Greater St Stephens Full Gospel Baptist Church and the discussions leading up to our time in the Mississippi Delta
Before our departure from New Orleans, we attended what has been explained to us as a “Mega Church”. While this was a much different experience than what we had at the 16th Street Baptist Church last week in Birmingham, I was too distracted from the commercialization of the church to really involve myself in the service (that, and for those of us on the trip, the insane amount of Benadryl in my system did not help my attention span).
Emphasis was continually put on the programs offered by the church and training of new members to be able to go out into the community and attend multiple trips to Atlanta to convene with other members of the church. The commercialization of the Bishop and Co-Pastor’s pictures on everything in the church–from the CD/DVD that was handed out to the visitors to envelopes that were passed out to give money for the Co-Pastor’s birthday—was very disconcerting. I really felt like I was in a business instead of a church because of the over emphasis that was placed on the process of monetary giving during the service. This may just be a personal issue that I have, but I feel that my monetary contributions to a church are my own business, and not something I should feel that I have to flaunt in front of a massive congregation as if I was being judged for not walking to the front of the sanctuary to place a tithe in the plate. I know that I’m probably reading entirely to far into this, but this is definitely something that has been bothering me, as well as every person in power in this particular church having the same last name.
Our brief introductions to what we’re going to be looking at during our VERY long day tomorrow really have me pumped up and ready to discuss our visit to Parchman on Tuesday (Katie, PLEASE call me tomorrow evening so I can talk to you before I go in there on Tuesday). I’ve taken several IDS classes at ASU pertaining to prisons with my dear friend and professor Katie Adams and when I found out that we were going to be going into Parchman, I called her almost immediately to talk to her about it and she was totally ecstatic for me. Katie has worked with many people such as Spoon Jackson and Elmo, and has also spent countless hours working in arts programs in prisons working to rehabilitate inmates instead of institutionalize them. Due to this interest she has sparked in me through these classes (as well as my liberal-ness), I’m really interested for our next discussion of the status of the inmates at Parchman.