Worship is when "God shows up and shows out!"
African-American worship affirms that an active God embodies human lives through companionship and communion.
This volume of essays, interlacing worship pieces with reflections from prominent leaders and emerging thinkers in Africana life, is designed to help churches, professors, and students reflect more deeply on worship and practice.
Building a bridge of understanding through collective experiences, the Companion to the Africana Worship Book shows the roots and fruits of rich worship. The series of worship books includes The Africana Worship Book (Year A | Volume 1) and The Africana Worship Book (Year B | Volume 2).
Essays and contributors in the Companion include:
- "21 Questions Revisited" by Valerie Bridgeman Davis
- "Go Play with God: Reclaiming Liturgy for Spiritual Formation" by Valerie Bridgeman Davis
- "Liturgy as Subversive Activity" by Safiyah Fosua
- "To Serve This Present Age" by Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.
- "Africana Theology for the Black Church" by Safiyah Fosua
- "Worshipping Contextually: the Bassa People in the United Methodist Church in Liberia" by Pianapue Kept Early
- "Translatability as Belonging: Bassa United Methodist Christians in Liberia" by Pianapue Kept Early
- "The Creation of an Africana Worship Ritual: Baptism in the Shouters of Trinidad" by Gennifer Benjamin Brooks
- "The African-American Church and Sacraments: But Can We Still Get Our 'Circament?'" by William B. McClain
- "Death as Worship: Celebrating Dying as Part of Life" by Cheryl Kirk-Duggan
- "The African-American Funeral Sermon: Divine Re-Framing of Human Tragedy" by Frank A. Thomas
- "Music in Africana Worship" by Melinda Weekes
- "Doxology in Darkness" by Jessica Kendall Ingram
- "In the Spirit" by Lisa Allen
- "That Was Then, This Is NOW" by Otis Moss III
- "Emerging Possibilities for African-American Churches" by Douglas Powe
- "Technologies for Worship" by Elonda Clay
- "Lord, How Come We Here?" by William B. McClain
- "Spiritual Focus and Africana Worship" by Henry Mitchell
- "Worship: The Realm of the Spirit, the Realm of the Imagination, and Real Time" by Marilyn Thornton
- "Inclusive Language and Africana Worship" by Valerie Bridgeman Davis
- "Testify!" by Wilma Taylor
- "A Womanist Perspective on Spiritual Practices" by Linda Hollies
Safiyah Fosua, DMin, is the Director of Preaching Ministries at General Board of Discipleship in Nashville, Tennessee, and a clergy member of the Greater New Jersey Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. She is the author of several books and is associate editor of the 3-volume Africana Worship Book series. Dr. Fosua is a poet, a preacher and a devotional writer who writes weekly preaching and liturgical resources for the GBOD Worship.
The Rev. Dr. Valerie Bridgeman Davis PhD, bliblical studies (Hebrew Bible - Baylor University), teaches preaching and worship at Memphis Theological Seminary. She is assistant professor of homiletics and worship, and Hebrew Bible at Memphis Theological Seminary. She lives in Memphis, Tennessee.