Longing For Jesus

The Church at Worship is a series of documentary case studies of specific worshiping communities from around the world and throughout Christian history. In this third volume, Longing for Jesus, Lester Ruth vividly portrays a very prominent, dynamic African-American holiness church in Jackson, Mississippi, in the early twentieth century.

Ruth’s rich selection of primary documents presents readers with a vibrant snapshot of Christ Temple and its prolific Gospel-music-composing pastor, Charles Price Jones, caught between factors that threatened the existence of the congregation itself: Jim Crow racism, conflicting visions for the church, appropriate Christian piety, and social aspirations. In the midst of conflicts inside and outside, the church fought to create a space where it could worship as it saw fit.