Part Three
“The Power of the Anointed Church”
A Biblical term for the church is Ecclesia, the “called out ones.”
The powerful preaching of the Word and the continuing powerful presence of the Lord in our worship certainly “called us out” of the world, out of pride, and out of selfish ambition. I saw people come to visit and stay to be transformed by the Presence of the Lord. Since the Celebration Chorus and Orchestra was perhaps the most visible group to join, it became the gateway into the Fellowship. This happened often: A person newly born again, or Spirit-filled, or rededicated would join the choir and begin to grow in the Lord. In about a year, they would come to me, hat-in-hand, so to speak, “Pastor Phifer, I think I need to quit the choir.” They thought I would be upset so they quickly added, “I think the Lord wants me to help with (fill-in-the-blank) and they meet on Wednesday, too, and…” I would nearly always smile and say, “That is one of the functions of the choir ministry, to help new people find the call of God on their lives! You go and do what God is calling you to do. Thanks for your faithfulness to the choir!” I hadn’t failed. WE had succeeded! Doing God’s will God’s way is what counts for we are “The Ecclesia, the called-out ones!
Growth also was seen in the pastoral and administrative staff. Remember those 5 friendly faces from 1984 and then look at this staff in 1988 or so.
Here is a page from a directory a year or so later:
Color Lines Omitted
One of the most important distinctions of First Assembly of God was our mixed racial makeup. There were to be no color lines on paper or on our platform. Leading this area was a hero of mine, Rev. Ansel (Jackie) Brown. An artist of the first rank, singer, actor, speaker, and a true-hearted man if ever I knew one. This was the South in the 80s! Pastor McManus had to have an unlisted phone number because of death threats. The headquarters for the KKK was just up the road in King, NC. But First Assembly of God in Winston-Salem was part of a higher, a much higher Kingdom—the Kingdom of God! [1]
Rev. Ansel (Jackie) Brown
Jackie and I met outside of Pastor McManus’ office. He was still wearing a tux having just flown in from an appearance on Christian Television in CA. We were instant friends and brothers. I was raised in Arkansas and he was from North Carolina but we both had put all that sad, silly thinking behind us and became equal partners in the Kingdom of God. When I heard him sing, I started finding songs for him to do with the Celebration Chorus and Orchestra. When asked the secret of our music ministry, I would often answer this way: “Find a song for Jackie Brown to do with my choir and orchestra!” In my first Behold Him! Production, he played Thomas and he was more than great. Next time around, with a different script I gave him the part of Peter. Do you get it? A black actor in a predominately white church playing Peter? No one cared! He sang, “He’s Alive” and “Risen, As He Said,” and preached Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost, word for word out of the NIV and I mean he preached it! I cast him as a preacher telling the Christmas story beside one of our Singing Christmas trees in front of a beautiful “stained-glass” window created by one of our top artists, Martie Boles. It was painted on tissue paper so it could be backlit. I keep a smaller version of it my office today. It represents the heart of Christian Arts–Incarnation, “the truth made visible.” For more on Jackie Brown go to: https://tinyurl.com/z8mr6c2e.
Jackie broke through the racial barriers in Winston-Salem, NC. He was our staff evangelist. My heart is still broken because cancer stole my friend and brother from me in 1990. I wrote this song and sang it at his funeral.
Reunion Day
Reunion Day—Yes! There will be
A gathering by the Crystal Sea
Where we will see
Those who’ve gone before, faces we adore,
Sweet voices, Lord, will sound once more
On Reunion Day!
Reunion Day! Oh Reunion Day!
It can’t be long till we sing the song of the Redeemed.
Reunion Day! Reunion Day!
Soon the trump will sound.
We’ll find higher ground
On Reunion Day.
The present-day Winston-Salem First church continues and deepens the Kingdom of Heaven community and will readily recognize Jackie as the leader who broke through the barriers of hate and prejudice.
Stages
The lines on paper started making progress across the parking lot. Meanwhile, ministry life went on: Christmas—Behold Him!—God and Country Day—5 services a Sunday. The church had been using Reynolds Auditorium, a historic professional theatre for community and school for production events. This was about as far away from a church platform as one could get. It was a real theatre with a proscenium, an orchestra pit, full stage lighting, makeup rooms, green rooms, etc. Not only was I writing real music theatre scripts, but we were producing them on a real theatre stage. In the 9 years from 1984-1993, the year of our departure, I wrote scripts for 6 Singing Christmas Tree Productions, produced one Christmas musical that somebody else wrote, and then I was free to do what was in my heart to do—Tell the Christmas Story! As music theatre.
Reynolds Auditorium
Our Stage in the New Building
We moved into the New Building in May of 1988 and started using that stage. It was as close to a professional theatre stage as possible and still remain effective as a worship platform. It was 95 feet wide from the stage left and stage right hall doors and more than 30 ft to the ceiling. Removable choir risers for 100 singers sat in a gently curved position partially wrapping about the flat orchestra area. The choir was wrapped around the orchestra like the galleries in the congregational seating wrapped around the seats on the floor. Curving around the round front of the stage was a 5 ft deep orchestra pit with a wooden floor installed to enhance the warmth and dynamic range of the orchestra. The orchestra pit was covered and became the floor of the altar area. A lot of Kingdom work got done under and over that portable floor. We also had two ramps lined up with the main aisles so actors could walk directly onto the stage from the audience.
This was the stage in the New Building. It was wide enough for 3 complete sets. For example, this is from Behold Him! John’s Story:
- Stage Right, the Temple;
- Center Stage, the all-purpose Hillside containing outdoor sets, Calvary, and the Tomb with a large downstage center area;
- Stage Left was for the story-teller’s set. [2] This was John’s cell on the Aisle of Patmos.
Notice the ramp over the orchestra pit and the full-length scrim and psych curtains upstage of it all. There were also stage extensions to square off the front of the stage. The stage was so accommodating. We used lights instead of curtains to use different parts of the stage.
There was a Christian Dance Group in Greensboro that came and danced at the Triumphal Entry and the Resurrection. I loved watching angels dance on that empty tomb. But the best is yet to come. The unique thing about Behold Him! Is that the climax is not the resurrection. It is the Second Coming. That’s why we needed that huge scrim against the back wall. For the finale, we sent the whole house into the dark as a soloist started singing “We Shall Behold Him!” Each cast member had a candle and, starting in the Old Covenant Temple, they started lighting each other’s candles. One by one the lighted candles moved across Calvary and the deserted tomb all the way to the far stage left. The Old Covenant lit the way, believer by believer, to the New Covenant. Somewhere in the process, Jesus suddenly appeared suspended in the sky just as we all sang to Him. Take a look at that climatic moment…
Behold Him? Behold this! This is a record of the work of an anointed Church! The power of the Holy Spirit is required for ministry like this. It takes a company of committed dreamers and visionaries and workers and helpers and singers and instrumentalists and actors and extras and technicians, ushers and parking lot commandos all over the place to create something like this—to “Tell His Story” at this level of artistry and anointing. These were my dreams and visions and Becky’s and Pastor’s and those of the whole company. So, the city was moved and decades later people still remember these moments. Have you noticed how many times our productions are mentioned as people express their grief at the destruction of this building? The definition of the word “theatre” is this: “a place to see something.” The anointing of the Holy Spirit made the Jesus story visible—“the Word made flesh,” and made it visible in Winston-Salem, NC.
Understanding the Ministry of the Worship Arts
My masters of Music Education at Wichita State University taught me the purpose of the arts. One of the biggest points of confusion in the human heart and mind is the difference between art and entertainment. In the Holiness Movement of the mid and late 19th century, our forebearers made deep decisions about the many evils of entertainment. They decided that the majority of entertainment forms were simply not to the trusted. So, Holiness People, as precursors of Pentecostal People, were taught to not go to dances, or movies, or roller-rinks, or ballgames and certainly to restrain from tobacco, drugs, and alcohol. There was more wisdom than folly in the rules of holiness. But also, much of the legitimate and healthy expressions of art were shunned as well. In many ways the charismatic renewal was an attempt to achieve holiness but to also be blessed by the arts.
At WSU I learned the true purpose of the arts—the expression of TRUTH and / or BEAUTY. [3]
At Winston-Salem, with more resources and people, these truths went deeper and deeper and the results went higher and higher. For me, one Christmas while on a trip home to Arkansas, it led to a strange, middle-of-the night revelation. The Lord woke me up with a full-blown truth. I have lived by it and taught it ever since; it is the truth behind the building of that sanctuary in Winston-Salem. I remember making a sign and putting it on the door of my office.
Here is the revelation:
Also consider this: when Truth and/or Beauty do not flow together, there is deception at the deepest level. We see that all around us in the frantic and determined arts of the world that promote hate, pleasure, and pride at the expense of the human soul. Why do I say truth and/or beauty? Because beautiful things may not be true and true things are not always beautiful. We need the Word of God to show us the difference, a difference that makes all the difference. So, a solemn warning and a holy challenge is needed.
Here is the warning:
Do you see that this warning takes us back to the “Ministry to the Lord” concept? When our goal is to entertain people, we have set our goal too low and we can become deceivers and stars. When we set our souls to minister to the Lord, “giving Him the glory due his name,” the goals of our art lift to a higher level, one of healing and deliverance. During our production weeks, when the work became demanding and weariness started creeping in, I found myself encouraging the team with three words: “Tell the story…” When we confessed those simple words, we would find ourselves renewed and ready for the demanding tasks before us.
So, in spite of the several very real dangers of ungodly entertainment to the fruitful, productive Christian life, art flowing from the hearts of God’s People should be a healing stream and the role of the pastor is to help the church know how to plunge into that healing flow to become both healers and the healed. The call of God on my life expanded from leading music to leading all the creatives of the church in the Worship Arts. That was the purpose of our new stage. Those lines on paper were now a place for the Worship Arts to flourish—Truth and Beauty flowing as a healing stream, not entertainment but art, a confluence of the heart of God and the hearts of the worshiper.
One Wednesday, during our weekly hour of staff fasting and prayer, another song came to me.
A Healing Stream
There’s a healing Stream from the Throne of God.
Enter in. Enter in.
Pain is swept away in this healing flood.
Enter in. Enter in.
We enter in when we praise Him.
The waters flow in our worship of Him,
Through us a healing stream. It’s the power of His presence!
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Here is the link to Part Four: Gratitude and Grief Part Four – Steve Phifer
[1] Gal 3:26-29 NKJV For you are all sons of God through faith in Christ Jesus. For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ’s, then you are Abraham’s seed, and heirs according to the promise.
[2] Most of my scripts were done in what I called a “story-teller” format. One set of characters have the story told to them by a central figure as in “Behold Him—Paul’s Story,” and “Behold Him—John’s Story,” I never liked having a tell-all narrator speak directly to the audience. I believe in character-driven plays so I used the story-teller form.
[3] I say “truth and/or beauty” because not all truth is beautiful and beautiful things may not be true.
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