I wish I could say I always listen to every word the minister says during his Sunday morning sermons, but the truth is, at times my mind wanders, particularly when he relates experiences from his own past that makes me think of something from mine.
We are more than a little lucky to have a minister that is a natural and never reads from a prepared text. As ministers go, I would give him a definite A. He is expressive and holds my interest better than most ministers do, although keeping my addled brain on track is a full-time job for anyone.
This past Sunday Dr. Phil (yeah, we have one, too) asked a question that brought back a host of memories for me.
He asked us to think back to our very first memories of church and try remembering what our first impressions were as a young child.
The first thing I remember was our Sunday school class, located in the downstairs of the church, at the foot of the winding stairway leading up to the sanctuary. I’m sure there aren’t too many people that attended Sunday school as a child in the same church they still attend today. I happen to be one of the lucky ones that do, although I have attended a number of churches throughout my life, in addition to this one.
Our church has long since been remodeled and looks nothing like it did when I was child. The Sunday school rooms were kind of dark and musty back then, with a round table and small chairs where we sat and studied our lesson each week.
My first memory of Sunday school concerns a boy in my class named Bobby, who constantly kicked me under the table, much to my consternation. I thought he hated me, but looking back on it from a female perspective I suspect that he actually liked me and was merely trying to get my attention. Back then he was the bane of my existence.
Each Sunday morning we were given a folded paper with a colored picture on the front pertaining to the lesson for that day. My first memory of what Jesus looked like was a picture of a bearded man in a long white garment, sitting on a large rock with a lot of little children kneeling around his sandaled feet. The caption underneath the picture read: “Suffer the little children to come unto me and forbid them not, for of such is the kingdom of God.” I wasn’t quite sure what the word suffer meant, but clearly children loved him and he was a kind man.
Each week we got to take our lesson home with us. My mother punched holes in each one and made a booklet tied together with red ribbons. On rainy days I would look through each lesson and try to remember what our teacher had taught us about it.
My favorite part of church was (and still is) singing in the choir. We each had our own choir robe and once a month the children’s choir would perform for the entire congregation.
The first song I remember memorizing to sing in choir was “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam.”
My parents took me over to Romney once when I was small to visit an elderly relative known as Cousin Florie.
Cousin Florie was 101 years old and very feeble. She was bedridden and had a huge trumpet-shaped instrument that she held up to one ear in order to hear what we were saying. I can still remember my mother making me sing “Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam” into this contraption. It was a strange experience for a 5-year-old!
I attended Sunday school at the Presbyterian Church until fourth grade when I first began noticing boys. Most of the really cute boys I knew, plus a lot of the girls I ran around with, attended the Methodist Church, over in the orchard, as it was called, in Piedmont.
I begged my mother to let me go to church there with the other kids my age. I think her theory for letting me change churches was that it was better for me to go there than not go to church at all. I had reached that stubborn stage in childhood where every argument was a fight towards independence.
I joined the Methodist Church when I was 13 and remained there until adulthood.
I was married by Rev. Sumner Sawyers and all three of my children were christened in the Methodist Church and attended Sunday school there.
It wasn’t until after the death of my mother that I returned to the Presbyterian Church to attend services with my father. Eventually he moved to Florida, but I continued attending church there and had my membership moved soon after.
Now history is repeating itself.
Last summer I took our Marissa, then only2 1/2, to Bible School. She did much better than I thought she would, and so gradually I have been introducing her to church. Since her mother works weekends, I have taken it upon myself to take her with me as much as possible, in order to get her into the habit of going. I want her experiences to be good ones so that church will be a friendly word in her vocabulary.
There is still plenty of time to begin teaching her the Bible stories that I read to her mother. Right now I think she associates church with her best friend Evie, who is a bit older than Marissa and attends Sunday school regularly. I am hoping that soon she will be old enough to stay in a class all by herself.
I look forward to reading her my favorite Bible stories once more, relaying them on to her as they were taught to me as a child.
Come to think of it, I always seem to get much more out of the children’s sermons than I do from the grown-up ones. Perhaps Marissa and I can learn more about the Bible together. Her stories are much more fun to read than the ones in the grown-up Bible, and besides that, her Bible has pictures!
I wonder if they’d let me back into Beginner’s Class?
Hey! It could happen!
Westernport, Md. —
