James Attlee went to a black-led church in North London to investigate some seminal forms of worship.

"Oh, it's very important. Christ comes into our lives and gives us an experience, and when you commit your life to Christ it's very important you give Him all the glory and all the praise. First of all because He allowed you to live - He made you - and for what He is and who He is. If you love a person you just want to express your love and that' s one way of expressing your love to Christ, by telling Him how you feel, by praising Him and lifting Him up."

The service I had attended had been billed as a youth service, although several older people had been present. I wondered if the older generation appreciated the amplified musical accompaniment and loud worship as much as the younger generation.

"Our church is not segregated at all, you'll find there's a lot of young people in our church. Last night's service was no different to a normal service - only difference was it was the young people in charge, and expressing themselves in their exhortations. We've always had drums and guitars. We were one of the fortunate churches anyway to have always had drums. In the early days we were always into electronic stuff. You'll find a lot of Pentecostal churches are musically orientated. The Bible does talk about worshipping the Lord with the stringed instruments, the organ and the harp and anything you can possibly get hold of. As long as it makes a sound why not praise the Lord with it? That's always been the way, that's the type of worship that most West Indians are used to." I try and pin John down on why the church use only the King James Version, but his answer really leaves me little wiser.

"We tend to use that because it has certain key things - words in there that we find of great depths. Sometimes in the translation as it gets transferred from time to time you begin to lose a lot - like someone will read a scripture and it will mean, like, a story. The value of words were completely different to the value of words now, and we find you can overlook some of the depths of what the scripture's actually saying. In the Bible studies we do tend to use newer versions, just to compare."

I ask about the greeting used in the church -
"First giving honour to the Holy Spirit." "You want to give the highest respect to the Holy Spirit - that is what we're taught to do." Some churches see the Holy Spirit as some kind of an impersonal force, but you obviously see him differently.

"We believe it's a Person that is here with us, and if we recognise Him He will show Himself."

So you come to worship expecting God to show up?

"If I brought Him with me I'm expecting something to happen. If I brought the Holy Spirit, if I have not grieved Him at all - because the Bible says He is a comforter and He shall be with us, so if I come to church I expect Him to be with me and at that very time I expect Him to minister, through me or someone else, that I can be blessed and uplifted."

Do you worship God to get this "blessing?"

"We worship God first and foremost because He is God. Most people followed Jesus for several reasons - because they loved Him, and because they had a need. People's needs were met; so out of faithfulness they followed Him. For that combination of reasons we worship Him as well."

One aspect of the "blessing" you expect to receive seems to be joy, this is often emphasized, a key text being "The joy of the Lord is your strength." How much importance would you place on it.

"This is the most important thing - I never believe in serving Him ENDURING your salvation, but ENJOYING your salvation. Once you enjoy reading, reading will always be easy for you; once you endure it you won't do it for too long. You'll do it under the eyes of the teacher but behind his back you won't bother with it again. Salvation is the same thing - if you enjoy your salvation you want to praise Him, you want to lift His name up, you want to feel the joy of the Lord, you want to feel Him touch you. The closer you get to Him, the closer He gets to you. It boils down again to the Psalms: 'Bless the Lord, oh my soul, and all that is within me bless His holy name'. You express the way you feel, that you're happy with the Lord, that you're joyful, that you're feeling very good, by saying how you feel, by singing how you feel, sometimes by jumping or shouting."

The classic criticism of black Pentecostal worship is that it's 'all emotionalism'. Certainly at a service at the Pentecostal Church of the First Born Living God, feelings run high, and are demonstrated in an uninhibited way. How does John counter such criticisms?

"When He touches me I might cry sometimes, and you can class that as an emotional feeling, but I love it - because way down on the inside it's doing something. What am I trying to say? Yes it is emotion, but it's more than emotion. Someone can talk to you and still not make you feel that way. Someone can encourage you, or someone can give you a whole heap of money and still not make you feel that way. The thing one has to realise is that it's more than emotion; it's the hand of God actually touching. I do a lot of Crusades, and a lot of things God does during the Crusade, like healings, people slain by the Holy Ghost, a lot of people say it's all a hoax and find all kinds of faults until it happens to them! People have to witness it for themselves."

What do you think is happening when you gather together as a church to worship God?