In yesterday's blog, I alluded to the type of community that churches of an older, more agrarian American culture were able to establish. It prompted a flood of reminiscences of my first church. I am impelled to pay tribute to it here today.
I don't know exactly how my parents chose the First Baptist Church of Cartersville (Georgia), but they believed I should go to Sunday School, and that is the one they chose. During the years from age six to age nine, they drove me to the church, dropped me off, and let me walk home afterwards (it was a pretty small town). Eventually I caught on that I would get more "points" on the "Six Point Record System" (a curious invention of the Sunday School Board which probably only made sense in the post-war 1950's), if I would "Stay for Preaching: 40 points." Which is why I was in church by myself when a guest evangelist came to hold a week long "revival" at the Easter season of 1956. I responded to what I understood of the gospel (I knew I was a sinner and needed Jesus - that's about it) in the very first service. I went home and told my parents I was scheduled to be baptized the next Sunday, and then they began attending church with me.
I'd love to tell oodles of stories about this church. Even though I only went there from ages six through eleven, it seems as though a whole lifetime of lessons (both good and not-so-valuable) were inculcated into my life in this brief amount of time. But here I want to give tribute to the most positive effects of this church on my life:
1. I continued to hear the gospel, even after I was baptized. For me, that was a good thing: repetition helped my understanding. I "got it" pretty well by the time I left at age eleven (we moved to another town).
2. I saw Godly men and women who worked at secular jobs in the community. My most memorable Sunday School teacher during that period was Mr. Hall, who was a typesetter at the local newspaper. I remember being impressed that in addition to his regular job, he took time to study the Bible in order to teach us (wiggly) boys. It underscored for me the notion that I would not be limited to "full time service" in order to be faithful to the Lord.
3. I learned the words to dozens (maybe hundreds) of hymns. After I was baptized, I joined Junior Choir, and at that time Southern Baptists had a "Hymn of the Month" curriculum for all youth music programs in the denomination. I loved the stories behind the hymns, the poetry of the hymns, the harmonies of the hymns...everything. It would never have occurred to me to take a hymn book home, but whenever I was stuck at church waiting on my mom, I would grab a hymnal and read the lyrics. I know...I was a nerd waiting to happen (I did eventually major in English), but for me it was rich.
4. I formed consistent Bible reading and prayer habits. Southern Baptists at that time had this strange Sunday evening meeting (before "preaching") called Baptist Training Union. It had a more complicated record system than Sunday School (eight points, for crying out loud!) and the highest value in this system was "Daily Bible Reading: 30 points." Fortunately, they supplied us with booklets of readings for every day of the year, which were coordinated to the lesson we were studying the next Sunday. I formed a lifelong habit (worth more than 30 ponts!).
5. I heard Godly laymen pray long prayers every Wednesday evening. I don't know if young people nowadays ever get exposed to the kind of lengthy prayer meetings I went to as a child, but they are missing out on a sense of reverence for the holy, if not. I wasn't there completely voluntarily. Shortly after my baptism, my mother took the job of church hostess (running the kitchen), and Baptist churches in the South at that time typically had a huge Wednesday evening meal followed by Prayer Meeting. I walked to church on Wednesday afternoons (straight down the street from Cherokee Avenue Elementary School), sang in Junior Choir rehearsal, ate dinner in the kitchen with my mom and the "ladies" (cooks), and then went out into the Prayer Meeting while mom and the ladies cleaned up. [Incidentally, junior choir met in the upstairs room where the upper half of that huge "rose window" you can see in the photo above could be seen from the inside. Quite an aesthetic setting for a small town boy].
Now don't think I wasn't a normal boy. Sometimes I could hardly bear the lengthy prayers, and found it extremely difficult to keep still. But this taught me fear of God, and as we know, that is the beginning of wisdom (Proverbs 9:10).
6. I grew to love fellowship. Most of the experiences I had with the church were very positive: Sunday School, Training Union, Junior Choir, Wednesday Night Supper, Prayer Meeting, special events like New Year's Eve Watch Night, and so on. If there was anywhere I felt accepted and loved, it was at church.
I could say more, but these are a few of the highlights. First Baptist has built a new building now, farther out of town. But my memories of the blessed church of my youth are safe and intact.
Thank you, God. Thank you, saints at First Baptist.
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