It's a little
embarrassing not having the hymn book and not knowing the hymn in a church
service. You are forced to adopt one of two approaches: play deaf and dumb or
use Mr. Bean's approach of moving your mouth soundlessly and finding your voice
when you get to the familiar chorus part.
Some churches
have responded to this small challenge by providing hymn books or booklets
containing songs to be used in a programme that will involve visitors. The
challenge remains getting the visitors to drop the said hymn books/booklets
after the service for the benefit of other visitors in future. Churches usually
inscribe 'Not to be Taken Away' boldly on such materials.
At a wake-keeping
I attended in Ilesa on Friday, the church adopted the modern approach of
distributing booklets containing relevant songs to non-members. To ensure
recovery, 'Not to be Taken Away' was boldly written on the booklets.
But the reverend
introduced a creative touch to ensure 100 percent recovery rate. The man of God
announced that the songs contained in the booklets were not used for happy
events such as naming ceremonies, weddings, or house-warming. He told his
audience the songs were all used for wake-keeping ceremonies and funerals, and
as such should not stay overnight in the house of anyone. The only suitable
place for such booklets to stay overnight was the House of God, from where they
would surface in the home of the next person to meet the Lord. It was a nice
spectacle seeing people rushing over each other to give back the booklets to
ushers. Naija may be tough, but nobody wants to die!
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