Impersonating Chuck Berry, Don Clark, pastor of Rainbow Meadows Baptist Church, Dothan, sang, “It’s gotta be rock ’n’ roll music if you want to dance with me.” He was dressed in a shiny crimson shirt and wearing a slicked-back hairdo.
Clark was one of many church members at Rainbow Meadows who prepared for nearly a month to participate in the March 2 fund-raiser. Jerome Harding, the DJ for the evening, named it “The Top 40 Review Dinner Theater.”
“I saw it done at another church,” Harding said, “but it was done by the youth there.
“I thought it would be a good idea to give these guys the chance to perform the greats of the ’50s and ’60s.”
He added that he and Clark chose ’50s and ’60s music because most of the lyrics were appropriate, with little to be concerned about regarding offensive language like some mainstream music available today.
The evening was hosted by the brotherhood group of Rainbow Meadows and co-sponsored by the church’s Woman’s Missionary Union.
The men attributed the evening’s success to their wives who helped decorate and serve the meal.
For the evening’s presentation, 125 people crammed into the church’s fellowship hall that comfortably seats about 75.
The dinner beforehand required diners to spill over into the church’s nurseries and a Sunday School classroom.
Clark said this has been the usual lately. “We’ve had 10 people join in the last three Sundays,” he said.
“And we are nearly packed out every Sunday, which is a good problem.” Harding added: “We’ve got one of the best problems a church can have.”
Despite a tight environment, everyone seemed happy and eager to witness what the evening would entail.
Sitting shoulder to shoulder in a candlelit room, the crowd cheered, chanted and clapped in unison as the stage lights came on.
Harding welcomed them, and special guests such as Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis and the Beach Boys graced the audience with oldie tunes.
Following songs such as “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Rock Around the Clock” and “Help Me Rhonda,” those in the crowd laughed hysterically, for it was many of their husbands, wives and even their youth who impersonated these popular ’50s and ’60s musicians.
Five of Rainbow Meadows’ most active deacons are in a gospel group named The Singing Rainbows. Sporting sunglasses, muscle shirts and makeshift hairdos, they lip-synced a song by Sha Na Na.
Giving his reason for the event, Pastor Clark, who is also in a gospel group called Royal City, said, “I tell my church that if everyone gets this excited about God and heaven as they do about the world, it would be easier to get them on our side.” His intent was that the dinner theater be used as an outreach and a fellowship.
The evening was also a project to raise money for an awning for the church. A total of $900 was raised.
Rainbow Meadows has an unusual story regarding its founding. It was originally a nondenominational group of believers, Strait Gate Church, meeting in a rental house in 1974.
Throughout the next couple of years, the church grew, was renamed Rainbow Meadows Baptist Church, joined the Columbia Baptist Association in the Dothan area and eventually moved to its present location, where it met in trailers at first.
In 1978, First Christian Church of Dothan donated its building to Rainbow Meadows and was moved where the trailers once sat. In 1998, the sanctuary was remodeled and the facilities enlarged to accommodate more members and guests.
Rainbow Meadows is growing and now averaging 100 people in its Sunday morning worship services.
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