11A
RELIGION / The Charlotte Post
Thursday, January 9,1997
CHURCH NEWS
•Clinton Chapel AME
Zion
302 California SL
York, S.C.
The church will celebrate
Martin Luther King Day,
Sunday at 3:30 p.m. The
keynote speaker will be the Rev.
John McCullough of Friendship
Baptist Church, Gastonia.
Music will be provided by
Kenny Curry and the Spirit of
Faith Choir and Cynthia
Williams.
•Parkwood CME
1021 Paikwood Ave.
Witness the Peace will cele
brate its third anniversary con
cert Jan. 11 -12 at 4 p.m.
•Elast Stonewall AME Zion
1729 Griers Grove Road
The church will host a prayer
and praise service Friday at 7
p.m. The guest speaker will be
Sister Cassandra Fisher with
music provided by Redemption.
•SL John Baptist
2000 SL John Church Road
Services are held at 8 and 11
a.m Sunday. Bible study and
prayer meeting are held
Wednesdays at 7 p.m. Sunday
School begins at 9:45 a.m.
•Temple Chapel Baptist
900 September Lane
The church will host “Healing
and Deliverance Marathon”
Jan. 9-11 at 7:30 p.m. Bishop
Harry Brown of Brunswick, Ga.
will be the guest speaker. For
more information, call 393-5113.
•Greater Providence
Baptist
2000 Milton Road
The church will host a celebra
tion of Martin Luther King
Wednesday at 7:45 p.m. The
speaker will be the Rev. Kojo
Nantambu.
•Greenville Memorial AME
Zion
6116 Montieth Drive
The church will hold a ground
breaking ceremony and trustee
day Sunday.
•New Bethlehem FBH
Church of God
421E.18fhSL
Jan 10-12, the church will
hold Consecration services.
•Shiloh Institutional
Baptist
2400 Greenland Ave.
The church will celebrate the
anniversary of the Rev. Clinton
Caesar. Events will be held
Sunday at 11 a.m., Wednesday
and Thursday at 7 p.m. On
Saturday at 7 p.m., a banquet
win be held at the Holiday Iim-
Woodlawn. Tickets are $25. The
final service is Jan. 19 at 11
a.m. For more information, call
537-6046.
Upcoming events:
•China Grove AIME Zion
9401 Old Pineville Road
The Ministers Wives and
Widows Fellowship will host a
founders day observance Jan.
18 at 3 p.m.
•First Mount Calvary
Baptist
209 W. 28th SL
The chmch will host its annu
al installation service Jan. 19 at
3 p.m. The speaker will be the
Rev. Soimy Turner of Clement
Memorial AME Zion.
Spiritual Aerobics meld faith, fitness
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
DETROIT - As the inspira
tional gospel sounds of “I
Surrender All” begin to fill
Detroit’s Butzel Family
Center, the faithful come to
attention.
Michelle Robertson's sermon
is about to begin.
She doesn’t have a pulpit.
Just an aerobics step.
“It’s time to open your spir
it,” says Robertson, wearing
white workout attire and
using a headset microphone so
she can be heard over the
music.
Robertson then limbers up
the bodies and souls of her
Spiritual Aerobics class with a
mixture of stretching and reli
gious instructions.
“Stretch out your arms,”
Robertson says. “Push your
self to Jesus. Surrender your
self to him. Push out every
thing that’s not like him.”
A few minutes later, as the
song ends, Robertson asks the
12 women and one man in
attendance to pray silently
with her.
“Let’s take a minute to
thank Him for his graces and
mercy,” she says softly.
“Thank you, Jesus.”
Then the pace abruptly
quickens. For the next half-
hour, the class moves to the
energetic beat of what sounds
like Top 40 material, but bear
ing the unmistakable mes
sages of gospel.
“This isn’t your t3q)ical aero
bics class, is it,” Robertson
asked afterward.
No, it’s not. Spiritual
Aerobics is part exercise, part
revival. Not only do people in
Robertson’s eight Detroit
classes exercise religiously,
they religiously exercise. They
combine faith with fitness.
“We’re spiritually uplifted
while we’re exercising,” says
29-year-old Sibyl Boykin. “I’ve
lived in Detroit my whole life,
and I’ve never seen anything
like this.”
The classes, which meet in
family centers and churches,
are not filled with hard bodies
in spandex. Most are middle-
aged women who felt self-con
scious in the usual aerobics
classes.
“I’ve been a member of an
aerobics class before and a
member of a spa, but I've
never lost as much weight as
I’ve lost now with this,” says
Tonya M. White, 32, who says
she has dropped 47 pounds in
the last year. “Everybody tries
to help each other out, and I
had never been in that type of
environment before.”
Neither had Robertson, who
laughs easily, wears a con
stant smile and doesn’t fit into
a size 5. She remembers
attending an aerobics class
once where the instructor
announced: “Y’all are fat and
out of shape, and I’m gonna
sweat it off you!” The music
hadn’t even started and
Robertson already knew she
was in the wrong class.
But she had never quite
found the right class, and that
included the one Robertson
herself taught at a health
club. She saw how severely
overweight women would
come once, struggle, look
embarrassed and never
return.
So Robertson, 34, created
something different.
“I wanted a place where peo
ple would come no matter how
they looked or felt,” she says.
“I wanted to teach an exercise
class with a different view,
one that helped women get in
touch with their spirituality.
We eat, we drink, we smoke,
we have lots of partners for all
the wrong reasons. We do it
mostly because we're insecure.
But once you get in tune with
your spirit, everything else
falls into place.”
“People prayed for you when
you needed help? Now’s the
time to pray for those friends
or family members who need
His blessings.”
Then they begin stretching
exercises while a song called
“Can You Reach My Friend?”
Thompson’s ‘magnum opus’ gains respect
Continued from 10A
Such a phrased version, with
comfortable type, means a big
ger book. The Oxford edition is 8
by 11 inches, with 1,769 pages
and 66 illustrations.
“In my view it was the great
est msisterpiece of book typogra
phy of the century,” Eisenman
said. “Tve used this Bible for a
long time, ever since it came
out. I just wish it weren't so
big.”
Thompson was planning to
bring the volmne out through a
Chicago publisher when the
1973-74 recession ceune along.
The publisher decided not to
piusue the project, even though
much of it was completed.
So Thompson returned to his
old ahna mater in Topeka to see
if it could help. Washburn
University’s endowment money
could not be used for a risky
venture.
But Topekans were interested
enough to form the Washburn
Bible Committee to raise money
for the project. Fink’s mother,
Ohve White Garvey, became the
project's principal benefactor.
In 1979, a limited three-vol
ume edition was published.
Three hundred ninety-eight
copies were made in Italy, and
375 were put up for sale at
$2,500 a set. Nineteen of them
are left,Fink said, and they now
sell for $3,500 each.
In 1980, Oxford University
Press printed 50,000 copies of
the one-volume edition. About
47,000 have been sold at $75
each.
“It’s been a very uplifting and
exuberant experience,” said
Fink, the committee chair
woman. “We all thought we
were walking on enchanted
ground.”
AU profits from the sale of the
Bible went to the alumni center
that bears Thompson’s name.
“Graphically find typographi
cally, it’s had a significant influ
ence,” Dodge Thompson said.
“To me one of the remarkable
things is the number of interna
tional institutions where it now
resides. Some were purchased,
some were given.”
Last summer, the Washburn
Endowment Association sent a
hmited edition to the Kremhn
Museum in Moscow and an
Oxford edition to Nobel Prize
winning novelist Aleksandr
Solzhenitsyn, to his apparent
delight.
“Even a casual examination of
this Bible yields proof that such
an enduring masterpiece - a
showcase of impeccable quality
and diligent preparation - can
still be produced in our hasty
age,” Solzhenitsym wrote in a
July 1996 letter of thanks to the
American embassy.
Dodge Thompson said there
was talk of a paperback version
after the Oxford edition came
out, but none materialized.
“He had very much hoped that
would happen, but he went on
to other projects,” the younger
Thompson said. “He felt it was
his magnum opus.”
Black Jews show faith
Continued from 10A
pale blue, one-room building
with tiny windows that allow in
little light.
“We are poor. We were pun
ished because we have not kept
the commandments God gave to
us,” Makuwaza said. “We
believe in only one God, and he
win not forsake you if you do his
will. Jews have been persecuted
because they break the com-
meindments. They work on the
Sabbath and sell pork.”
He said in the colonial era
before Zimbabwe's independence
in 1980, British settlers seized
land, goats and cattle while
white missionaries “black
mailed” Jews into joining
Christian churches.
The small community tried to
fight back like David against
Goliath, “but the British Goliath
had guns and we had none.”
Early on, young boys were cir
cumcised in batches of 100 but,
in the heat without medicine,
many died “and the British
accused us of mm-der.”
Today, a medically supervised
male circumcision costs 1,200
Zimbabwe dollars ($120), far out
of the reach of poor peirents.
“We are trying to regain our
sovereignty,” said Makuwaza,
who at 72 has battled for nearly
30 years as a rabbi to learn
Hebrew.
In Rusape, worship in English
and the local Shona language
lasts more than five hours on
the Sabbath, following three
hours of prayers and song after
dusk the evening before.
Evans Tayengwa, 38, a motor
mechanic, said most kids in his
neighborhood want to play
sports or go to movies or dances
forbidden to the Rusape Jews on
Saturdays.
“Our youngsters are under
peer pressure but we are strict
and they must come here on the
Sabbath,” he said. The taberna
cle’s soccer team, Hebrew
United, plays midweek.
“I argue with my Christian
friends, but we don’t fight.
Heaung & Deliverance
MARATTfrUSt
JL JLJL \t^JL w
^Healing of AU Betters of Sickneaa & Diseases**
January 9, 10, 11
Temple Chapel Baptist Church
900 September Lane, Charlotte, NC 28208
PRAYER - 7:30 NighUy
HEALING of the Sick - "50" Continuous Homrs
- Come at your convenience -
■ featuring -
Bishop Harry Brown of Brunswick Georgia
For Information, Contact the Pastor, Dr. Gene E. Gilmore
(70^ 393^113
m HAMMOND* organs
NEW&USED
CALL Om TALENTED SALES PERSONS
Kings Mountian - Doug Boyce
& Charlotte
.(704)394-6436
Concord - Larry Fritz
(704)785-8673
Mooresville - Gene Davis
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Au Fonts
(800)331-0768
This Exciting Lease/Purchase Plan Available Prom Orix Credit AUiance
The Post is looking for ministers to write for “The
Pastor’s Study.” To participate, please submit an essay on
the religious topic of your choice to P.O. Box 30144,
Charlotte, N.C. 28230
ROCKWELL
A.M.E. ZION CHURCH
“Celebrating 128 Years
of Christianity”
William M Jurttan III: Pastor
6301 Rockwell Church Rd. • Charlotte, NC 28269
- WEEKLV HIGHUGHTS -
Sunday School-9:45a.ni. Sunday Worslilp-11:00a.ni.
Tuesday “Youth In Actlon”...T-9p.m.
Wednesday - Prayer Servlca/Bible Study... Span.
Tutorial Prog. The. K Thur. all ages 4:I)0-6:0I)P.IIL
596-6279
GALILEE BAPTIST
CHURCH
Rev. F.A. Griffin, PASTOR
Rev. F.A. Griffin
Sunday School 9:45a.m.
Sunday Worship 11:00a.m.
Sunday School Study - Wed. 7pm
Prayer Service - 8pm
2933 Shady Lane • Charlotte, NC 28208
333-0810
SIMPSON - GILLESPIE
UNITED METHODIST
CHURCH
Dr. Walter McKelvey, Pastor
Sunday School 9:30a.m.
Sunday Worship 11:00a.m.
3545 Beatties Ford Road
Dr. Walter H.
McKelvey
(704)399-2717
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North Phrk MaU -lOl Eastway Dr. Ste. E-11 • Charlotte NC-704*599-3727
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A M 1 0 3 0
P.O. Box 23509
Charlotte, NC 28227
704-332-8764 Bus. Line
704-882-9669 Studio Line
704-882-1330 Fax
Interracial Interdenominational Christian
Programming for The Carolinas
"New Life
Fellowship"
Sunday
3:30 - 4:00PM
MINISTER JOHN P KEE
OPENING
OURHCME
to you whenever you need us.
Our new funeral home stands as a sign of
our commitment to the families of Charlotte.
This community has been very supportive
during the constmetion and opening of our
home. We want you to be as comfortable
when visiting as you are in your own home.
That is why we offer a formal chapel with
an organ, stained glass window, beautifully
decorated gathering rooms, skylights
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We hope you wiU visit us any time for
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answer any questions you may have.
We would like to take this opportunity to
pledge our commitment to providing
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Committed To Excellence
4300 Statesville Road • Charlotte, NC 28269
599-5994