A holiday gospel music special will be on network TV next Tuesday night, Dec. 4 (originally scheduled for Dec. 6). My Network TV, a network TV channel owned by FOX television, will air an hour-long event dubbed “Christmas at the Cathedral” featuring guests Mary Mary, Tye Tribbett and G.A., Martha Munizzi and Smokie Norful.
Hosted by comedian George Wallace, the show takes place in the 24,000-member West Angeles Church of God in Christ (COGIC) in Los Angeles, the COGIC denomination’s largest and most prominent congregation in the U.S.
Bishop Charles E. Blake, the church’s senior pastor and also head of the 6 million-member COGIC, told Charisma his church was delighted to play host.
“Our holy days have been so secularized and twisted from their original meaning,” he said. “This is an opportunity to have a focus on the Lord and the kindness of Jesus and His coming to earth.”
According to Robert Coleman, the 46-year-old producer at FOX behind the project and a member at West Angeles, a Christmas-gospel extravaganza on network TV is a rarity. “May have been on cable before,” he said, “but this many gospel music artists in the mainstream on a major network is a first.”
–-PAUL STEVEN GHIRINGHELLI
