Читать книгу Falling Into Grace - Michelle Stimpson - Страница 13

CHAPTER 7

Hours at the Medgar Evers center yielded a list of the top-ten churches in the Dallas area, by enrollment. The King’s Table, pastored by a man who was probably a household name at that point, ranked number one, with a combined total of twenty-four thousand in attendance at its two Sunday services. Camille scoffed at the idea of attending church twice on a Sunday. If memory served her well, she could barely keep her eyelids apart during the main message every week. And Wednesday night services were even worse with Mother Jackson beating that tambourine all offbeat.

Second on her list was Northeast Christian Church. Nineteen thousand. One service. But from what Camille gathered on the Web site, the congregation was mostly Caucasian. She’d send John David a text: Does the church have to be black?

His reply: Yes

Camille: Think Kirk Franklin. He crosses over races.

John David: HE’S A MAN

Okay, you don’t have to holler. Camille X-ed Northeast off the list.

Next up, Grace Chapel Community Church. They had only fifteen thousand people coming every week. Camille did the math. If fifteen thousand people bought one of her CDs at thirteen ninety-nine each, she’d make only about seventeen thousand dollars after John David took his cut. Barely above full-time minimum wage, annually. Surely, she’d have more than fifteen thousand people buying her music, but the home base needed to be at least twenty thousand to move her into a new tax bracket.

With The King’s Table, she could at least hope to bring home close to thirty thousand dollars with each release.

After having performed her calculations, there was no way on earth she could join a church with less than twenty thousand members who actually came to church.

The King’s Table it is.

Sunday morning, Camille flicked through the clothes in her closet, looking for something eye-catching to commemorate her walk down the main aisle when she joined the church. No time like the present to start making an impression on the congregation. She selected a black shirt dress with four-inch open-toed, shiny black pumps. Cleaver-ish, yet stylish enough to cause some degree of speculation about her income bracket. The front lace wig would have been over the top, so she decided to sport a sophisticated, black ponytail that bobbed just a little with every step.

Those pumps, however, proved to be a total nightmare. Camille had underestimated how far she’d have to walk from her parking space to a trolley pick-up stop. Even after the driver cleared the vehicle at the front entrance, she still had to walk up another flight of stairs in a swarm of people who obviously had no respect for corns.

Once she passed through the arenalike doors into one of the main seating areas, Camille gasped at the sheer magnitude of the sanctuary. The Web site photographs didn’t do this church justice. Oh my God! This place is crazy! It might as well have been a rock concert, except rock fans wouldn’t assemble themselves at eight o’clock in the morning no matter how famous the singer. Shoot, I don’t even get to work this early!

Rows and rows, columns and columns of people with Bibles, hats, and notepads found their seats next to fellow members and, presumably, a number of visitors. Though the cushioned seats were covered with bright red cloth, few of them remained visible. The church was nearly packed except for the nosebleed seats, and service hadn’t even begun.

An usher escorted Camille’s bunch of church-goers to one of the last empty sections in the building. She sat next to a woman who’d been smart enough to bring a jacket. And a Bible, which Camille didn’t own, but she’d put that on her list of things to get. She’d have to ask John David if she could write it off as a business expense.

Camille’s feet had barely recovered when some old man dressed in African attire approached center stage with a huge horn-looking device the size of a five-year-old child. He raised the instrument to his lips and blew. The all-encompassing sound was followed by a rousing, almost deafening praise from the congregation. These people obviously had supernatural lung capacity.

He blew again, and another round of praise circled through the building. By this time, everyone was standing. Camille refused to stuff her feet into those shoes again. The people sitting on either side of her probably didn’t matter one way or another as far as her music was concerned. No worries. She’d let those heels rest until her debut church-joining waltz toward the main platform.

After the call to worship, five people walked out with microphones in hand, and lights hit the band as well as the robed choir behind them. The audience applauded as a man Camille guessed was the worship leader, a heavy, bald-headed guy dressed in a traditional Sunday suit, asked the question, “Are you all ready to go higher in the Lord this morning?”

“Yes!” the crowd roared.

“Are you ready to give the Lord some praise?”

“Yes!”

“Has He been good to you?”

“Yes!”

“I mean real, real good to you?”

Louder, “Yes!”

This was great. Obviously, not much had changed since the days her mother led congregational hymns at their old church. Camille knew all this church jargon like the back of her hand. Leading worship would be a piece of cake.

“Come on, praise team, one, two, three, four!” Pillsbury dough man cued up the band.

Camille took note of this designation. Praise team. She listened for the harmony. One soprano, two altos, two tenors. These people must be better singers than the average choir member. This brought things to a whole new level. Being in the choir wasn’t good enough. She needed to get on the praise team. They had their own microphones. More camera time, too, evidenced by the five giant monitors strategically placed throughout the edifice. The media team alternated between faces and words, guiding the audience through songs.

The only problem so far was the women wearing dresses. Was it a coincidence or would she have to wear a dress, too?

Two songs later, the male alto took his turn at the center. “Saints of the most high God, take one minute to just glorify Him!”

A whole minute! Camille waited impatiently while the mass of people worked themselves into an emotional frenzy. Again, familiar territory. She had seen people shout, cry, fall out. None of that fazed her. The same people did the same things at the clubs she used to frequent shortly after Sweet Treats’s downfall.

Church folk were probably the same everywhere, in her opinion. The only real Christian she’d ever seen was her mother. But she was dead. After all the times Camille had walked into her mother’s room to find Jerdine bent over the foot of the bed in prayer, all the gallons of blessed oil Jerdine had slathered on her family’s foreheads, and all the forgiveness Jerdine had given Bobby Junior, she’d still died a laborious death at age thirty-nine.

God’s motive for taking Jerdine so early hadn’t made sense when Camille was a junior in high school, and it didn’t make any sense now. So while all this whooping and hollering taking place around her might make people ecstatic, Camille had her own truth. God might be powerful and He might have His mysterious reasons for doing things, but He sure wasn’t in the business of making people happy.

The minute passed, and a man erupted in a sweet, soft ballad about God’s love. Camille tried to concentrate on his voice, but the words of the song, “More precious than a mother’s love,” poked at her heart.

She focused, instead, on counting the number of rows in each section and multiplying by the number of seats in each row. It helped that there were a number of peculiar hats to observe as well. Next, she tried spotting white or Hispanic people. There was maybe one per hundred people present who appeared to be of another race. Despite John David’s insistence that she join an African American church, he would probably be pleased that there was some representation of other ethnic groups here. The more exposure the better.

The female alto boosted the tempo with an old-time call-and-response song. Camille was glad for the change of pace, but when that woman bleated out a long “Wee-eee-eee-lll, I turned it over to Jesus,” Camille had to stop herself from gagging. She sounded like an old billy goat caught in a barbwire fence!

Yet, the people clapped and cheered her on. Are they not hearing what I’m hearing? It reminded Camille of those early Mary J. Blige songs, back when her untrained voice was equivalent to the scratchy whine of someone whose half-deaf aunt told them they could really sing. Like Mary, this alto on stage had exceptional music and soulful lyrics to smooth things out. Maybe, with some help, she could get better. Camille would have to pull her aside, give her some tips.

After Goat Woman’s song, the praise team shouted and danced for a while. The band was clearly having a good time. Their heads nodded and their bodies swayed awkwardly—a sure sign they’d gotten lost in the music and no longer cared how they appeared to the audience. Camille appreciated seeing a band in “the zone” again. She loved tapping into the musicians’ groove, following the song wherever it led.

Finally, the lone soprano gave a breathy speech, as though she’d just finished running a marathon. If Camille was going to keep up with this praise team, she’d need to build up some stamina.

“He is worthy!”

The crowd echoed.

“I said, He is worthy!”

They heard you the first time.

“Our God is an awesome God! He reigns . . .” she sang.

Camille’s chest sank. This girl could blow. She’d give any major female artist a run for her money, including the former leader of the Sweet Treats herself.

Supersoprano Girl performed a medley of tunes, showcasing her ability across tempos and ranges. This was not good. Camille would either have to convince the man in the black suit that the praise team needed two sopranos or find some kind of way to push this girl back into a choir robe.

Wait! Camille waited for a camera to display a full-body profile of the soprano on the nearest screen. She scrutinized the woman’s side view. Yes! She was pregnant. Very pregnant, actually. Once this girl had the baby, she’d be holed up for at least six weeks, and that was all the time Camille needed to work her way onto this elite praise team and into the spotlight.

With a plan in place, the rest of the service was insignificant. The pastor’s words of encouragement were nice, but the call to fellowship was all Camille cared to hear. When the invitation to accept Christ was given, she pressed her feet back into her shoes. Any minute now, they had to ask for people who wanted to be members to come forward. Camille decided she might as well get up now to start the trek.

“And if anyone would like to join our church,” the preacher announced, “meet us in the Mockingbird room, which is directly across from the bookstore, after church.”

Camille stopped in her tracks. Mockingbird room? What kind of church doesn’t give new members the chance to parade before the congregation?

She huffed in disgust and made an about-face and headed toward the exit doors. Mockingbird room. Nobody gets the right hand of fellowship in a Mockingbird room.

She found the meeting place and joined about fifty other people waiting for this obscure enrollment to begin. Camille parked herself on the first row and sat to rest her feet again. Some women dressed in white distributed cookies, juice, and warm smiles. “Thanks for being here.”

“You’re welcome.”

Almost immediately following the benediction, which they could all hear through the room’s speaker system, several men wearing “Ambassador” badges entered the room and stood behind the front table. The cookie women passed out folders now, and before any ambassador could explain the documents therein, Camille had already flipped to the first page and read something that turned her off right away: The membership process takes six weeks to complete. Upon completion, you may participate in the ministry God places on your heart.

Six weeks! She didn’t have six weeks! John David was ripe now! Her future was now! And besides all that, pregnant Soprano Girl would be back in action by then!

Camille raised her hand before they even started. “Um, is there any way to expedite the membership process?”

The oldest ambassador, too old to be wearing cornrows, answered, “We’ll talk about the requirement in a second. But to answer your question, no.”

Requirements? Since when does joining church have requirements? This wasn’t a job or the Department of Motor Vehicles. It was church, for goodness sake, and she needed to be in, in, in!

She swung her foot in little circles throughout the presentation. The month-and-a-half-long process seemed more like a college course. Six classes, ninety minutes each, on Christian living, how to study the Bible, how to honor God with talents, gifts, and treasure. Someone would also come to visit her home and conduct a one-on-one “guidance session,” which would give her an opportunity to ask questions about her personal salvation, the church, or any other concerns she might not want to address in front of her group. Then and only then could she join the church on the first Sunday of the month after successful completion.

This is for the birds.

Camille shuffled all her papers back into the folder and stomped out of the meeting as soon as the ambassadors dismissed the group. She threw the folder in the trash on her way out the church’s main doors and caught the first trolley back to parking lot D, row fifteen.

Who knew joining a mega church would be so complicated?