Regardless of how you decide to describe it I spent my fair share of time in a pew. My family sat in the same pew every Sunday for years, 4th from the back, on the far left of the church.
The building was a little white country church, with basement walls all painted battleship grey with the smell of what was probably mold caused by water that managed to seep in somehow. Upstairs the church was what I imagine every country church looked like, a piano up front by a raised platform which held seats for the choir and the pulpit from which a message was delivered every Wednesday, Sunday morning and Sunday night.
Named the Brownwood General Baptist Church (because it was in Brownwood, Missouri) it was led for 30 years by Pastor Eugene Payne. A God fearing man, that came to the ministry after serving in World War II, he served in the South Pacific and survived 3 years, 9 months and 28 in a Japanese Prison of War camp...... Hell on earth.
Our church was a great place to be a kid, dedicated Sunday school teachers poured their hearts and souls into teaching every week, and by the time you reached high school you probably had a better understanding of the Bible than most adults today.
Each summer a week long Bible School added to our fun and Bible education, with it lasting two weeks some summers. We also hosted a revival lasting a week or two every year. Yep, it was a great place to learn about God.
These memories warm my heart, and also cause me to wonder..... I have a little brother raised in the same church, now a Baptist preacher that has claimed his family never told him about God....and that he was almost 30 before he learned what it meant to be a Christian..... I was at his Baptism, drove him to church many times....so I wonder, does he not remember, or is it just a story he likes to tell when he preaches?
Our parents are dead and gone,.....so I wonder what they would have to say about the stories he tells. Especially since they named him after a family member that was a Baptist preacher. Yep, church played quite the role in my upbringing.
Pastor Payne once told a great story about preaching.... His sermons were always about 30 minutes long, and people wondered if he practiced to hit the mark each Sunday. Turns out his method was to pop a piece of butterscotch candy into his mouth as he stepped up to the pulpit. Resting in his cheek a piece of candy would take about 30 minutes to fade away.....and as he finished the candy he would wrap up his message each week.
Then one Sunday brother Payne seemed to be fired up......preaching the word of God his message had passed the hour mark when he realized his candy that week was a button that had been in his jacket pocket.........
In my teens a girl (isn't it always a girl) took me to her church (a Catholic church). It was different from anything I had ever seen or experienced and it caused me to look at my own beliefs.
There are a lot of myths surrounding the Catholic church..... but something I had trouble getting past was how the Bible was pretty much the same thing for 1500 years.....and then several books were removed.
It isn't just the Bible, 1500 years Christianity is basically the Catholic church, and then Luther thinks he is the one person that needs to fix what is wrong with the church. Correcting what the Catholics believe has now happened about 35,000 times..... Did you understand that? There are now 35,000 different types of Christian churches, all of which think they are the one true way..... Interesting.
Religion has led to more wars, and arguments in general than about anything. For something that should be a great portion of people's lives it sadly is often the cause of torment and unbalance in the lives we share.
Could I be a better person........ Well, of course, like I said before, "....I have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God......" Pastor Payne I am not......
A few times each year the Brownwood General Baptist Church would do something special...... Like all Baptist we liked to pretend Jesus turned water into Welch's grape juice and everyone got a plastic shot glass full of juice.
The grape juice was okay, but what followed next stressed every mother in attendance that day. The washing of feet....... The moment moms realized it was a feet washing day evil looks were cast down the pews and whispers harsher than German SS interrogations questioned if kids and dads alike had washed their feet, put on clean socks and did their feet stink......
Have you ever been to a good ole Baptist Feet Washing Service? It's that one day Baptist momma's wished the Welch's grape juice was the hard stuff........
