Monday Morning Music Ministry

7-7-25

This week I share an article I wrote for The American Spectator magazine. It was occasioned by the death of Jimmy Swaggart, one of Christianity’s great evangelists and certainly the premier “televangelist.” I knew him slightly – more specifically, I interviewed him several times as I worked some years ago on a projected book about him and his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis.

More than that, I was a follower of his ministry and was baptised in the Spirit – became a Pentecostal – under his teaching. My family and I attended many crusades. Through “ups and downs,” as people will ask; and my wife and I are weekly worshipers today. His son Donnie and grandson Gabriel carry the message admirably, teaching and preaching.

“Ups and downs”? I almost would rather learn from a human being who has been redeemed then… well, someone who suggests that he or she never has fallen. As Theodore Roosevelt said, It is not having been in the Dark House, but having left it, that counts.

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As it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment: So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many (Hebrews 9:27-28).

America was largely founded, substantially settled, and essentially established on Christian foundations. The models for colonies’ governments, and the blueprints for “framing” documents, were Biblical. Even Deists among the Founding Fathers generally acknowledged the Bible as their guide for designing constitutions and the governing documents.

America’s spiritual moorings were derived from more than such influences, however. The nation often has had “parallel leadership” from among Christian figures. Pilgrims came to the New World in search of religious freedom. Among them were Puritans. Before the Revolution – and helping to fuel its liberty-loving fervor – was the Great Awakening. Preachers like Jonathan Edwards, George Whitefield, and the Wesley brothers were enormously influential throughout the colonies and new United States. In the next generations the Second Great Awakening, and religious figures like Henry Ward Beecher and his sister Harriet Beecher Stowe persuasively argued against slavery and for social reform. Open-air revival meetings were conducted on Wall Street and other major sites.

… and so through much of American history. No matter the tenor of political changes and social trends, preachers, evangelists, and Gospel songwriters influenced broad swaths of American culture. Camp-meetings as Americans moved Westward; massive urban revivals; new denominations. Clergy as best-selling authors and influential lecturers have always been prominent in public debates. The D L Moodys, Billy Sundays, Aimee Semple McPhersons, and Father Coughlins of yesterday prefigured “America’s Pastor,” Billy Graham.

While one segment of America was discovering Jesus in California in the 1960s and ‘70s – the “Jesus Movement” on the beaches – another revolution was sweeping through more traditional neighborhoods, families, and denominations: Pentecostalism. There were many leaders, including Oral Roberts, Pat Robertson, and Jim Bakker. They sustained ostracism from mainstream denominations, yet they flourished. Many of them built huge empires that eventually were undermined by corruption and scandals, frequently self-inflicted.

The death of Reverend Jimmy Swaggart, who died on July 1, 2025, is a case in point. He became a figure of major influence in American religious life and even politics, endured scandal and self-abasement, and was an actor in a sad but not uncommon scenario… but his last chapters reflected redemption and “overcoming.” His flock remained with him, or regrouped. He rebuilt his major Pentecostal movement through fidelity to its basic tenets, but also by shifting the focus and presentation of his message, or God’s message as He received it.

Forty years ago Jimmy Swaggart was invited to the White House by Ronald Reagan; and last year a new president, Donald Trump, placed calls to his office. In the 1980s Swaggart graced the covers of weekly news magazines; recently he was feted at his 90th birthday celebration by the likes of Bill Gaither and Franklin Graham, the son of Billy Graham who once disdained his style of preaching and much of its substance. Between the “first and second” Swaggarts he also overcame near-universal opprobrium after being caught with prostitutes.

By the time of his death Swaggart was the longest-running televangelist and possibly the most prominent expositor of Protestant Christianity in the world; certainly the leading exponent of Pentecostalism, which is sweeping the globe, especially south of the Equator. His ministry of frequent and massive crusades across America and in numerous overseas countries was supplanted by a media ministry, the only 24/7 Christian cable channel offering exclusive programming of a single ministry. Myriad worship services originate in his large headquarters in Baton Rouge LA; he published a monthly magazine and produced dozens of CDs and DVDs featuring his own distinctive performances and those of his large and talented worship team. Scores of published books and tracts written by Swaggart are ministry staples.

Over his career Swaggart inadvertently provided an additional meaning to the Biblical phrase “Born Again.”

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Jimmy Lee Swaggart was born on the Ides of March, 1935, within months of his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, a pioneer of rock and roll; and Mickey Gilley, the popular country-music star whose nightclub Gilley’s was the setting of the movie Urban Cowboy. The clan – whose family tree resembles, rather, a twisted vine – counts other piano-playing preachers and recording stars. Linda Gail Lewis (Jerry Lee’s sister), for instance, began her career in the 1960s and still records and performs, with a large following in Europe as a rockabilly queen. That family tree, planted and nurtured around little Ferriday LA, is replete with inter-marriage, multiple marriages (Jerry and Linda Gail each having tied the knot seven times through the years), adultery, and illegitimate siblings and cousins. In that medley, Jimmy and Jerry Lee were double first-cousins.

Jimmy Swaggart himself had one marriage, to Frances Anderson of Wisner LA; and one child, Donnie, who was named after Swaggart’s older brother who died in infancy. It is curious to note that Swaggart, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and Ray Charles all had older brothers who died in accidents when they were boys. The rural South of the 1930s dished up a strange, but common, set of touchstones – tragedy, poverty, violence, music, religious fundamentalism.

After his hardscrabble family of drinkers, roustabouts, and lawbreakers got saved in a tent revival, young Jimmy felt a calling to be an evangelist. After his marriage at age 17 (Frances was 15), they travelled with Donnie and a lone accordion, singing Gospel songs and preaching – initially to sparse groups, and sleeping in their car or in church basements.

In 1957 his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis, recently signed to a recording contract with Elvis’s label Sun Records, mightily defined rock ‘n’ roll with massive hit songs like Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On and Great Balls Of Fire, making tens of thousands of dollars a night and appearing on network TV. Jerry Lee and Sam Phillips of Sun Records arranged to launch a Gospel line with Swaggart its featured performer. But the young evangelist declined the offer, believing that God wanted him to preach, not sing.

Swaggart was destined – called – to do both.

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In the late ‘50s Swaggart gradually expanded his ministry from small churches and modest tent revivals to larger crusades, recording traditional Southern Gospel songs and attracting radio air time. The dynamic music was “bait,” he said, to draw people to the preaching; and vice versa in other cases.

Through the 1970s and ‘80s, Jimmy Swaggart Ministries grew exponentially. He established a church in Baton Rouge, Family Worship Center; he founded a Bible College; his radio empire expanded to television, buying time on stations to form a de facto network; crusades became major events in major venues in major cities… expanding to mass meetings in many countries around the world, often filling entire stadiums. Many of his singers and musicians, like Janet Paschal and John Starnes, graduated to successful solo careers. By the mid-1980s his telecast, now a full hour in length, was carried on 250 stations. Swaggart’s template for crusades was a Friday evangelistic message; a Saturday “invitation service” for people to respond to altar calls; and a Sunday service explaining the Gifts of the Spirit for those eager to receive them.

The on-stage evangelist Jimmy Swaggart was electric – a handsome, talented, exuberant musician, singer, and preacher. Inevitably his anointed messages were accompanied by sweat and tears and “hard” preaching – against sin, apostasy, liberal theology, “dead churches,” and such. He had little trouble criticising rival preachers, some by name; and he received criticism back. The Christian Right was ascendant in politics at the time; Pentecostal and Charismatic ministries were naturally compatible with those social and political impulses.

But “Pride goeth before a fall,” and a spate of scandals soiled the Pentecostal movement in the mid-1980s. Jim Bakker had sex with a church secretary and was later sent to jail for financial improprieties at the tacky Christian theme park established by him and his tacky wife Tammy Faye. Jerry Falwell, who had successfully penetrated the political world through his Moral Majority, embarrassed himself in the scramble for Bakker’s empire. Oral Roberts said that God would kill him if supporters fell short of donation-goals. (The goal was met, and the Lord did not immediately take Roberts’s life.) Ministers engaged in “Name It and Claim It” promises, and invented a seductive “Prosperity Gospel.” Many other ministries were embroiled, seemingly every other month, in sex or financial or doctrinal scandals.

An Elmer Gantry-type if there ever were one, Swaggart continued his hellfire preaching at the time, severely criticizing many of his fellow evangelists on moral and theological grounds. Many rapacious “reporters” like Geraldo Rivera and CNN’s John Camp devoted themselves to finding chinks in Swaggart’s armor. Beyond defending himself and the Gospel, his attitude and body language in interviews signalled the Pride about which Scripture warns.

Indeed it foreshadowed a fall – from grace, from a mass following, and from respect and respectability in the Christian world. In 1988 a rival Louisiana preacher with whom Swaggart had tussled caught Jimmy with a prostitute, in a cheap motel outside New Orleans. The preacher’s men took photographic evidence and slashed Swaggart’s tires. A nation-wide scandal ensued; Swaggart confessed in an apology to God and Frances and Donnie that was picked up by a multitude of TV stations and magazine covers. His tear-stained face and contorted expression were cemented in the public’s mind as the new face of Pentecostalism. Swaggart’s denomination, the Assemblies of God, rebuked him and ordered corrective steps designed to rehabilitate the preacher and rescue his ministry.

Swaggart accepted some discipline, ignored other recommendations. He self-exiled, but returned to his pulpit sooner than the AG ruled. The denomination eventually revoked Swaggart’s ministry credentials. Offerings and donations drastically dropped. Enrollment at the Bible College fell from 1451 to 370. Grass grew in the cracks of Family Worship Center’s parking lots.

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During these very times I was working on a project about the Cousins Swaggart, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Mickey Gilley. I had interviewed all three and many of their relatives, associates, even students at Swaggart’s Bible College. Even a prostitute he was caught with.

His confession aligned with the facts. Whether his apologies – more correctly, signs of repentance – were sincere, became a matter of fierce debate.

After the service at which he returned to the pulpit, I approached him and expressed the hope that his failing, and what I assumed would be his repentance and rehabilitation, could make for a powerful message to a public comprised, after all, of sinners and flawed people. And that I would tell that story without tabloid flavors. He replied with what I have since called a Pentecostal No: “Brother Marschall, I’ll pray about it.”

In Jimmy Swaggart’s message that day, the theme centered on the Biblical figure of King David – that he too (I add the “too,” because it was obvious Swaggart drew a comparison to himself) engaged in lust and adultery, and was guilty of much. But none of that, Swaggart noted, changed the fact that God had a call on David’s life. With that anointing, David eventually carried out amazing tasks that God had set before him.

It was a facile argument, given the circumstances in Baton Rouge that morning, and yet it was theologically sound.

The road that Jimmy Swaggart walked thereafter, whether out of desperation or by design – his or God’s – has been unique. Perhaps it was a strategic withdrawal from the ministry’s program. The overseas crusades largely ended, as did many stateside crusades. The face-to-the-world aspect of his ministry became the home church, Family Worship Center, featuring three services a week and various camp meetings and special conferences. An extensive media ministry was established through his new outlet, SonLife Broadcasting. A core group of staffers, musicians, singers, and teachers remained, loyally. A children’s ministry was expanded.

The ministry outreach grew, particularly exegetical material (Swaggart’s Bible studies total more than 7500 pages). He claimed a divine revelation that directed him to address “the message of the Cross,” asserting that aspect of Jesus’s sacrifice as the proper focus of Christians’ faith. In the course of his latter-day ministry activities I have joined those who believe his ultimate repentance was sincere.

Swaggart was joined in the pulpit by his son Donnie and grandson Dr Gabriel Swaggart. In the years before his death they assumed virtually all the ministry duties, excellently – breaking a pattern of many televangelists’ kids being weak shadows of their fathers, with the exception of Franklin Graham.

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In Jimmy Swaggart’s last decades his fervent delivery mellowed, but not his message. Hellfire themes continued. He never softened his Pentecostal distinctives (his son and grandson emphasize the Gifts even more than he had), and his publications and sermons continued to attack false doctrines and flawed theology in some denominations.

If parts of the general public did not know, or forgot, who Jimmy Swaggart was, it was due to his decision to “feed the sheep” and focus on his congregation; on SonLife’s media outreach; and sharing his theological brand. Appeals for, say, hospitals in India were supplanted by campaigns to provide thousands of Expositor’s Study Bibles to countries around the world. These were important goals of Swaggart until the end, and along the way he acquired new friends (as calls from Donald Trump, Bill Gaither, Mike Lindell and a wide variety of others attest) and in new fields of activity. Gabe, and especially Donnie, became increasingly active and vocal in conservative politics.

… which brings to the fore, full-circle perhaps, the traditional and essential place of Christianity in American life. Jimmy Swaggart’s ultimate re-emergence and influence, and a new (or renewed) America where Donnie Swaggart is invited to White House prayer meetings, and Gabe Swaggart is honored at the Louisiana State Senate, testifies to an important aspect of faith – ultimately, “overcoming” in this corrupt world. The perseverance that lifted the piano-playing preacher from Ferriday, Louisiana was largely spiritual but also spoke of definition and redefinition; of dispensing and seeking forgiveness; of knowing God and making Him known. Somehow, an American story too.

Jimmy Swaggart’s struggles, victories, and personal “overcoming” will be a testament living beyond his grave.

He breathed his last earthly breath, as country folks say, about 8:30 a.m. on July 1, 2025. Donnie made the announcement on various ministry platforms, and quoted a verse from II Timothy that his father cited as he was slipping away in recent months:I have fought a good fight, I have finished my course.

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Looking For A City

10-31-22

I was planning to write a message about Reformation Day, but this has been a week with many distracting events, some sad; and thoughts about reforming the church, confronting corruption, does not need an anniversary-day to assert its relevance. Next week.

Among the sad events of this week was the death of Jerry Lee Lewis.

Somewhat anticipated, even the subject of false rumors, Jerry had a stroke a couple of years ago and, with the lifestyle he led – often on death’s door; in some ways tempting death many times through the years – he was, in the words of one of his recent nicknames, the Last Man Standing.

That reference is to the class of talented Southern boys who burst on the American musical scene in the mid-1950s. They were all unique, with utterly distinct styles, yet their common roots and similar stories was a most astonishing coincidence. Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison… and others: all born in the mid-1930s; all dirt-poor Southerners; all of Pentecostal or Fundamentalist faiths; all attracted to, and amalgamating in their music, the traditions of country music, Gospel, white and black blues; all separately showing up on the doorstep of a small recording studio in Memphis, hoping to find an audience. Remarkable.

When I was a kid and rock ‘n’ roll was young too, it was Jerry Lee Lewis who caught my ear, so to speak, and I never looked back. Through the years I interviewed him maybe a dozen times; traveled over half the continent to attend concerts and see him backstage; and eventually met, and became friends with, some of his relatives – cousin Mickey Gilley; sister Linda Gail Lewis; other cousins like Rev David Beatty; band members like Ken Lovelace; associates like Jack Clement.

In his hometown of Ferriday, Louisiana, I worshiped in the Assembly of God Church where the cousins grew up; and spent time with Jerry and Linda’s colorful other sister Frankie Jean. I became a follower of Jimmy Swaggart, I suppose first hooked by the “bait” of the music, and have worshiped and interviewed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, too. Closing the circle, I interviewed Mickey and other Gilleys, too.

I am in the process of putting all those meetings and interviews to work, and to share with the world a book that will profile them, principally Jimmy Lee and Jerry Lee – why I am putting aside thoughts on Martin Luther’s Reformation five-hundred years ago.

In a sense, however, there is a connection. The rediscovery of Bible-based belief and worship that Luther promoted has its current manifestation in Fundamentalist and Pentecostal churches. Of course many people will think this is unlikely – an affinity between nascent Protestantism of the 1500s, and the subsequent majesty of the Baroque master Bach; and the perfervid preaching in white-frame rural churches and the back-beat, three-chord exuberant music of Southern Gospel. But, Amen – so be it. The scarlet thread of redemption is actually a ribbon of many threads.

My book has found a theme beyond the blood relations (a gene pool the size of a teardrop) and family tree (more like a tangled vine!), and it can be found in the title: “Cousins – The Saturday Nights and Sunday Mornings of a Remarkable American Family.” For, besides the abnormal, almost miraculous, musical talent and astonishing piano stylings that the Cousins possess, there is the common element of Pentecostalism.

Music and Christian salvation rescued and redeemed the branches of that family and many similar families in that region and that time. Of course the Pentecostal experience is as old as the Days of the Apostles, but has only reasserted itself in the past century. Now it is a worldwide phenomenon – to choose one proof, the number of Pentecostals in Brazil today is more than the Catholic population.

In Jerry Lee’s case, the preaching and music were part of his life. He attended Bible College in Texas until he was invited to leave because he would not (or could not, he told me) stop “juking” traditional Gospel songs like “My God Is Real.” Pastor Charles Wigley was a fellow student, playing sax in a little pickup band, and he told me that Jerry occasionally snuck out at night to listen to music at clubs in Dallas’s Deep Elem neighborhoods.

Jerry Lee’s virtually instant stardom when Sun Records heard his demos propelled him to what the public has known since then – TV appearances; multiple wives including one to his 13-year-old cousin; ups and downs; scandals; problems with drink, drugs, and taxes; movies and worldwide tours; and so forth. His cousins had somewhat similar experiences.

Yet all of the family, from the most casual church-goer to the world-famous evangelist Jimmy Swaggart, never rejected the “Sunday morning” component, no matter how many “Saturday nights” there were. You will understand the symbology.

The world might scorn (sometimes correctly) the repeated confessions of some folks; repentance, pleas for forgiveness, embracing the cross. Again and maybe again. But, we are all sinners. Some of us sin more loudly, or more colorfully, even more persistently, than others. But woe be to those who judge.

Many who sin never do desire to repent. Or never – God help them – feel the need for forgiveness; never really are conscious of their sin. Never knew, in the first place, a God who sees them and loves them and judges but has already provided a means of redemption in the cross – the shed blood of His Son.

Putting aside the massive talent and compelling music of Jerry Lee Lewis, his life on earth, now ended, can be seen as one hewing to the Gospel nevertheless, wracked with sin-consciousness when he strayed, having hundreds of conversations about his guilt; reforming, pledging, backsliding, interrupting some concerts to switch to Gospel music – working out his inner conflicts in public.

When he was training to be a preacher, he told me, a favorite theme was “the devil’s tail sticking out of houses” – when people had television antennas on their roofs. Ironic that his cousin Jimmy Lee Swaggart based a major portion of his ministry on televangelism. Ironic, too – or appropriate – that at the end of his life Jerry (once again… but clearly sincere) gave his heart to Jesus. Cousin Mickey Gilley did so, too, before his recent death. “Made things right with the Lord,” they each said.

Jerry Lee Lewis’s last recording project was a duet album with Jimmy Swaggart – long discussed over the years, but never produced. Traditional hymns and Gospel songs, it was released only months ago.

The world already is realizing that Jerry Lee was far greater than memorable hits and scandals and tabloid rumors. Even last month, before his death but after decades of snubs, the Country Music Hall of Fame finally elected him to its list of honorees.

Now he will be transformed from a popular personality to the true, exceptional icon he always was despite himself. His real story, as with many great figures in history, has come a full circle.

I pray that we can all have personal counterparts in our “walks,” and I don’t mean music or a particular lifestyle. Jerry Lee Lewis was taught the Truth of the Bible by his mother Mamie and Aunt Rene and in the First Assembly of God Church. He “hid the Word in his heart.” When he strayed he listened to the Holy Spirit, was troubled, and sought forgiveness. He shared his struggle with the world. In the end, it was not his new plaque in the Hall of Fame, but the old pew where he once sat, learning about Jesus and singing the songs of amazing grace, that was his real home. And where he was fulfilled.

“His” versions of those Gospel songs have prevailed after all. Whether there is a little more shaking going on in Heaven, we’ll understand it all by and by…

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Click Video Clip: In the Garden

Click Video Clip: Jesus, Hold My Hand

5-16-22

According to the calendars, Winter is long past. Yet around these parts I was still turning on the heat overnight, and across swaths of the continent there have been strange late-season snowstorms. Where it hasn’t been chilly or snowy, we have had rainstorms and floods and, devastatingly, postponed baseball games.

Only last week a friend and I were walking, noting the lack of flowers and leaves and even buds on trees in the neighborhood. One of the joys of Spring is to see the light-green fuzz that appears like mists on seemingly dead trees and bushes. Spring fragrances in the air are overdue, too; like half of America perhaps they, too, have moved to Florida.

Winter has its charms, of course; but when it overstays its welcome it can affect our moods.

Perhaps my own mood is really affected by a confluence of events. Occasionally in these essays I have been inspired by coincidences: several friends enduring similar crises or illnesses; odd similarities in news stories; prayer needs for health or finances or family matters addressed to me.

Neither God nor the cosmos is trying to tell me something; certainly not at the expense of others’ lives. Sometimes, I believe, we all simply happen to notice things we otherwise overlook. And of course there are coincidences. So it is not morbid, but merely clinical, to mention that I recently have been aware of people dying, including more than during a typical week.

I am writing a book about the cousins Jerry Lee Lewis, Jimmy Swaggart, and Mickey Gilley, and conducting interviews. This week Mickey, 86, died. A situation shared with me, a friend diagnosed with a brain tumor previously regarded as an eye affliction. The father of a close friend died this week, a few days after my friend and I had dinner. An old, dear friend who has devoted her life to caring for a daughter who was suddenly disabled decades ago shared that she faces her daughter’s seriously declining health. My sister called and urged that we discuss our wills, for logical reasons.

And so forth. There are other reminders. One becomes more aware of, not desensitized to, stories of homicides and suicides in the news; body-counts in foreign wars and breached borders; of statistics of aborted children.

But we have just come through a season where we contemplated death… and life. Easter, that is. Jesus’s willing sacrifice of His life, something fairly overwhelming to comprehend, was immediately assuaged two thousand years ago — and each moment we meditate upon it today: the affirmation of life.

He overcame death. He rose from the dead. He lives today.

We need to contemplate; we need to meditate. Do not “check the box” – “Yes. Son of God. Died. Rose. Miracle. OK, is Easter over?” How often do we miss the lesson of the Resurrection?

God planned this scenario not merely to prove the Divinity of Jesus Christ. The miracles suggested that, and His Ascension would confirm that.

The Resurrection of Christ occurred not only to show us that He overcame death… but to illustrate the promise that we can overcome too. Accepting Christ as your Savior promises that you, too, will “conquer sin and death.” Those who believe “will have eternal life.” More than life in Heaven’s Paradise, you will live in virtual mansions; Jesus promised, “If it were not so, I would have told you.”

Life is not the negation of death, but triumph over it.

The horrible aspects of this world will be left behind. And what awaits? Our loving Father; eternal peace; joy unspeakable. Also awaiting us will be the people we love. And have “lost.” Those loved ones, the Bible promises us, who suffered pain and disease and infirmity, will be whole again.

When we gain Heaven ourselves, we will not only see the King… but we shall see our loved ones too. In perfect bodies. Well, and whole.

People on earth, even His children, do not live forever. And, because there is sin in the world, there is disease. And corruption. And affliction. And suffering. Some of these problems brought on by ourselves; some because the physical realm which includes sickness, cruelty, and sorrow, makes war upon us. These are other reasons to look upon our great Hope and to trust His promises.

So we look to the Life ahead. We trust in God’s mercy and, as my friend I mentioned above reminded me, grace. It is a gift we cannot manufacture ourselves, but we can seek it and accept it. Grace, grace, God’s grace. What do some people call it?

Oh, yes; amazing Grace. Even the angels do not know Grace, for they have not overcome the trials of this life nor the bonds of death. But we can savor it!

Suddenly, today, I realized I heard birds chirping this morning at dawn. Nature’s alarm clock! I took another walk, and the air had that special fragrance of renewed life. There was green fuzz on trees and bushes. Welcome back! The grass will need mowing soon! Seemingly overnight, the dogwoods burst forth in their brilliant flowery branches.

Death might seem to surround us, but life always returns, life prevails, life embraces us. Like seedlings that emerge from cracks in giant rocks, life wins – examples of the promise we have, as that old Gospel song says…

“There ain’t no grave gonna keep this body down!”

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Click: Ain’t No Grave

9-2-16

I have told this story before. Like a couple weeks ago, a reprint by request; I have gotten a lot of comments on this memory I share. It is about a holiday far away from my home… but very close to my heart. It happened on a Summer holiday years ago.

A number of years ago I was working on a book, a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis; evangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and country-music superstar Mickey Gilley, all first cousins to each other. My good friend Maury Forman offered me his unused condo in Montgomery, Texas to get away for a bit of a personal research and writing one summer. Since Lewis lived in Mississippi, Swaggart in Louisiana, and Gilley in nearby Pasadena Texas, it made geographical sense.

Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages (remember them?) to chart the location of Assembly of God churches, intent on visiting as many as I could through the summer. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot, Texas. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small, white frame AG church was my first stop that summer… and I never visited another. For one thing – coincidence? – I learned that a member of the tiny congregation was the widow of a man who had pastored the AG church in Ferriday, Louisiana, the small town FOUR HOURS AWAY where, and when, those three cousins grew up in its pews. She knew them all, and their families, and had great stories. Beyond that, the pastor of the church in Cut and Shoot, Charles Wigley, had gone to Bible College with Jerry Lee Lewis and played in a band with him, until Jerry Lee got kicked out. Some more great stories.

But there was more than that kept me there for that summer. In that white-frame church and that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. I was born in New York City. Yet I was treated like family as if the folks had known me three decades. A fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for the holiday where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

I bought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. Well, there were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like family. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barrel BBQ smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t admit low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas BBQ the best) There was visitin,’ surely; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again — smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared the porch of their house. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Wigley, during the summer, had opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone. But everyone else sang, too.

In some churches, in some parts of America, you are just expected to sing solo every once in a while. You’re not expected to – you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in the folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

I have grown sad for people who have not experienced the type of worship where singers and people who pray do so spontaneously. From the congregation. Moving to the front. Sharing their hearts. Crying tears of joy or conviction. Loving the Lord, freely. If you have not… visit a church where this is commonplace; even witnessing it is an uplifting balm to the soul., where there is freedom and joy in singing spontaneously.

I attach a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling – the fellowship – of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” There were cameras at this Gaither get-together, but it took this city boy back to that holiday weekend, finding himself amongst a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

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Click: The Sweetest Song I Know

7-2-18

I have told this story before. Readers have liked it, and some have asked that it not get buried in Archives. It is about a holiday far away from home… but very close to my heart. It happened on a Fourth of July years ago.

A number of years ago I was working on a book, a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis; evangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and country-music superstar Mickey Gilley, all first cousins to each other. My good friend Maury Forman offered me his unused condo in Montgomery, Texas to get away for a bit of a personal research and writing one summer. Since Lewis lived in Mississippi, Swaggart in Louisiana, and Gilley in nearby Pasadena Texas, it made geographical sense.

Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages (remember them?) to chart the location of Assembly of God churches for all the weeks ahead, intent on visiting as many as I could. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot, Texas. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small, white frame AG church was my first stop that summer… and I never visited another. For one thing – coincidence? – I learned that a member of the tiny congregation was the widow of a man who had pastored the AG church in Ferriday, Louisiana, the small town FOUR HOURS AWAY where, and when, those three cousins grew up in its pews. She knew them all, and their families, and another piano-playing cousin, David Beatty; and had great stories. Beyond that, the pastor of the church in Cut and Shoot, Charles Wigley, had gone to Bible College with Jerry Lee Lewis and played in a band with him, until Jerry Lee got kicked out. Some more great stories.

But there was more than that kept me there for that summer. In that white-frame church and that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. I was born in New York City. Yet I was treated like family as if they all had known me three decades. A fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for the holiday where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

I bought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. Well, there were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like family. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barbecue smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t admit low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas BBQ, Lo and Slo, is the best) There was visitin,’ surely; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again – smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared the porch of their house. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Wigley, during the summer, had opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone. But everyone else sang, too.

In some churches, in some parts of America, you are just expected to sing solo every once in a while. You’re not expected to – you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in the folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

I have grown sad for people who have not experienced the type of worship where singers and people who pray, do so spontaneously. From the congregation. Moving to the front. Sharing their hearts. Crying tears of joy or conviction. Loving the Lord, freely. If you have not… visit a church where this is commonplace; even witnessing it is an uplifting balm to the soul. Where there is freedom and joy in singing spontaneously.

I attach a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling – the fellowship – of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” There were cameras at this Gaither get-together, but it took this city boy back to that holiday weekend, finding himself amongst a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

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Click: The Sweetest Song I Know

9-5-16

I have told this story before. It is about a holiday far away from home… but very close to my heart. It happened on a Fourth of July years ago, and was duplicated virtually unchanged two months later, on the Labor Day weekend.

A number of years ago I was working on a book, a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis; evangelist Jimmy Swaggart; and country-music superstar Mickey Gilley, all first cousins to each other. My good friend Maury Forman offered me his unused condo in Montgomery, Texas to get away for a bit of a personal research and writing one summer. Since Lewis lived in Mississippi, Swaggart in Louisiana, and Gilley in nearby Pasadena Texas, it made geographical sense.

Once settled, I took out the Yellow Pages (remember them?) to chart the location of Assembly of God churches for all the weeks ahead, intent on visiting as many as I could. East Texas was in every way new to me, and I wanted to experience everything I could.

Well, the first one I visited was in Cut and Shoot, Texas. That’s a town’s name; you can look it up. A small, white frame AG church was my first – stop that summer… and I never visited another. For one thing – coincidence? – I learned that a member of the tiny congregation was the widow of a man who had pastored the AG church in Ferriday, Louisiana, the small town FOUR HOURS AWAY where, and when, those three cousins grew up in its pews. She knew them all, and their families, and had great stories. Beyond that, the pastor of the church in Cut and Shoot, Charles Wigley, had gone to Bible College with Jerry Lee Lewis and played in a band with him, until Jerry Lee got kicked out. Some more great stories.

But there was more than that kept me there for that summer. In that white-frame church and that tiny congregation, it was, um, obvious in three minutes that I was not from East Texas. I was born in New York City. Yet I was treated like family as if they had known me three decades. A fellow named Dave Gilbert asked me if I’d like to go to his farm for the holiday where a bunch of people were just going to get together and “do some visitin’.”

I bought the biggest watermelon I could find as my contribution to the pot-luck. Well, there were dozens and dozens of folks. I couldn’t tell which was family and who were friends, because everybody acted like family. When folks from East Texas ask, “How are you?” they really mean it. There were several monstrous barbecue smokers with chimneys, all slow-cooking beef brisket. (Every region brags about its barbecue traditions, but I’ll fight anyone who doesn’t admit low-heat, slow-smoked, no sauce, East-Texas BBQ the best) There was visitin,’ surely; there were delicious side dishes; there was softball and volleyball and kids dirt-biking; and breaks for sweet tea and spontaneous singing of patriotic songs.

I sat back in a folding chair, and I thought, “This is America.”

As the sun set, the same food came out again — smoked brisket galore; all the side dishes; and desserts of all sorts. Better than the first time. Then the Gilberts cleared the porch of their house. People brought instruments out of their cars and trucks. Folks tuned their guitars; some microphones and amps were set up; chairs and blankets dotted the lawn. Dave Gilbert and his brothers, I learned, sang gospel music semi-professionally in the area. Pastor Wigley, during the summer, had opened for Gold City Quartet at a local concert, playing gospel music on the saxophone. But everyone else sang, too.

In some churches, in some parts of America, you are just expected to sing solo every once in a while. You’re not expected to – you want to. So into the evening, as the sun went down and the moon came up over those farms and fields, everyone at that picnic sang, together or solo or in duets or quartets. Spontaneously, mostly. Far into the night, exuberantly with smiles, or heartfelt with tears, singing unto the Lord.

I sat back in the folding chair, and I thought, “This is Heaven.”

I have grown sad for people who have not experienced the type of worship where singers and people who pray, do so spontaneously. From the congregation. Moving to the front. Sharing their hearts. Crying tears of joy or conviction. Loving the Lord, freely. If you have not… visit a church where this is commonplace; even witnessing it is an uplifting balm to the soul. Where there is freedom and joy in singing spontaneously.

I attach a video that very closely captures the music, and the feeling – the fellowship – of that evening. A wooden ranch house, a barbecue picnic just ended, a campfire, and singers spontaneously worshiping, joining in, clapping, and “taking choruses.” There were cameras at this Gaither get-together, but it took this city boy back to that holiday weekend, finding himself amongst a brand-new family, the greatest barbecue I ever tasted before or since… and the sweetest songs I know.

+ + +

Click: The Sweetest Song I Know

I once heard a prominent preacher in the “emergent church” trash one of my favorite old gospel songs, “I’ll Fly Away.”

“If I could, I would rip that song out of every hymn-book,” he said. He considered it irresponsible and against Christ’s teachings to want to leave this world, when there is so much to do here. So much poverty and injustice to fight… and so on.

That type of analysis is one reason I wish the emergents would become the submergents. Christ admonished us to look up, and wait expectantly for that day. Bible prophecy tells us of no sweeter promise than when we shall meet Him in the air. Yes, God has tasks for us here in this world, but it can be arrogant, not just irresponsible, to suggest that God cannot do things without us. And… there is a danger in putting too must trust in doctrines of works.

The whole Gospel must hold. Comfortable suburban (faddish) teachers who cannot relate to worshipers whose lives have been hard and challenging, those who hope for the Bible’s promised release, those who find comfort — and even perseverance — in songs like “I’ll Fly Away”… pity those teachers, or ignore them. They preach to each other.

Fasten your seat belts, because I’m going to share a very unorthodox (in some neighborhoods, anyway) version of “I’ll Fly Away.” Two decades ago I was writing a three-part biography of rock ‘n’ roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis, televangelist Jimmy Swaggart, and country singer Mickey Gilley. They are all first cousins, and grew up in Ferriday, Louisiana, attending the same little Assembly of God church.

I learned that for a brief time, Jerry Lee had attended Bible College, in Waxahatchie, Texas. I interviewed a fellow student, Charles Wigley (later a district superintendent of the Assemblies of God) who told me that a few students used to get together and play gospel music… and got in trouble for “juking it up.” Of course Jerry also got invited to leave the school because he used to sneak out at night and go to the Deep Elm section of Houston…

Be that as it may, the jazzed-up style of rock and country and the fervent evangelistic piano playing in Pentecostal churches sometimes straddled an indistinct line. Here is a video of Jerry Lee Lewis and his cousin Mickey Gilley performing “I’ll Fly Away” in what you might consider another installment in our “Doing Church Another Way” series! (Definitely NOT Baroque music)

This is how old it is: it was recorded, I think, the day after Reagan was elected president in 1980 (Jerry Lee throws in a reference to that fact)

To close the circle, see if you think worshipers in a little country church would have felt irresponsible about their faith after joining in with this song. Would you rip this out of a songbook?

Click:  I’ll Fly Away