Solemn assemblies have been conducted since Old Testament times, but slid into obscurity among most New Testament denominations, including Baptists, within the last hundred or so years. However, these unifying services have resurfaced in modern-day Baptist life.
To most practitioners of the Christian faith, the term solemn assembly remains an enigma, but the practices conducted during one are instantly recognizable.
Director of missions Ed Cruce of Bessemer Baptist Association said he has been involved in three or four solemn assemblies in recent years.
“Most of the concept was biblical where the leaders, kings or priests would call for a solemn assembly for repentance,” Cruce said.
“You never saw much of that terminology [solemn assembly] until recent years, but it has become more widely practiced. We’ve seen the concept surface here and there among churches and communities,” he said.
“It’s [solemn assembly] unusual to people. Most pastors will know the term from their biblical understanding, but this phenomenon where you actually call for a solemn assembly and carry it forward is not as widely known,” Cruce said.
Barry Cosper, pastor of Canaan Baptist Church in Bessemer, defines a solemn assembly as: “A service that is called by the spiritual leaders of the church or religious community for the purpose of the people getting right with God.”
He said the term revival is similar, but laden with predictability.
“I think what a lot of churches attempt to do in a revival meeting can better be done in a solemn assembly, because we’ve gotten caught up in expectations and traditions in revivals,” Cosper said.
“A solemn assembly is for Christians to take an inner look and get right things that are wrong. It is a better instrument than what most churches are doing with revivals.”
Cosper, whose church participated in an ecumenical solemn assembly Nov. 6, 2000, at the Bessemer Civic Center, said two Old Testament refermences to solemn assembly are Joel 1:12–15 and Joel 2:12–17, in which the prophet called for everyone to drop what they were doing to gather to repent and draw closer to God. In both passages, he specifically calls for a solemn assembly. It is from this leaving behind sin and picking up and practicing the things of God that joy comes. Most models for a solemn assembly service suggest a joyous closing.
Though solemn assemblies are referenced in the Old Testament, the essence of the spiritual activity happening at solemn assemblies is a thread that runs throughout the Bible — repentance — stated succinctly in 2 Chronicles 7:14. “If my people who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven and forgive their sin and heal their land.”
Cosper first heard of solemn assemblies in the early 1990s when he was pastor of Woodland Hill Baptist Church, Huntsville.
“I was in an ecumenical ministerial group, and I had never heard of a [modern day] solemn assembly. One of the leaders asked me to assist with one. My question was, ‘how sad do you have to be to go to it?’” After that, Cosper understood more about solemn assemblies and has since conducted several across the state.
At the Nov. 6 solemn assembly the purpose focused on church unity, racial reconciliation and breaking down the barriers that hold back the family of God — promoting working together as the family of God.
Individual church congregations attending were encouraged to conduct their own churchwide solemn assemblies, which Canaan Baptist did Jan. 7.
Canaan member Mae McDonald, along with her family, attended it.
“It was awesome,” she said. “I felt like it was something that … if you were there, your load would be lifted,” she said.
“It generates the awakening of one’s own personal needs and commitments. Sometimes we get in a rut and we get biased with things. I think it’s the call to wake up the Christian person to their own personal walk.”
Cruce said 12–15 churches from Bessemer Association, plus churches from many other denominations, participated in the Nov. 6 event. The common denominator was the need for spiritual awakening. Solemn assembly calls people to repentance, confession of sin and a renewal of spiritual vitality — an intensive time of prayer and personal reflection.
“Unless the church deals with the sin problem in the way Scripture requires us to, then the church will be in bondage instead of being free to bless the community,” Cosper said.
The idea for the communitywide solemn assembly came at a monthly prayer breakfast, where people expressed a desire for an awakening to the things of God in the city, and Cosper suggested solemn assembly.
With the date of the event set for Nov. 6, the eve of last year’s national election, things were in place for the time of explicit agreement, visible union and extraordinary prayer. Prayer walks and intercessory prayer meetings with city officials preceded.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that many of our government officials are Christians. The intercessory prayer teams went to the offices and just asked to pray for those officials, and they were very receptive to that,” Cruce said.
“I think it’s a very positive impact in our area,” Cruce said. “It brought people together from different churches and denominations who otherwise would not have had that fellowship and involvement.”
Out of the Nov. 6, 2000, solemn assembly, many people who had split from a church years ago were reconciled. “I know there was a lot of personal reconciliation,” he said.
The Southern Baptist Convention conducted a solemn assembly as part of its 1991 Atlanta convention and published a guide or outline, including Scripture references and questions for a service.
“I would certainly like to see more of our churches offer a solemn assembly, and I believe it would dramatically improve spiritual life and life in general,” Cruce said.
“I think one reason that our society is so low in its spiritual climate is that the church has backslidden,” he said.
“We’ve allowed the world to influence us instead of us influencing the world.”
Elected leaders play major role in gatherings
Solemn assemblies, such as the interdenominational, citywide one held in Bessemer last fall, have been arenas in which government has played a key role.
Several mayors and other government officials from municipalities in west Jefferson County attended the Bessemer assembly, which was on the eve of the 2000 U.S. presidential election.
Betty Claire Paden, coordinator of the Bessemer citywide prayer breakfast, said that during the solemn assembly attendees prayed for the U.S. president, Congress, Alabama state leaders, local leaders and for racial harmony.
“The key thing is in obedience to the Scripture,” she said. “The Lord has commanded us to pray for them (government leaders).”
Paden said that an often-used verse of Scripture is 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people, who are called by my name, shall humble themselves and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.”
Government leaders from the Bessemer area sit alongside ministers and join in prayer at Bessemer Carraway Hospital at 7:30 a.m. on the first Tuesday of each month, according to Paden. This is the 18th year for the prayer breakfast.
Phyllis Campbell, member of Liberty Ministry Church in Bessemer, and a Birmingham resident, said several prayer walks grew from these breakfast meetings, in advance of the November 2000 solemn assembly.
These prayer walks led to government offices in Bessemer City Hall and four other west Jefferson County communities including Midfield, Fairfield, Lipscomb and Hueytown.
“We went to these municipalities and tried to talk with the mayors, finding out prayer needs and then had a time of prayer in the offices, courthouses or city halls,” Paden said.
“We all live in networks of power relationships. So we have no choice but to involve ourselves in the moral questions of politics,” writes Dennis McNutt, professor of history and political science at Vanguard University of Costa Mesa, Calif.
He cites a summary by theologian, author and 1964 Medal of Freedom recipient Reinhold Niebuhr (1892–1971), who states, “Politics will, until the end of history, be an area where conscience and power meet, where the ethical and coercive factors of human life will interpenetrate and work out their tentative and uneasy compromises.”
McNutt continues, “If I am correct in saying that we all live in power relationships, and if Niebuhr is correct in saying that conscience and power meet in politics, we have our task clearly before us: We must accept the burden of civilizing power with an informed Christian conscience.”
Thanks to the spiritual as well as jurisprudence insight of
those entrusted with upholding the laws of Alabama and the United States, God’s plan for the behavior of mankind and the basis for the secular legal system are clear, many leaders point out.
First Timothy 2:1–2 speaks of the Christian’s stance regarding government.
This Scripture passage encourages Christians to pray for all leaders.
It states: “I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone; for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.”
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