The Sound of Scripture: Evangelical Preacher Immerses Worshippers on the Upper West Side
NEW YORK — The preacher gathers a pool of saliva to the back of her throat and sends a wet suction sound booming through the speakers — hwauuuuk, pftooh. “If you’re in New York, this sound should be familiar,” she says. Thankfully, Yen-Yen Chiu is not actually spitting on the Evangelical congregation gathered in Hope Church at 163 W. 97th St.
Instead, she’s guiding worshippers through John 9:1-38, a Bible passage that’s inspired works of art from John Newton’s "Amazing Grace" to paintings by El Greco and Rembrandt — the story of Jesus healing a man who was born blind.
The miracle is a messy one. Jesus spits on the ground, makes mud, rubs it on the blind man’s eyes, and tells him to go wash in the Pool of Siloam. His sight miraculously comes back, but the Pharisees — a devout Jewish religious group — are not so sure. They question the blind man, refusing to believe that Jesus is from God, and expel him from the synagogue.
Standing at the front of the chilly school hall, Chiu takes her listeners on a guided meditation. “Do me a favor. I want you to close your eyes and I want you to imagine you’re the blind man.” People began to sink into the experience. A young man with a surgical mask squeezes his eyes tight. A woman with a fur hat rests her eyelids so they flutter like leaves in the breeze. All the worshippers see is black, but in the darkness, ambient noises seem to come alive.
Chiu crafts her biblical soundscape, trading the Upper West Side for Jesus’ Jerusalem. “You hear people walking” — she stomps her black boots on the lacquer floor, sending thuds echoing around the hall. “There’s kids that are screaming. You hear animals. And then you hear somebody ask, ‘Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents that he was born blind?’”
At the core of Chiu’s exercise is empathy. She urges the room of 50 believers to imagine how the blind man feels when he hears this. “Maybe you’re interested. … Maybe you’re like me and you’re angry, like, hey I’m blind, but I’m not deaf.” Most of the members chuckle, eyes still shut, faces creasing to reveal grins across flushed cheeks.
“All of a sudden you hear, hwauuuuk, pftooh. And a few seconds later, you feel this goopiness squashed on your eyes.” So powerful is Chiu’s sonic meditation that the sea of shut-eyed faces wrinkle in disgust, as if saliva is being smeared across them. A woman in a pink poncho grasps for her partner’s hands. To her left, a man with a nametag spelling "Moses" squirms in his seat, sliding his feet in front of him.
Chiu pauses, swaying in her blue jeans, then breaks the silence, “You hear a different voice telling you, ‘Go and wash this off here.’” She queues the churchgoers to open their eyes. One by one, they come back to the room, blinking in the fluorescent lights.
Chiu’s black bob bounces as she distills her message, arms rotating in huge circles, “Jesus engages with us. He chooses to get messy.” A wave of murmurs agrees. Yes, He does.
A School Hall Becomes a Sanctuary: Evangelical Worshippers Find Rhythm and Reverence on the Upper West Side
NEW YORK — A young man in a green beanie has both arms outstretched to the sky, palms open to receive, the top of his iPhone poking out from the back pocket of his jeans. He rocks back and forth on Nike runners, swaying to the steady strum of acoustic guitar that floats around the school hall. A few seats in front of him, a woman chews her gum to the beat of the drum box, tensing and relaxing her jaw in time. Da dum, da dum, da dum.
“What we’re doing is kinda just a free flow, you know? I think that word sometimes helps me process what it is that happens when we worship. We’re just responding.” The voice comes from one of the five musicians facing the Evangelical congregation at Hope Church on the Upper West Side at 163 W. 97th St. It’s the kind of voice that sounds as if it’s carved from mahogany, deep yet warm — a voice that could soothe a crying child. Rock it back to sleep. Tame a storm. Put out a fire.
The five performers stand separately but they breathe as one.
Oh, everything changed, it’s getting harder to recognise
The person I was, before I encountered Christ
I don’t walk like I used to. I don’t talk like I used to
I’ve been washed from the inside
The drums run underneath it all, the cool current of a stream; violin notes fall long and slow, like winged seeds of a maple; the alto and soprano voices are crisp air and sun on a winter’s day; piano arpeggios skate over the top.
From the first word, the energy shifts among the 50 worshippers. A sea of duffle coats and blue jeans begins to swing, like trees in an orchard blown by the same wind. One woman in Ugg boots and a rainbow sweater closes her eyes. A hairline crease appears between neat black brows. To her right, another worshipper clasps her hands tightly and shakes them to the beat, gold hoop earrings tilting with each pulse. A man in a plaid shirt with silver hairs peeking through his dark mop sings out of tune. Loudly. But it doesn’t matter — no one seems to notice, and if they do, no one judges.
People are someplace else now, some further away than others. The drummer cracks his knuckles one by one while the room floats on the waves of the music. The song rises like a tide. The drums pick up their pace, each thud like the step of a sprinter on the final leg of a relay. The soprano singer clutches her small frame through a white jumper. Her right hand rests on her diaphragm but her left reaches up toward the sky, fingers twinkling like stars. As she belts out the words, her tortoiseshell glasses reflect the lights of the hall.
Hallelujah, Hallelujah
I know it was the blood
Could have only been the blood
Could have only been the blood
The music transforms the school hall, with its glaring emergency exit signs, fire alarms, random bits of red duct tape and faded blue curtains, into a place of magic. It’s so cold that some people still have their gloves on, but the invisible vibrations warm the room.
The guitarist leans into his microphone, “Church, can we just sing that again?”
He doesn’t need an answer. The congregation belts out the refrain, over and over. They repeat the chorus five times, until the musicians bring them back down, gently and softly as a whisper.
Edited by Haley Duffy