DETROIT — Things were going badly at Faith Celebration Choir's final rehearsal before its big national showdown here Saturday.

Choir director Michael Nickelson stood in front of the 85 members of his choir on Faith Baptist Church's stage in Festus on Wednesday night, trying to figure out which alto was responsible for the sloppy diction he heard.

"Someone in this area is screwing it up in a major way," Nickelson said, stopping the song, and waving his finger at a group of women in jeans and T-shirts. "This time listen. Because I'm about to get fired up."

Faith Celebration's big night was only 72 hours away, and poor diction was only one of its problems. The entire group's timing was off as the singers swayed to the rhythm of the same black gospel classic that propelled this all-white choir to the top of the St. Louis gospel world in September. They were rushing through the song's second verse. Feedback marred the sound of the piano and organ.

"The last rehearsal is always the worst," he told the group, hoping to buck up their spirits. "Then we come in at showtime and we knock it out of the park."

That's exactly what happened six weeks ago when 7,000 gospel fans rose to their feet as Faith Celebration members belted out Andrae Crouch's "Soon and Very Soon" at the Scottrade Center.

St. Louis was the second of 11 regional competitions in the Verizon Wireless "How Sweet the Sound: The Search for the Best Church Choir in America." Eight choirs — four small and four large — competed in each city, for a chance to travel to Detroit for the national finals and $25,000.

The other regional finalists represented Detroit, Houston, Washington, Newark, N.J., Philadelphia, Chicago, Atlanta, Memphis, Los Angeles and Oakland, Calif.

In the regional, Faith Celebration won awards for best large choir and best overall choir. But what most moved the members of Faith Celebration: the "audience favorite" award, bestowed on them by the overwhelmingly African-American audience.

It was a heartbreakingly brief moment of racial harmony, and as soon as it was over, the Festus choir knew that in Detroit, they'd again be long shots.

Indeed, on Saturday morning, Nickelson stood near the stage watching one of his competitors, Selected of God from Praise Tabernacle Church in Detroit, run through its dress rehearsal. Marble Community Gospel Choir, New York's finalists, had also blown the roof off the empty Joe Louis Arena in their rehearsal earlier in the morning.

After Faith Celebration's turn on stage, Nickelson sounded nervous. "We've been better," he said.

Faith Celebration is the only all-white choir in the finals of a competition that showcases a traditional and uniquely African-American art form, but Nickelson's strategy for the sold-out Detroit show was the same as it had been in St. Louis:

Come to the stage in long, black evening gowns and tuxedoes. Stand very still through the first verse — chests out and heads held high. Sing it straight and clear.

By verse three, fully assume the identity of a traditional black gospel choir, singing in the style the audience grew up with in church. Clap your hands. Move your bodies. Rock the house. And bank on the element of surprise.

After the Scottrade Center event in September, a Post-Dispatch reader wrote a blog comment about Faith Celebration's win: "Festus? Seriously? Who knew people in Festus had soul?"

GOSPEL'S ROOTS

Gospel music, as it's heard in African-American churches today, was born in the 1930s, when Thomas Dorsey coupled the New Testament message of the Gospels with the blues.

"It was knocked at first by many church pastors, but it was so infectious, and it gave individual people an opportunity to sing together," said the Rev. Milton Biggham, pastor of Mount Vernon Baptist Church in Newark, a Grammy Award-winning gospel producer and the executive director of Savoy Records. "It was the right thing for the church."

The church, Biggham said, is "the heart of the black community, and because it is, the choir becomes the heart of that heart every Sunday."

African-Americans are the most religiously committed racial or ethnic group in the nation, according to polls taken by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life. Pew found that eight in 10 African-Americans say religion is very important in their lives, compared with 56 percent of all U.S. adults. The poll found that while 39 percent of Americans report attending religious services at least once a week, 53 percent of African-Americans report the same.

But a recent finding by the National Congregations Study at Duke Divinity School concluded that the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s famed saying that "the most segregated hour of Christian America is eleven o'clock on Sunday morning" is now more true in black churches than in white churches.

The study found "a significant increase in the presence of some minorities in predominantly white congregations" in the last 10 years, according to the Mark Chaves, Duke professor and director of the National Congregations Study. "Interestingly, there is no corresponding trend within predominantly black churches."

The popularity of gospel music among African-Americans has only grown since Dorsey's time. Black Entertainment Television features a show called "Sunday Best," an "American Idol"-like take on gospel music. The Gospel Music Channel features a similar show called "Gospel Dream," and will broadcast the "How Sweet the Sound" finals on Nov. 22.

Verizon Wireless is not the only corporation that has found gospel choir competitions an effective way to reach African-Americans. There's the McDonald's Gospelfest, the Allstate Gospel Superfest and the Pathmark Gospel Choir Competition, from the east coast grocery store chain.

Given the popularity of gospel music, it shouldn't be surprising that a genre that began among blacks is being appreciated, and appropriated, by whites. Both rock 'n' roll and hip-hop are examples of genres in which that's already happened.

'SOON AND VERY SOON'

When Nickelson first received the invitation to submit a video audition for Faith Celebration, he threw it away, thinking "How Sweet the Sound" was directed at only black churches. But his pastor picked the invitation out of the trash and suggested that Nickelson enter the competition anyway.

He did, and Faith Celebration was chosen as one of eight in the area to compete at Scottrade Center. But after several rehearsals this summer, Nickelson felt the choir's rendition of "Soon and Very Soon" lacked something.

Nickelson found the spark he was seeking a few weeks before the competition, during coverage of Michael Jackson's memorial service. He noticed that as the singer's casket was brought into the Staples Center, a choir sang "Soon and Very Soon."

"They started slow and built the tempo up to the third verse, " Nickelson said. "I thought, 'We've got to try that.'"

That was the element of surprise that earned an ovation from gospel fans at the Scottrade Center in September.

"When they went into the second verse, the crowd erupted," said the Rev. Marvin Sapp, a Michigan pastor and gospel superstar who is a "How Sweet the Sound" judge.

"Soon and Very Soon" was also the right emotional choice for the choir. Crouch's song represents the beginning, in the 1970s, of gospel music "breaking through the four walls of the black church and into secular radio," said Sapp. "When (Faith Celebration) broke into that last verse, I started to cry. I remembered being 10 years old and hearing Andrae singing it for the first time."

The choir had something of a dress rehearsal at last month's Freedom Fund Awards banquet, thrown by the East St. Louis chapter of the NAACP at the Millennium Hotel in St. Louis.

The evening's theme was "Together We Rise, United For Change," and organizers said Faith Celebration was invited, in the wake of its win at Scottrade Center, precisely because all of its members are white.

"This is what the NAACP is all about," said the Rev. Johnny Scott, president of the East St. Louis chapter. "Our nation is a mess because of racial divisions. We believe in trying to bring people together. We have to be black and white together."

About 100 other members of Faith Baptist Church came to Detroit, by plane and by bus, to watch their choir compete. Another 500 watched from the church in Festus at a party put on by Verizon Wireless.

And once again, the choir from Festus employed its strategy flawlessly, taking 12,000 people by total surprise with its rendition of Crouch's classic. The crowd went crazy. They had no idea what hit them.

"You came in here not trying to be anybody, but who you are," said Sapp.

"What comes from the heart reaches the heart," host, and gospel star, Donald Lawrence said as Faith Celebration left the stage.

And yet, it was the choir from Atlanta that took home the check for $25,000 at the end of the night. But that was OK with Faith Celebration's members. After the final Wednesday rehearsal in their church, the group had joined hands and formed a circle around their sanctuary. And then they prayed.

"Lord, we don't know all the purposes and plans you have for us in Detroit," soloist Patty Culbertson said. "But we know this is more than just a competition. Keep our hearts right as we sing for you."