I know this song from my childhood {early 1950s, Atlantic City, New Jersey; African American Baptist church]

YOU MUST COME IN AT THE DOOR

Chorus:
My Lord is so high
You can't get over Him.
So low
You can't get under Him.
So wide
You can't get around Him.
You must come in at the door.

Verse 1
Some people go by water.
Some people go by land.
But IF you want
to go to Heaven
Well, you must go hand in hand.

Chorus

[I can't remember any other verses to this song, but presumably, there were other verses; The word "If" is emphasized; We were told that "the door" meant Jesus Christ]

Here are some stream of thought comments related to my childhood church experiences and "Negro" spirituals:

"You Must Come In At The Door" was a song that I learned as a member of the little children's choir at my church, Union Baptist Temple Church. The tempo of the song was moderately fast. We only learned one verse, singing the chorus first and last. Our choir director did not "believe" in handclapping while singing. Consequently, when I sing this song to myself or when I used to sing it to my children during my "private recital" sessions [when I feel the urge to sing], I don't accompany it with any body movements. Also, for what it's worth, when I sing it, I sing other spirituals after it {like "I Got Shoes" or "Ride On, King Jesus", rather than add any other floating verses to that song. {Incidently, some of those floaters for other spirituals are mentioned by Jerry Rasmussen in his post to this thread]

The director of the children's choir, Mrs. Henrietta Burke, was also the director for what I and other's called the church's "old peoples'" choir, the church's men's choir, and the church's mass choir {the choir that was made up of members of all the adult choirs who also wanted to sing in this choir}. Mrs. Burke was known to teach spirituals, and anthms [such as the Hallelujah Chorus]. I don't recall spirituals being sung at my "aspiring to be/or actually was" economically middle class church at any other time except for when a choir sang them or when our singing pastor wove them into one of his sermons. This is to say, "Negro" spirituals weren't selected as congregational songs {songs sung by the entire congregation during the church service and before the pastor's sermon}.

"Negro Spirituals" {I now call them "African American spirituals"} were certainly not sung by the Spiral chorus that my mother belonged to. That choir, which was diected by the church's pianist Mrs. Vincie Winstead, was initially made up of the "young and middle age adults" and was known to sing gospels. I recall that Mrs. Burke {the organist/choir director} and Ms. Winstead, the church pianist and director of the Spiral chorus had a friendly rivalry {or maybe that was just my sense} as whose instrument sounded the best. The organ was in the front of the church on the left side, and the piano was in the front of the church on the right side. Both instruments played during the processional-when the choirs entered the main room of the church at the start of the church service, singing some uptempo song. I still love this part of the service. The best way I can describe it to those who haven't experienced it is that it's movement is like a marching band, Mardi Gras style-after the funeral.

During church services on Sunday morning & evening, the pianist and the organ played together during the congregational songs {which were from a hymnal and weren't "Negro spirituals"}. In rotation order, different choirs sung on specific Sundays. I preferred the Sundays when the gospel choir sung. I also liked Youth Day-when the children's choir and the youth choir sung. The Youth choir was also under the direction of Mrs Burke. I remember when I was in that choir we wanted to sing more uptempo songs like the Spiral chorus sung, but instead we sung those anthms, and other songs from the hymnal, or we sang a medley of spirituals. In later years the Spiral chorus became an old persons choir, and they still sung the now "old" gospel songs. That choir disbanded when more and more members passed on, and some of the remaining members joined the mass choir {which was essentially an old persons choir}. That choir sings some anthms, and some old gospels like "Precious Lord, Take My Hand" and some Rev. James Cleveland songs. However, a new "young adult & middle age choir was formed. That choir which is named the "Voices of Hope" sings the newer gospel songs, like songs from Kirk Franklin, Yolanda Adams, and other younger composer/ choir directors.

Things change, and some things remain the same.

I've mentioned in another Mudcat thread that when people "felt the spirit" in my church, they weren't supposed to "get happy" in ostentatious ways. For instance, in my childhood, youth, or young adult life, I rarely saw anybody do any "feel the spirit" dance in the aisles of that church, or leave their seats and walk up to the front of the church, and walk around the church while they were "happy", or "speak in tongues". The members of my church were much too sedate for any of that. I only saw behavior such as that when I visited other churches, particularly what we called fundamentalist Christian churches {Church of God In Chris; COGIC; we called these congregations "holy roller churches". During the few occassions in my youth that I attended concerts at these churches, I felt as though I was in a whole 'nother culture-and in essence I was.

For what it's worth, I attended my home church last Sunday while visiting my mother, and in my opinion, that church is even more reserved about the congregation publicly showing that they "feel the spirit" except for silent or somewhat controlled crying, raising one or two hands in confirmation of what the minister/s or deacons are saying, saying interjections such as "That's right!"; "Amen!" "Preach, pastor!". Also, members of the congregation or another minister might repeat a word or phrase that the minister has just said during his sermon. For instance, the minister might say something like "Our God is a God of Mercy" and someone might say right afterwards something like "God of Mercy". These affirmations and remarks aren't usually acknowedged by the minister, but I get the distinct sense that they are expected as a sign that the minister is getting his points across. Especially towards the end of the sermon-when the sermon can be said to be "heating up", the minister expects there to be such affirmations, and signs of people "feeling the spirit" [even if these signs are subdued like the custom is in my church]. If there are no such signs, then people would think that the sermon wasn't a good one.

I remember that at the ending of the sermon, the pianist and/or the organist would play chords to accompany the minister's words. I missed that this Sunday when I returned to my hometown to visit family. Mrs. Burke was seriously ill, and no other organist was available to play. Mrs. Winstead had died some years ago. There were two other very good pianist, and there were also a snare drummer, and an electric guitarist. {The drummer happenied to be a young female}. There was also a trumpet player only accompanied the congregational songs. It was only in the late 1990s that this church introduced a drummer, guitarist or trumpet player. That would have been absolutely frowned upon when I was growing up in that church. I know that COGIG churches had drummers, if not electric guitarist, but not certainly not middle class Baptist churches.

The one point that I started to make in this post is that, regretfully, I don't think that we {African Americans} know many African American spirituals anymore.