Mystic ― The voices of gospel singers filled St. Mark’s Episcopal Church on Saturday.

“God is the joy and the strength of my life,” sang the Lisa Clayton Singers, as audience members listened, sang along or nodded their heads. “He moves all pain, misery and strife. He promised to keep me, never to leave me. He’ll never ever fall short of his word.”

The Rev. Lisa Clayton, a gospel musician, and the Lisa Clayton Singers performed the song, “God Is,” and many others to filled pews of the Mystic church during a concert and lecture on gospel music to celebrate Black History Month. The lecture traced the history of gospel music and its notable performers and songs.

The Lisa Clayton Singers are a collective of musicians from Connecticut, with about half alumni of the University of Connecticut’s Voices of Freedom Gospel Choir

Clayton said that as she was preparing the lecture, she recalled Thomas A. Dorsey, or “Georgia Tom,” who is credited with starting gospel music, and she thought of a message.

“Everybody may not understand or approve what you are doing, but as long as God has ordained it, you have the opportunity to change the world,” Clayton told the audience to applause.

During the concert, the musicians performed songs, such as “Oh Happy Day” and “We Shall Overcome.”

Clayton also performed one of her own songs called “Can’t Live.”

“This was very moving, very educational, and very inspiring,” JoAnn Miller of Oakdale said of the event. She added that it was an excellent way to highlight Black culture and to talk about what the music means and the stories the music tells.

Clayton is the director of the University of Connecticut’s Voices of Freedom Gospel Choir, an adjunct professor, and a music educator in Bloomfield Public Schools.

Clayton, who was born and raised in Georgia, told The Day that her experience of music from her community and family, the passion she has had for music since she was a child, and her personal relationship to God made her the musician she is today.

Among her other roles, Clayton also is the worship music coordinator for the Seventh Episcopal District of the Christian Methodist Episcopal Church covering South Carolina to Massachusetts, and the chorister director of music at Phillips Metropolitan CME Church in Hartford, according to her biography. She also served for a time in the music department of the Shiloh New London Church.

Mystic resident Niel Spillane attended the event with his daughter, Nancy Spillane, who are both members of the church. He said his son is the head of choral departments at the University of Connecticut, so he has heard the Lisa Clayton Singers before, and enjoys hearing them singing. He said he and his family have been in choirs and choruses all their lives.

Portia Bordelon, a Groton resident who is a member of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and also serves on the Town Council, told the audience at the beginning of the event that she is excited to see so many friends, neighbors and community members, and maybe some people she hadn’t met.

Bordelon said she grew up in Mystic and to find an event like this, she typically had to go to Hartford, New Haven, Bridgeport, or New London, and “it’s so important that we celebrate culture, diversity and our community every day, not just in February.”

Bordelon said she was touched and moved by Clayton’s ability to relate to the community and the youth in Ledyard after she saw Clayton perform at a celebration for Martin Luther King, Jr. at Ledyard High School, so Bordelon reached out to the Rev. Adam Thomas, rector at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, about the idea of inviting her to Mystic.

Thomas told The Day that the church would love to have more events like this in the community.

The church also formed an Anti-Racism Team in 2019 to find ways to come together around dismantling systemic racism, he said. The team came to be in response to the Episcopal Church in Connecticut’s statement of racial healing, justice and reconciliation.

The concert and lecture was free, and people could make donations to the Martin Luther King Jr. Scholarship Trust Fund. Donations for the scholarship fund can be made at https://stmarksmystic.breezechms.com/give/online.

k.drelich@theday.com