Story updated: Beyoncé expressed her love for historically black colleges and universities in her hit documentary, "Homecoming."
So perhaps it’s fitting that the first “Beyoncé Mass” in Atlanta will be held at one of the nation’s top HBCUs, Spelman College, in March.
No, the Grammy-winning singer is not going to be on campus. And, no, queen though she is, this isn’t about worshipping the “Single Ladies (Put a Ring on It” singer.
However, her music will be featured with a nod to black womanist spirituality.
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“The first question I get when we talk about this worship service is are you worshipping Beyoncé’?” said the Rev. Neichelle Guidry, dean of Sisters Chapel and director of the Women in Spiritual Discernment of Ministry Center. “It is a clear and unequivocal ‘no’ to that question.”
The worship service is free and will be held at 7 p.m. March 2 at Sisters Chapel. Registration is required.
The service, which is held in partnership with Columbia Theological Seminary, kicks off the Sisters Chapel Women’s History Month. Another collaborator is the Presbytery of Greater Atlanta.
“It’s a Christian liturgical experience that is a womanist experience,” said Guidry . “It centralizes the voices, perspectives and living experiences of black women.”
The liturgy of Beyoncé Mass includes music from the artist’s vast discography, readings from womanist scholars and prominent Black female leaders, and a sermon from Rev. Yolanda M. Norton, the H. Eugene Farlough Chair of Black Church Studies and assistant professor of Hebrew Bible at San Francisco Theological Seminary.
Norton curated and created the service.
In California, Norton taught a class, “Beyoncé and the Hebrew Bible,” which focused on how Black women encountered Scripture and how they see themselves in sacred texts.
“We wanted to reframe how we encounter the text in ways that don’t vilify black women, but uplift them,” Norton said. “We wanted to create a framework within the Christian space that tells black women’s stories.”
One of the first assignments she gave students in 2018 was to develop a service. They were then asked to hold the mass at San Francisco’s historic Grace Cathedral during a mid-week service.
They expected between 50 and 100 people. More than 1,000 showed up. It was a very diverse gathering that included difference races and ethnicities, genders, members of the LGBTQ community, straight, churched and unchurched.
The service went viral.
“Everyone came together in this space for worship,” said Norton. “It was a beautiful moment. “
There were people who knew all parts of the Christian liturgy, but didn’t know a single Beyoncé song. Others knew every word of a Beyoncé song, but nothing about the liturgy”
“We started to hear these stories about healing and transformation,” Norton said.
Since then, the worship service has been held in several cities, including Los Angeles, New York and Lisbon, Portugal.
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Guidry said each service is themed. For Sisters Chapel, it is solitude, loneliness and the importance of community.
For instance, one song that will performed is “Love on Top.” That song was chosen to convey that the”best work that we can do as individuals in the community is to put our love for one another on top,” said Norton. “ It names our need for one another.”
The worship service will be performed by a choir that includes singers and musicians who travel with the performance and also a local choir to back them up. Rehearsals will soon be announced for the local choir, which will include students from Spelman and perhaps neighboring Atlanta University Center schools.
“Part of our population is hungry for a spiritual experience that feels like it’s part and parcel of our every day lives,” she said. “We want to see ourselves directly reflected as being divine. We’re hungry for that counter-narrative.”
After the Atlanta worship service, the Beyoncé Mass will go to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts in Washington, D.C.
To Norton, kicking off the worship service at Spelman, who educates and lifts black women “feels poetic.”
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