IMO many African-American churches were not interested in P&W in the early 80's. I believe the devotional period was still in place in most Baptist churches and we were singing mostly hymns and spirituals with a few congregational choruses and some borrowed gospel songs thrown in like "This Joy I Have" "You Can't Make Me Doubt Him" "Jesus On the Mainline", "Victory Is Mine", "Woke Up This Morning" . The devotional period was more vibrant in Pentecostal churches (obviously) and they had their own songs, "I'm A Soldier", "If You Call On Jesus", "Send It On Down", and many other choruses built on the same chord progression, etc.
I think some of the songs that first made it over onto P&W lists included "This Is The Day", "He Has Made Me Glad", "Hallelujah" (that famous 1 word chorus), Andrae Crouch's "Bless the Lord, O, My Soul", "What A Mighty God We Serve", "He Is Lord", "God Is So Good".