‘Gifts and Talents’: Sacred and Secular Musical Performance at a Suburban British Pentecostal Church (original) (raw)

Black British Gospel Music From the Windrush Generation to Black Lives Matter, 2024

Abstract

The binary between what constitutes the sacred and the secular has long been a prominent feature in debates concerning religious music. The recent global growth of Pentecostal megachurches that, in large part, rely on secular music styles as a central feature of congregational repertoire has brought once again into sharp focus discussions on the meaning of the sacred and the secular binary in contemporary, mission driven churches. This chapter will examine these long running debates through the ideal of ‘gifts and talents’, a Biblically inspired view of human creativity and innovation practiced at Ealing Christian Centre, a west London suburban Pentecostal church. Gifts and talents are a divine, spiritual practice through which congregants and worship team members utilize and perform their creative talents for praise and worship, drawing from commercial, secular styles that are re-imagined as ‘gifts’ from God. The study proposes that the ideal of gifts and talents at Ealing Christian Centre provides not only a scriptural and theological backdrop to musical performance at the church, but offers insight into the ways in which contemporary secular styles become a central feature of Pentecostal worship services. Musical talent and creativity thus act as a vehicle through which congregants connect with the spiritual realm through worship as well as intersect with the commercial music industry for modern, cutting edge performance styles and practices, thereby continuing the historical cultural tradition of the blurring of sacred and secular boundaries.

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