mirror theirs?

2. What could make this statement truer in your worship experience today?

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The Invaluable Legacy of the Invisible Institution

Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
The Invaluable Legacy of the Invisible Institution

The Rev. Jeremiah Wright, in his now famous, or infamous, depending upon your perspective, speech to the National Press Club on April 28th, declared that attacks on him are attacks on the black church “by people who know nothing about the African American religious tradition.”

Rev. Wright also stated, “Maybe now we can begin to take steps to move the black religious tradition from the status of invisible to the status of invaluable for all the people in this country.”

To that, I stand and shout a hearty “Amen!”

The True Invisible Institution

Of course . . . that requires that we provide historically accurate analysis of the “Invisible Institution.” Historians coined the term “Invisible Institution” to describe the secretive worship services that African American Christians held under slavery. Without these, enslaved black Christians were forced to endure message after message by white preachers telling them repeatedly, “Slave obey your Master. Slave don’t steal from your Master. Slave don’t cheat your master.”

In order to enjoy true worship and biblically relevant preaching, slaves had to slip away into the woods or quietly worship in their cabins—away from the ever-watching eye of the Master or overseers.

Here’s the point relative to Rev. Wright’s insistence that the Invisible Institution must become invaluable. What message was preached? Was it a message of hatred, vitriolic anger, and resentment? Or, was it a biblically-based message of hope through mutual reliance upon Christ and the Body of Christ? Perhaps some eye-witness accounts might help to answer these essential questions.

Eye-witness Accounts

One ex-enslaved African American Christian known to us as “the Preacher from a God-fearing Plantation,” offers us our first glimpse of the Invisible Institution. “Meetings back there meant more than they do now. Then everybody’s heart was in tune, and when they called on God they made heaven ring. It was more than just Sunday meeting and then no more godliness for a week. They would steal off to the fields and in the thickets and there, with heads together around a kettle to deaden the sound, they called on God out of heavy hearts.”[1]

What occurred during these covert worship services? Pastor Peter Randolph, himself an ex-slave, provides the details we seek. “Not being allowed to hold meetings on the plantation, the slaves assemble in the swamps, out of reach of the patrols. They have an understanding among themselves as to the time and place of getting together. This is often done by the first one arriving breaking boughs from the trees, and bending them in the direction of the selected spot.”[2]

Once there, then what? “Arrangements are then made for conducting the exercises. They first ask each other how they feel, the state of their minds, etc. The male members then select a certain space, in separate groups, for their division of the meeting. Preaching in order by the brethren; then praying and singing all around, until they generally feel quite happy. The speaker usually commences by calling himself unworthy, and talks very slowly, until feeling the spirit, he grows excited.”[3]

But that’s not all. Randolph elaborates on the inner condition and the interpersonal consolation they experience. “The slave forgets all his suffering, except to remind others of the trials during the past week, exclaiming, ‘Thank God, I shall not live here always!’ Then they pass from one to another, shaking hands, bidding each other farewell, promising, should they meet no more on earth, to strive to meet in heaven, where all is joy, happiness and liberty. As they separate, they sing a parting hymn of praise.”[4]

The Visible Institution

Of course, in the North, and later after Emancipation in the South, there arose the great African American churches. Historically, what type of preaching of the Word do we uncover? Bishop Daniel Alexander Payne, the great pastor, educator, and historian of the African Methodist Episcopal Church speaks about the Word preached in the Church. “So that whensoever the Gospel is preached in this house, it may descend with all its purity, power, and demonstration upon the hearts of the unrepentant, turning them from darkness to light, and from power of sin and Satan unto God; that its sanctifying influences may be felt in the souls of all believers, lifting their desires, their hopes, and their affections, from earth to heaven, and leading back the wandering sheep of the house of Israel, into the fold of eternal life.”[5]

According to Bishop Payne, the Word preached in the church was then to be lived out and depended upon in every day life during the week as daily nourishment and spiritual direction. “An individual man or woman must never follow their own conviction in regard to moral, religious, civil, or political questions until they are first tested by the unerring Word of God. If a conviction infringes upon the written Word of God, or in any manner conflicts with that Word, the conviction is not to be followed. It is our duty to abandon it. The only safe guide for man or woman, young or old, rich or poor, learned or unlearned, pastor or people is the Bible, the whole Bible, and nothing but the Bible.”[6]

Celebrating the Historic Value of the Black Church

Absolutely—the Invisible Institution of the historic Black Church is invaluable—when we understand with historical accuracy the nature of the Invisible Institution. These brief glimpses can only whet one’s appetite. For a full course meal, you may want to consider my work, Beyond the Suffering: Embracing the Legacy of African American Soul Care and Spiritual Direction.

Throughout this book we learn that African American Christians—pastors and lay people—unlike the caricature displayed in Rev. Wright’s recent comments, lived Word-based lives that focused upon applying biblical truth to their horrific suffering. Never minimizing their suffering; instead they maximized God’s grace and the healing power of salvation from sin and the hope-giving power of a caring Savior and a connected congregation. Indeed, these are invaluable lessons of the Invisible Institution!


[1]Johnson, God Struck Me Dead, p. 73.
[2] Randolph, From Slave Cabin to Pulpit, pp. 112-113.
[3] Ibid., p. 113.
[4] Ibid.
[5] Washington, James, ed. Conversations with God: Two Centuries of Prayers by African Americans, p. 36.
[6] Payne, Daniel Alexander. Recollections of Seventy Years, pp. 233-234.

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