Kanye West just announced that he will hold a Sunday service in LA on February 18th, 2015 at 11 a.m. Kanye’s “Sunday Services” are a recent addition to his continuous campaign of creativity and involvement with the youth of America. Each service incorporates guest speakers, performances, and a sermon delivered by the G.O.O.D Music mogul himself. Past guests have included artists such as Big Sean and Rihanna, Shea Taylor, and the Louis Vuitton Don himself, Jay Z.
Churchgist sends customized church announcements to members of your congregation, your community members and outreaches.
We’re going to start this week’s service with a review of last week’s churchgist story (if you missed last week’s lesson, check out the notes here). We’ll then prepare for communion by discussing the invitation process and how it can be used to increase attendance.
The Coachella Churchgist service is a group of people who gather together to worship God and praise his name. We meet every Sunday at 3pm, in the parking lot at the Coachella music festival grounds.
Whether you’re looking for a community of people who share your values or are just trying to find some shade during the hottest day of the year, our group is here to help! Come check us out this Sunday!
You’re about to enter a world of music and art, a world where everyone is welcome. We want to take this moment to remind you that Churchgists is here for you, no matter where you are in your spiritual journey.
If you’ve never been to Coachella before, we want to tell you that it’s more than just music. It’s a celebration of life, of freedom and joy, and of being yourself. But there’s also room at Coachella for those who don’t fit into society’s standards of “normal” behavior—whether it be because of your gender identity or sexual orientation or something else entirely. And that’s why Churchgists wants to send an invitation out: We want everyone who feels like they don’t belong anywhere else in their lives to come find their people at Coachella!
We know it can be hard sometimes feeling like no one understands what it’s like; but we promise that there are plenty of people who do understand how hard it is to feel like an outsider in every other part of your life. And even though there will be thousands upon thousands of people at this festival with different beliefs about spirituality than yours…we hope that when all is said and done, we can still find ways to connect with.
On Sunday, April 21, Kanye West brought his gospel church-inspired Sunday Service performance to Coachella. With Kanye taking a break from touring (in a recent interview with Vogue, wife Kim Kardashian said this was because her husband now finds travelling to shows “triggering” for his bipolar condition), he’s instead been leading out a choir to play gospel versions of his biggest hits for weekly ‘Sunday Service’ shows around his local Calabasas area.
Nothing elevates a song quite like a gospel choir. When so many heavenly voices lock into place—the harmonies, power, and precision, all surging forward in a rush—the effect can be transcendent. Kanye West knows this better than anyone. From “Jesus Walks” to “Ultralight Beam,” he has used choirs to emancipate himself from sin as he’s wandered back and forth between God-like self-deification and being, as he once put it, “the guy who believes in God but still likes pussy.” More often than not, this strategy has worked. But at his Sunday Service performance at Coachella yesterday morning, which featured West atop a hillside surrounded by famous collaborators, a small band, and a large group of tunicked singers, no such potency was ever reached, no supernal energy tapped into. Sometimes, the choir seemed as perplexed as the audience often was.
The Coachella set capped off a run of weekly, invite-only Sunday Service performances that Kanye has been holding near his home in Calabasas, California since January. In light of his notoriously self-immolating 2018, these chill prayer parties have registered as atonements, or cleansings. Yet those Coachella attendees and YouTube live streamers hoping to share in the holy spirit on Easter Sunday instead got something that was both light on Kanye and light on miracles.
Watching the set online was particularly distancing—for whatever reason, the whole thing was shot through a pinhole lens, as if the viewer had one eye pressed against the small end of a telescope. Led by keyboardist Philip Cornish, whose credits include R&B stars K. Michelle and Musiq Soulchild, the band began by playing instrumental renditions of songs by Stevie Wonder and the Gap Band for nearly 20 minutes. When Kanye finally arrived, he mostly just stood around with Kid Cudi, Chance the Rapper, and Ty Dolla $ign. When he did perform, he seemed unrehearsed, despite the fact that many of the songs have been featured at previous Sunday Services. The setlist was lazily stitched together, as if by a Tuesday night DJ. (Chicago house anthem “Brighter Days” into gospel anthem “Brighter Day”? Genius!) Secular songs were reinterpreted as spirituals, segueing in and out of the Kanye catalog, most of which Ye seemed averse to performing, perhaps in fear of lyrics about bleached assholes tainting what was to be a sacred occasion.
Everything felt incomplete. The experience recalled the haphazard passing of the aux at the The Life of Pablo listening party at Madison Square Garden, only less irreverent and fun. Even the choir, under the direction of “American Idol” vocal arranger Jason White, seemed to be taking part in a rehearsal rather than a coordinated production, as an endless string of interludes and vocal warm-ups dragged on. When they did get into a song, such as Kirk Franklin’s “Brighter Day,” they peeled it down by the layer until there was nothing left.
There were moments of profound feeling conjured during the service, though they were mostly reserved for the performers themselves: a giddy Chance the Rapper danced to Kanye’s “Fade,” and Kid Cudi consoled Ye after a DMX prayer brought him to tears. Teyana Taylor, with the sun at her back, performed her song “Never Would Have Made It” as if it were a hymn. But these moments of spiritual uplift were only brief stopgaps for what was otherwise a complete mess.
Meticulousness was once a Kanye West staple. When he headlined Coachella in 2011, he brought synchronized ballerinas and winged models as part of a painstaking vision of pimping at the top of Mount Olympus. Sunday Service at this year’s Coachella bared none of that diligence. These days, he’s content to let discombobulated, at-times-pitchy singers in pajamas wander across a hill and call it gospel.
The breakdown in praise music star Fred Hammond’s “This Is the Day That the Lord Has Made,” which sounded like a stunning, soul-flipping reintroduction to Old Kanye in a two-minute clip that leaked from an early Sunday Service, was reduced to mere filler in this program; the bit played on a loop with none of the spontaneous theatrics of Kanye making beats. Eighty minutes in, when Ye first decided to rap, seemingly on the fly, to the choir’s surprise, he had to take a moment to gather himself after fumbling the lyrics to “All Falls Down.” Things that should’ve been easily executed for style points, including suites of songs he’s been tinkering with his entire career, felt far from his grasp as the service fell apart. He obviously wanted the choir to be at the center, but without Kanye playing God, there was no focus.
Those who were willing to endure the two-hour show until the end were rewarded with a new song called “Water,” performed with ye collaborator Ant Clemons. The would-be hymnal featured absurd lines like, “Take the chlorine out of conversation/I don’t like these perfect discussions/But we’re made up of 90 percent water.” The song, like the entire event, like a baptism, was an appeal to be purified. But even in his smallest bids for rebirth and perfection, Kanye still couldn’t get it quite right—only 60 percent of the adult human body is made up of water. But there is something else that’s over 90 percent water: a tomato.
Conclusion
Churchgists is definitely a website to keep on your radar. Whether you’re looking for a new church or simply want to see what others are saying about the services you already attend, this review shows the site can be used in a variety of ways. Visit their site and see for yourself!
Churchgists is attempting to be the first mobile-focused app to feature LIVE streaming of services and sermons, a large cross-platform online community of church members and volunteers, as well as social sharing tools for sermon clips and other Bible-related content. This is a very competitive market with a lot of products currently available. We evaluate Churchgists.com and look at the following opportunities: