Only in Church

Church is the place where we worship, preach, teach, sing praises, pray, and fellowship.  It is a sacred place, a safe place, and a sanctified place.  We experience many exciting and wonderful moments with weddings, baptisms, baby dedications, vacation Bible school, and revivals.

There are experiences of salvation, rededication, and renovation.  Singings and homecomings fill the church with attendance, melody, and nostalgia.  Funerals and times of repentance remind us that death and sin are related. 

These times can prompt salvation and forgiveness.  Grace and mercy are characteristics of God and jog our memory to the greatness of God and eternal life through Jesus.  The Holy Spirit moving among the church presents some marvelous happenings.

Reminiscing about church has some things that need penning.  There are some events that are unbelievable and memorable.  I have titled this article: Only in Church.

 

At the Sweet Water Baptist church, the pastor was very passionate about his preaching.  He was very good.  However, one of the members there would close his eyes during the preaching of the sermon. 

Finally, one Sunday the preacher asked why the member closed his eyes.  The member said, “Pastor, I love to hear you preach but I can’t stand to look at you!”

Brierfield Baptist church was having the baptism of a teenage girl.  The girl had broken her arm, and she had a bubble wrap on it.  It was the preacher’s first time to conduct a baptism.  As former pastor at Brierfield, the teenager asked if I would attend her baptism.

I will never forget it.  As she descended into the baptism waters, the blue bubble wrap on her arm was obvious.  As the newbie pastor cited, “I baptize thee my sister in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost,” everything went into the water but her arm.

The poor pastor tried several attempts of dunking the teenager, but the blue bubble wrapped arm retained its sin.  The splashing of the waters went everywhere.

An earlier baptism at Brierfield involved sister church Ashby.  Ashby did not have a baptism pool so they barrowed Brierfield’s.  The weather was cold; 14 degrees was the low.  The baptism pool was filled, the heating element was energized, and the water was crystal clear.

Ashby member filled the auditorium, and the baptism candidates lined the passageway to the pool.  As the Ashby pastor entered into the water like John the
Baptist of old he started a tradition.  It was the first polar bear baptism.  The heating element had shorted and failed to heat the water.

The Providence Baptist Church had two men that were notorious for pulling pranks.  One Sunday as the pastor waxed eloquently, one of the pranksters fell asleep.  When the timing was just right, the other prankster nudged the sleeping one and said, “The preacher called on you to say the benediction.”

The poor sleepy man stood up and closed the service.  The preacher pronounced to the church to have a good afternoon since there was an early benediction.

Baby dedications are wonderful occasions.  I had twelve babies to dedicate one Sunday at the Gallion Baptist Church.  Parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and everyone else flooded the church in anticipation of the dedication.  Baby dedications are more for the parents and the congregation.  The only way the baby will know of the moment is through the parents and the church.

I took each child and lifted them toward God.  I had individual prayer and words of encouragement for each.  When I lifted Chloe high into the air I started to speak when I noticed a big bubble of baby slobber hanging from her lip.  It was like watching an eye drop dangling before it drops in your eye.

Suddenly the big glob fell into my mouth.  The whole congregation gasped, with a variety of different moans and words.

The only thing I could do was to swallow it which the congregation did another set of phrases.  I said, “Dew drops from heaven from one of God’s little angels.”

I performed a wedding at the Brierfield Historical Park at the Mulberry Baptist Church.  The church had been moved from deep in the Bibb County woods and remodeled making it ideal for weddings and other venues.

As I conducted the ceremony, the little feller that was the ring barrier began to run his hand up the leg of the groom.  The groom tried to motion the little boy back, but he was not deterred and had a big mischievous grin.  I tried not to laugh, the groom focused on the vows, and the bride was scared stiff.

The pastor of Union Springs Baptist Church, my home church was and continues to be a great puppeteer.  He has great movement when preaching.  He has what my professor of preaching, the late Calvin Miller, said is balanced movement.  The pulpit always is the center of his movement.  The pulpit is and always must be the center of preaching the Bible.

The late RG Lee was one of my pastor’s favorites.  He quoted him often.  One Sunday as my pastor moved like a caged lion keeping the pulpit center, he crept closer and closer to the edge of the stage which was about three feet high.  He finally did it.  He stepped off the stage saying, “R G Leeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!”

He landed on the floor and never missed a beat.  He slowly returned to the stage and behind the pulpit.

 

I was glad when they said unto me, Let us go into the house of the LORD.  Psalm 122:1 KJV

Change and the New Normal

May 18, 2013 Union Springs Baptist Church of Randolph, Alabama celebrated 100 years of ministry.  The church celebrated by reminiscing through testimony, pictures, song, and preaching.

April and May in the South is a time for decorations and homecomings.  Union Springs does neither.  I will never forget while in Seminary hearing some preacher friends speaking of Decoration Day.  They were not too fond of them.  Having grown up in a church that did not observe this day, I had to ask what Decoration Day was.  I did not want to appear dumber that I am, I tried to listen long enough to try and figure out what it was.  I finally garnered enough nerve to ask my friend Hugh.  Hugh, very blunt and needing a few more classes on tact, said, “Worship of the dead, dummy.”

I did not know what worship of the dead was.  Hugh and others gave me a quick lesson the 1001 ways that churches celebrate Decoration.  They could not believe that my home church did not observe it.

Union Springs stopped observing Homecoming in the mid 1960’s.  The first time I remember a celebration was a 75^th Anniversary and then a 90^th one.  There have been plenty of changes.  I remember that in the Seventies the church voted to hide the Peavey speakers behind some speaker cloth because Peavey looked too rock and roll.  The only musical instruments were the piano and the organ.  Guitars, drums, taped music, and trumpets were prohibited.  To applaud after a special was sacrilegious.  To raise a hand, say amen or hallelujah guaranteed a stern look and grunt from a deacon or two.

That era is gone after one hundred years.

It was good to see some changes, but the biggest change was people.  Yeah, women with two first names such as Betty Mae, Betty Jo, Betty Jean, Sara Nell, Patsy Ann, Mary Jane, and Judy Kay were there and folks talked of Fannie Ruth, Kitty Sue, Dorothy Faye, and Ruby Nell’s passing when seeing their pictures.

Many have passed in 100 years.  I remember Brother Arch Crumpton.  For many years he and the preacher were the only men in the church.  Brother Arch would walk to church, about four miles, start a fire in the pot-bellied stove, return home, and bring the family to church on a wagon.  The church honored his daughter Myrtle at the Anniversary as the oldest member of the church.

I remember having Ms. Myrtle as my junior (I think that would be 3^rd and 4^th grade today) Sunday school teacher.  I remember stepping over stacks of boards used for flooring the newly built Sunday school room in her class.

Had it not been for the faithful women of Union Springs Baptist Church, there would be no church today.  Myrtle Hayes, Callie Plier, Adderene Pate, Tommie Mitchell taught me the Word of God.  I remember while in Seminary, classmates would ask, “Where did you learn that?”  I responded very slowly, “S U N D A Y  S C H O O L.”

As men were saved, guys like Bill Langston and Heedy Hayes taught me missions through the RA’s (Royal Ambassador).  Union Springs was one of the top supporters of the Cooperative Program, the Alabama State Board of Missions, and Chilton Baptist Association.  Union Springs was very instrumental in preparing me to be a Director of Missions.

I remember international, North American, and state missionaries sharing their work during times of worship.  I remember crying the night Union Springs showed the movie, Bill Wallace of China.  We got so involved in missions that we had a crew of men travel to the Mobile area to repair a roof of a church destroyed by Hurricane Fredrick.  One of our members, Wayne Dutton, went on a building mission’s project to Bogotá, Columbia in 1980 and set in motion the beginning of building mission trips that continues today.  Union Springs helped initiate the Chilton Baptist Builders.

My involvement with the Chilton Baptist Builders led to my call into the ministry.  My first recall of being at Union Springs was when we first moved back to Alabama from Illinois in 1960.  The little white church did not have Sunday School rooms, but they did have wires, which crisscrossed the auditorium.  Red curtains help to separate four areas designated for classes.  I do not remember who preached or the sermon topic, but I remember singing a song about a worm and a cross.



Alas! And did my Savior bleed
And did my Sovereign die?
Would He devote that sacred head
For such a worm as I?



Union Springs called me as an RA leader, a Sunday School teacher, and as a deacon.  Union Springs licensed me to preach, and ordained me into full time ministry.  They gave me a scholarship for college and members such as Tac, James, and Callie helped finance me early in my ministry.  I am fortunate to have been part of the 100 years of Union Spring’s ministries.

The Psalmist says it best when I am asked, “Where is your God?”



When I remember these things, I pour out my soul in me: for I had gone with the multitude, I went with them to the house of God, with the voice of joy and praise, with a multitude that kept holyday Psalm 42:4 KJV.

I wonder what the new normal will be after the COVID - 19 virus has run its course and people start to gather again.