Just One Of Dad's Churches
When I lived in Suburbia, my dad found a church to pastor in another part of the metropolitan area. It turned out to be a more rundown area and we traveled forty-five minutes one-way to get there each Wednesday and twice on Sunday. As I became old enough, I was later left at home to watch my two brothers and baby sister on Sunday nights. That was nice because then we were able to watch “The Wonderful World Of Disney” that only came on television on Sunday nights.
This church was a small church. Dad usually ended up with small churches that could barely pay the light and heat bill much less Dad’s salary, so he usually had a job to support us during the week.
I remember several things about this particular church. When you walked in, the little lobby was carpeted and there was a drinking fountain in a corner next to one of the doors that led to the sanctuary. I remember these because when my mirror cousins came to visit us at this church, they taught us to all hold hands, and shuffle our feet across the carpet. The guy on one end of the line would then touch the drinking fountain giving us all a chain-reaction shock that caused us to hold or shake our hands in pain. Then we’d do it again!
All the Sunday School classrooms were in the basement. On Sunday, that was fine to go into the basement, but on a Wednesday or Sunday night, that was one of the scariest basements a kid would ever venture into. When we first started at this church, we spent one Saturday night in sleeping bags in the basement to save us having to get up so early on Sunday. That night we found out that all the mice in the neighborhood came there for ballet and rugby practice. Mom took one look at that, and decided we’d just get up early on Sunday.
That basement held some memories. It was in the kitchen unit of that basement where Bold One and I learned to fill the little communion cups with Dad’s funny squirt bottle of grape juice. After church on Communion Sunday, my siblings and I drank any leftover cups of grape juice.
In the large center area was where chairs were set up for all the kids to hear my mom give the children’s church lessons. My siblings and I seemed to be the only kids who knew the answers to the questions. Mom would give prizes to the kids who answered correctly. She would try to call on the other kids first, but half the time it was just our four hands in the air. There was a lot of “Does anyone know the answer? Anyone? Anyone besides my kids?” That went on for years. Baby Sister has more stories than I do about that.
The baby nursery was in a corner room of that basement. All the kids killed time in that nursery waiting for parents to stop talking and take them home. I remember this girl who always tried to hang around my brother and I, but I didn’t want her around because she beat me in arm wrestling all the time.
The sanctuary was an ordinary one except for one thing. There was a painted picture of Jesus Resurrected on the wall. You know, with the nail prints and the white robe? Jesus’ eyes would follow you all over the sanctuary. That tended to intensify our religious experience. One of us kids was always going forward to the altar with tears in our eyes.
Occasionally, a few of us would come with Dad on a Saturday to the church. Either we had to do yard work, or we’d watch Dad run the mimeograph machine. Hey, this was before computers and affordable copy machines! We’d watch Dad put ink in the cylinder and wrap it with the blue sheet that he’d spend quite some time typing on to make the holes to allow the ink to bleed through to print on the paper. We’d sometimes get to pick which bulletin blanks to use for that Sunday. The best part was when Dad would start turning the crank and the paper would feed through under the cylinder and be printed on. If the first couple turned out good, then Dad would let us turn the crank to print them.
There came a time when Mom and Dad were tired of us running around the church after service. Mom didn’t appreciate the fact that Bold One would crawl around under the pews and end up wearing the dust bunnies on his church clothes. Dad wanted the kids to stop running around the sanctuary and learn some reverence for God’s house.
One day, Dad told us if we didn’t sit in the back pew after church until it was time to go home, we’d get a spanking. Dad liked to refer to it as “a board meeting”. I think that is pretty self-explanatory. I ended up sitting by myself watching my siblings have a wonderful time playing tag up and down the aisles, yelling into the microphone on the platform, and splashing in the baptismal. Then later, I would hear the fallout from the “board meeting.”
This church was not much different from the other churches I grew up in. I learned to ride my bike in the parking lot of one church. Bold One used to take his nap under Dad’s desk when he was a toddler. I learned to operate a lawn mower while mowing church lawns. Sometimes as a preacher’s kid, you just lived at church.
This church was a small church. Dad usually ended up with small churches that could barely pay the light and heat bill much less Dad’s salary, so he usually had a job to support us during the week.
I remember several things about this particular church. When you walked in, the little lobby was carpeted and there was a drinking fountain in a corner next to one of the doors that led to the sanctuary. I remember these because when my mirror cousins came to visit us at this church, they taught us to all hold hands, and shuffle our feet across the carpet. The guy on one end of the line would then touch the drinking fountain giving us all a chain-reaction shock that caused us to hold or shake our hands in pain. Then we’d do it again!
All the Sunday School classrooms were in the basement. On Sunday, that was fine to go into the basement, but on a Wednesday or Sunday night, that was one of the scariest basements a kid would ever venture into. When we first started at this church, we spent one Saturday night in sleeping bags in the basement to save us having to get up so early on Sunday. That night we found out that all the mice in the neighborhood came there for ballet and rugby practice. Mom took one look at that, and decided we’d just get up early on Sunday.
That basement held some memories. It was in the kitchen unit of that basement where Bold One and I learned to fill the little communion cups with Dad’s funny squirt bottle of grape juice. After church on Communion Sunday, my siblings and I drank any leftover cups of grape juice.
In the large center area was where chairs were set up for all the kids to hear my mom give the children’s church lessons. My siblings and I seemed to be the only kids who knew the answers to the questions. Mom would give prizes to the kids who answered correctly. She would try to call on the other kids first, but half the time it was just our four hands in the air. There was a lot of “Does anyone know the answer? Anyone? Anyone besides my kids?” That went on for years. Baby Sister has more stories than I do about that.
The baby nursery was in a corner room of that basement. All the kids killed time in that nursery waiting for parents to stop talking and take them home. I remember this girl who always tried to hang around my brother and I, but I didn’t want her around because she beat me in arm wrestling all the time.
The sanctuary was an ordinary one except for one thing. There was a painted picture of Jesus Resurrected on the wall. You know, with the nail prints and the white robe? Jesus’ eyes would follow you all over the sanctuary. That tended to intensify our religious experience. One of us kids was always going forward to the altar with tears in our eyes.
Occasionally, a few of us would come with Dad on a Saturday to the church. Either we had to do yard work, or we’d watch Dad run the mimeograph machine. Hey, this was before computers and affordable copy machines! We’d watch Dad put ink in the cylinder and wrap it with the blue sheet that he’d spend quite some time typing on to make the holes to allow the ink to bleed through to print on the paper. We’d sometimes get to pick which bulletin blanks to use for that Sunday. The best part was when Dad would start turning the crank and the paper would feed through under the cylinder and be printed on. If the first couple turned out good, then Dad would let us turn the crank to print them.
There came a time when Mom and Dad were tired of us running around the church after service. Mom didn’t appreciate the fact that Bold One would crawl around under the pews and end up wearing the dust bunnies on his church clothes. Dad wanted the kids to stop running around the sanctuary and learn some reverence for God’s house.
One day, Dad told us if we didn’t sit in the back pew after church until it was time to go home, we’d get a spanking. Dad liked to refer to it as “a board meeting”. I think that is pretty self-explanatory. I ended up sitting by myself watching my siblings have a wonderful time playing tag up and down the aisles, yelling into the microphone on the platform, and splashing in the baptismal. Then later, I would hear the fallout from the “board meeting.”
This church was not much different from the other churches I grew up in. I learned to ride my bike in the parking lot of one church. Bold One used to take his nap under Dad’s desk when he was a toddler. I learned to operate a lawn mower while mowing church lawns. Sometimes as a preacher’s kid, you just lived at church.
posted by praiseage at 12:17 AM
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