Last Sunday morning was the 2013 Homecoming Service at Union Baptist Church. My mom asked all of us (her kids and their families) to be her guests. It is the church that we attended as children with my parents and my Granny. For most of my life, I lived just down the road from this house of believers.
I was so glad to be able to be a part of this service. We were the last of our family to enter so we got to sit in the row closest to the front. My mom's offspring filled 3 pews.
The couple we sat behind were the owners of the pregnant cow that I hit with my car in high school. (That's a whole other blog.) That put a smile on my face that the service began. I helped my children with their hymnals as we sang "Brethren, We Have Met to Worship". They didn't know how to use them. Eric jokingly leaned over and said, "Where's the big screen?" We sang the 1st, 2nd and 4th verse, naturally.
As we sang songs that I knew so well that I didn't need the hymnal, I began to cry. I'm sure that the choir members probably thought that I hadn't taken my medication or something because I continued to pretty much bawl through the entire service.
Tears ran down my cheeks as I was full of thoughts of my Granny. Of how she loved going to church and how I loved going with her. She had her spot with her lap afghan because the air conditioning vent blew onto our pew. We sat beside her, used her pen (always an erasable pen-remember those?), twirled her jewelry, leaned on her shoulder or her lap as she tickled our arms.
I choked up when the pastor talked to the people in the congregation and they talked back to him. There was an atmosphere of family instead of formality that I hadn't experienced in a long time. I couldn't get the words of the doxology to come as we stood to sing after the offering because of the lump in my throat. I cried some more when "Amen!' and "Yes!" rippled through the pews as the preacher gave his sermon.
The thing that got me the most, though---the thing that kept me weeping even when I thought I would stop---was the altar. If you saw it, you would think it ordinary. What made it extraordinary to me were the scuff marks. On both sides of the pulpit, where the people of the church would kneel when they went to the front to pray, the baseboards were worn and marked.
I thought of all those that had knelt there over the years. Those that were faithful to God's vision for this church and the community surrounding it. They knew the people who lived in the houses around them. A REAL COMMUNITY. You didn't have to go to the church to be loved on by the Church.
In second place after my home, it was here in this place that I was taught about Jesus. The One who would MAKE my life. It was with these people that I saw His teachings lived out in this locality. Imperfect people trying to practice what they learned.
There were no big screens, bands, or big VBS productions. Their terminology would now be criticized. Their methodology a bit antiquated. The order of worship might be considered old fashioned. But what I learned there STUCK. And I am thankful for it.
"Onward Christian Soldiers", the pledge to the flags and the Bible, macaroni art, hymnals, and the potluck dinners that we had pale in comparison to some of what is offered in church houses today. Don't get me wrong. The church we attend with people we love has the big screen, the band, and the programs. We have a large beautiful building that we are thankful for. They in themselves aren't bad. They are quite nice. It's just that we need to be vigilant so that the flash of it all doesn't dim THE LIGHT.
My brother sang a song that morning and I would like to share some of the words with you:
A pastor stands before his congregation
Once a mighty army for the Lord
But now he stares into the lifeless eyes
Believers leading carnal lives
He wonders what they’re fighting for
But driven by a calling on his life
He spoke God’s word like he’d done a hundred times before
But this time he comes broken and weeping
With tears of a broken heart
And he cries out to the Lord
Oh Lord, send Your wind into this valley
And breathe the breath of life into their souls
And raise them again a mighty army
For soon these arisen warriors will battle again
For they have been filled with the Spirit Wind
It doesn't matter if our churches are filled with 2 people or 2000, whether we have a beat up piano or a full orchestra. It isn't the package that matters but The Message we live and tell. Dear God, help us remember what we are fighting for. I pray our legacy is a generation that is a reflection of You.
1 Timothy 2:1-10
The Message (MSG)
Simple Faith and Plain Truth
2 1-3 The first thing I want you to do is pray. Pray every way you know how, for everyone you know. Pray especially for rulers and their governments to rule well so we can be quietly about our business of living simply, in humble contemplation. This is the way our Savior God wants us to live.
4-7 He wants not only us but everyone saved, you know, everyone to get to know the truthwe’ve learned: that there’s one God and only one, and one Priest-Mediator between God and us—Jesus, who offered himself in exchange for everyone held captive by sin, to set them all free. Eventually the news is going to get out. This and this only has been my appointed work: getting this news to those who have never heard of God, and explaining how it works by simple faith and plain truth.
8-10 Since prayer is at the bottom of all this, what I want mostly is for men to pray—not shaking angry fists at enemies but raising holy hands to God. And I want women to get in there with the men in humility before God, not primping before a mirror or chasing the latest fashions but doing something beautiful for God and becoming beautiful doing it.
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