Here's an excerpt from a newspaper article about the photographic book "'Soul Sanctuary" which was produced by Jason Miccolo Johnson

http://74.125.47.132/search?q=cache:URuGu-J5UugJ:www.blackchurchphotos.com/images/bostonglobe.pdf+black+church+traditions&hl=en&

Photographer captures the changing customs of black churches
By Vanessa E. Jones, Globe Staff
May 22, 2006


..."In addition to spotlighting churchgoers, Johnson's camera also inadvertently captured the changes in religious tradition. When the Rev. LeRoy Attles was a child, he remembers, parishioners were more conservative in their practice.' 'Years ago," says the St. Paul pastor, ''in some very conservative churches, when you said 'Amen ,'people would turn around and look at you. Today, unless it's a conservative church, you just won't see that."

On the Sunday of Johnson's second visit to St. Paul, some members of the congregation raise their hands skyward, shout out, and bob up and down as Attles gives his sermon. The faces featured in ''Soul Sanctuary" show a wide range of emotions. ''Today," says Attles, ''people are much more expressive . . . in their approach to God." meeting more needs...

Flipping through the pages of 'Soul Sanctuary," readers also become aware of the dramatic range in sizes of today's black churches. Johnson takes readers inside the intimate space of Jake's Chapel in Greenville, Miss. Buthe also shows the sprawling Ebenezer AME Church in Maryland, with its tiered movie theater seating and video screens behind the choir showing live shots of the service. The increasing size of the congregations and the churches that cater to them has spurred changes in church traditions.

When Johnson, a Memphis native, went to church as a child, he remembers only a few extracurricular opportunities for young people. They could sing in the choir or serve as an usher, he says. Now a church such as Charles Street offers an array of ministries: a nurse unit, a young adult network, and a Christian education department. The church just opened its Ruth Hamilton/Elta Garrett Music and Arts Academy, which helps children learn to read music as the public school system trims its music and arts education programs. ''There are a lot of needs out there that are being met through the church that we don't think about," says Johnson. ''I dare say if you close down the black church, the world would be much, much worse off."New sounds of worship It's in the area of performance where traditions have changed the most. The old-school clapping of hands and stomping of feet, which for centuries provided a cymbal- and drum-like accompaniment to choirs, have been replaced by real drums, guitars, and organs. In an effort to get younger people to feel more comfortable in church, says Johnson, churches are adding praise step teams, praise flag wavers, and liturgical dancers, like the four teens who perform their dance routine in flowing purple dresses just before Attles's sermon on the Sunday Johnson revisited St. Paul.

One change that bothers Groover is the increasing focus on praise and worship music, a genre exemplified by the songs of Kirk Franklin, Fred Hammond, and other contemporary artists. He worries that a new generation of churchgoers know nothing about traditional spirituals, such as ''Ain't Got Time to Die" and ''Ride On, King Jesus," that were first heard during slavery.' 'We're opting for the more contemporary music," says Groover, ''which I think is a wonderful genre. But, please, don't let us lose our music, the music the slaves, our forefathers, our foremothers, used to sing.

Groover tries to stay the change. His church is home to five choirs, including one that sings only traditional gospel. He rotates that choir with others that focus on anthem, baroque and classical, and urban contemporary music to avoid alienating his younger members.'' A church has to embrace contemporary music to remain alive," Groover says, ''otherwise they'll go to the grave."But he refuses to stand by and watch calmly as the appreciation of the old fades. ''A people," he says, ''will only be as strong as a people who appreciate their traditions.

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[I made some slight changes in the format of this excerpt]