The Lisa Clayton Singers
Center Church
Hartford
Nov. 1, 2026
R. Patryce Bryant moved me to tears when she sang “God Is.”
That’s never happened before. I was genuinely shocked when I felt the sting of tears forming in the wells of my eyes. I thought that was something that happens only in movies, but I got to experience it firsthand at Center Church as Bryant performed gospel with the Lisa Clayton Singers.
Would it be dramatic to call that a miracle? I don’t think so. All of my articles about religious music eventually turn into navel-gazing about my own faith (or lack thereof), but the way Bryant called to God really shook something loose in me.
Probably because I wasn’t listening to just religious music– it was sacred music. Professor and Rev. Lisa Clayton let it be known from the beginning that the performance was not a concert, but testimony. Their music would actively work in the praise of God.
The audience responded in kind. It was the platonic ideal of a church gathering: people walking in off the street in jeans and bookbags sitting next to families dressed in their Sunday best, people of all races and ages. They swayed in the pews, stood and clapped and waved in celebration, and if you listen very closely, you can even hear some of them singing along. Rev. Clayton and her singers took the church to church, believe me.
I didn’t grow up in the church. We’d go to Mount Olive Church, the home of the famous Reverend Battles, whenever we wanted something badly enough to pray for it. Otherwise, Sunday was a cleaning and football day. I was a hardcore atheist for most of my youth; the only thing that tempered that was the realization of what an unbearably smug position that is to hold, as opposed to a Road to Damascus moment.
Now into my 40s, I’ve come to see that there’s something out there. The world simply doesn’t function without some flow of metaphysical energy, intent, goodwill, design, whatever you want to call it. There’s a cosmic glue that sticks all of this together, but maybe there’s more to it than that.
I’ve been feeling like I’ve been touching God lately. I feel that way when I read Octavia Butler’s Parable of the Sower every morning. I felt that same way when Bryant sang, that a power which goes far beyond me has touched me and helped me to transcend my own physical limits. She was simply something beyond as she sang.
There are moments that help connect you to a broader sense of possibility, and R. Patryce Bryant and the Lisa Clayton Singers provided that for me. So what does it mean for a heathen to think praise is the most beautiful sound in the world?
NEXT
Center Church hosts A Jazz Christmas on Sunday, Dec. 13.
Jamil goes to learn about civil rights leader and former ambassador Andrew Young.
