Progressive National Baptist Convention, Incorporated

Progressive National Baptists believe that the feeling of the spiritual presence of God in their corporate worship is assisted by intensive prayer and singing. God's presence is also felt in the ordinances of the Lord's Supper and baptism, which along with the recitation of the church covenant empower the laity to serve God.

The Progressive National Baptist Convention (PNBC) believes in the spiritual presence of God in worship and in the work of the church in the world. The Holy Spirit warms the hearts of the worshipers, convicts them of sin, cleanses and forgives them, and challenges as well as commissions them to enter the everyday world of work with the redemptive and healing message of God's love in Jesus Christ. Progressive Baptists believe that intensive involvement in prayers and deep immersion in singing assist worshipers in opening themselves to the powerful presence of God. For this reason, the length of the worship services are often predicated on how the Holy Spirit manifests the mystery and majesty of God's presence. Sometimes the moving of the Holy Spirit will elicit verbal expressions of exclamation, tearful sounds of joy, or sad sounds of mourning. Other times, God's powerful presence broods over the service where worshipers are in an aura pensive silence or reverential reflection. Worship norms and styles may change as the worshipers reflect the changes within culture, but the sense of God's presence in worship permeates the cultural containers and gives vitality to the styles. The feeling of the absence of God's presence only promotes sterility and rigid formalism. The sense of the presence of God produces life transforming experiences. These experiences are described in the African American spiritual:

My feet looked new, my hands looked new. The world looked new, when I came out of the wilderness, leaning on the Lord.

God's presence is most felt in the observance of the ordinances of Progressive National Baptists. There are two ordinances. They are baptism and the Lord's Supper. Although many Progressive Baptist churches formally served the Lord's Supper the first Sunday evening of each month, the majority of the churches now observe the ordinance of the Lord's Supper in the morning. Of the two ordinances, the Lord's Supper has the best attendance. The beauty, majesty, and pageantry of the service may appeal to the mysticism of those who attend the service. While a few may be influenced by the magical or majestic dimensions of worship, others will remember that the Lord's Supper is a memorial. However, it is a memorial of the death of Jesus who now lives the life of the living Lord of history. At the Communion service the members usually read the church covenant in unison. It reads:

Having been led as we believe, by the spirit of God,

to receive the Lord Jesus Christ as our Savior, and on the profession of our faith, having been baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, we do now in the presence of God, angels, and this assembly, most solemnly and joyfully enter into covenant with one another, as one body in Christ. This church covenant develops the way of salvation, the way of confession, and the way of baptism, and the way of church organization. The church covenant is a promise to do certain things, while the articles of faith are statements of belief. Because of their belief, PNBC members in unison recite these words at Communion time:

We engage therefore, by the aid of the Holy Spirit to walk together in Christian love; to strive for the advancement of this church, in knowledge, holiness and comfort.

Reading the church covenant at the time of the readers' participation in the ordinance of the Lord's Supper is a means of empowering lay persons to become bold witnesses of Jesus Christ and tireless servants in the lay ministries of the church. Although Progressive Baptist churches define baptism and the Lord's Supper as ordinances and are committed to God and to each other by the church covenant, some of these churches resemble churches who are sacramental in that they use oil for ordinations, rites of healing, and for foot washing. These Progressive Baptist churches do not believe in the efficacy of the oil. They simply believe that the oil is symbolic of the invisible presence of God in the midst of those participating in the worship event. God anoints; God heals; God redeems; God brings life from death; and God empowers. The use of oil is an affirmation of the theology of the sacred actions of God and the people.