My memories of growing up in church...

(Daddy and all seven of us kids.  I'm the little blonde girl, front row left)

My childhood is divided down the middle, rather like B.C. and A.D. divides the centuries.  In the case of my childhood, B.C. could stand for Before Crisis and A.D. for After Divorce.

B.C. Daddy and Mama and us seven kids went to church.  We even sang "specials" together as a family.  I am so sad that singing together as a family is becoming a lost art.  Our family would sing together in the car or at the kitchen sink doing the dishes and learned to sing harmony that way.  I remember one time, our family stood in the front of the church to sing and I got a sudden case of shyness so I covered my face with my Sunday School handout throughout the song.

Getting ready for church began on Saturday in those days.  Saturday night we would all take a bath, two or three kids using the same water before Mama would drain the tub and fill it back up with fresh water.  I guess with seven kids to bathe, it was her way to conserve the hot water.  After baths, us four girls would have our hair put up in curls.  All of our church dresses were washed and ironed, as well as the boy's shirts.  Our church shoes were all polished as well.

Sunday mornings Mama was up early getting the pot roast, potatoes and carrots into the oven, where it would cook low and slow in the oven.  The tantalizing smell of Sunday dinner would be filling the house when we got home from church.  Eventually, we were ready to pile into the big, old station wagon and leave.  Mama wore her church dress and heels, and sometimes one of those pillbox hats with a wee bit of netting topped her freshly curled hair.  Daddy was dressed in his dark wool suit with a starched and ironed white hanky peeking out of the jacket pocket.  He always wore a white shirt and dark tie and spit shined black shoes. My brothers wore slacks and belts with stiff white shirts and dark ties.  Us girls wore church dresses that Mama had made us.  I remember her helping me get into the fancy little church dress she had made me and whining to Daddy that it was itchy.   Daddy's wool suit was also itchy.  Sitting on his lap during the sermon and eating Sen-Sen from his pocket, I remember his suit pants being itchy against my legs.

We went to several different churches B.C.  Piecing together what I can remember and bits and pieces of what my older siblings have told me, I've concluded that Daddy liked to go where the "fire was falling" being of a Pentecostal persuasion. He also liked to be allowed to preach the Word himself now and then, so he would find places where the pastor would allow him to do so. I assume those are both reasons why we didn't stay put in one church. I have bits and pieces of memories of churches here and there.  Many of those memories are of me responding to the altar call and giving my heart to Jesus.   I probably did that at every single church we ever attended.   You could never be too sure that you were ready for the imminent return of Jesus, after all.  Backsliding seemed to be something you could do accidentally by forgetting to repent of a sin or evil thought.  Getting saved and re-saved over and over and over was pretty common.  I even remember repenting for walking down the beer and wine aisle at the grocery store, sure that if Jesus came back while I was in that aisle I would go straight to H-E-double hockey sticks.

Not comprehending that the tenuous state of my salvation and the assurance of Jesus' love for me were totally opposite theologies, I was confident that God loved me and completely dependent on Jesus as my best friend and confidant.  In spite of the fact that we were a church going family, things at home were not peaceful and happy.  Jesus is the One I talked to about everything.  I would lay there in my bed upstairs and hear the arguing going on downstairs and cry and talk to Jesus about it all.

One vivid memory I have of church was during the time when communism and the threat of losing our freedom was taken very seriously.  I was maybe five or six years old at the time.  As a sermon illustration the pastor had men in military uniforms march into the church, point guns at us, (Unloaded I assume! Can you imagine trying to do something like that today?), and demand we relinquish our Bibles. I'm pretty sure that people in their teens on up knew this to be a sermon illustration, but to me it was as real as real could be.  When that "soldier" got to our pew and pointed his gun at me, I took my little Gideon Bible and sat on it refusing to give him my Bible.  I guess you can say that way back then I counted the cost of serving Jesus and guarding His Word and have never looked back.

Another vivid memory is of my Sunday School teacher and the classic Sunday School flannel graph.  A piece of flannel stapled to a board and some felt Bible characters and scenery were as fascinating to me as the big screen and videos that the kids in our children's church enjoy now.  The way the Sunday School teacher's hands lovingly patted Jesus and the disciples into place on the board, smoothing them out tenderly, became an art for me to imitate.  To me her skills rivaled Vanna White's hand flourishes that look so graceful on our TV screens today.  At home I would drape a flannel doll blanket over the back of the "davenport", cut people out of the Montgomery Ward catalog and practice, practice, practice my patting and smoothing.

In one church, I fondly recall that the woman who taught my Sunday School class also sang in the choir.  She had a high, rather operatic, soprano voice.  To sing high soprano complete with vibrato became another goal in my young life.

It's a bit disconcerting that B.C. I have no distinct memories of any of the ministers. I guess, being married to a pastor, you rather hope that you make a positive impact on these young lives. However,  as you can see it was the Sunday School teachers that were my idols and role models.  That says something about the importance of the children's workers in our churches to me.

Daddy left us and divorced Mama when I was nine.  A.D. Mama took us to a church, which we attended throughout the rest of the time us kids lived at home.  Her one decision changed our lives forever.

(Part two next week.)

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