How Long Wrong?

There was an interesting phenomenon surrounding my early days of “church going.”
I place it in quotations because it was what we did, as in “get ready, we’re going to church.” My parents took me to church before I was born, knew my own name or could even count to one. “Church going” was a normal part of my routine. Who am I kidding, it was our routine. My earliest memories are around church going and my mother playing the piano for church. (You’d think that hearing the piano played in vitro would have led me to have an ear for music. Oh that it were true. My ear is drawn to magnets because it’s tin.)
My maternal grandparents lived next door to the First Baptist Church of Stover, Missouri, back in the days when no one locked their doors, including the church. So whenever we visited the grandparents, I played with the pastor’s son and we played in church. We played church. Not that it was all that much fun, it was just what we did—we didn’t know any better.
Church going wasn’t much fun in those days. Somehow the Puritan influence must have carried over into Baptist churches. (Someone has said the Puritans were afraid that someone somewhere might be enjoying themselves and they were bent on stopping that frivolity.) Most of what I remember about church going was along the lines of, “stop that—you’re in God’s house.” “Shush, you’re in God’s house.” “God doesn’t like it when you do that in His house.”
Funny, when we played church and no adults were with us, God didn’t seem to mind if we got loud or laughed or—heaven forbid—ran in the aisles. The ceiling didn’t fall in. And, I can’t believe I’m admitting this, the pews were great fun to crawl under. (If my grandmother had known what we were doing I’d not be alive to be making this confession. Fortunately, her eye sight was failing and didn’t realize the dust on the front of my jeans came from the church floors under the pews. I think the custodian loved it when we played there.)
After the novelty of church going rubbed off, about the time I approached puberty, I no longer wanted to go. Strange how a kid can get up feeling normal until he realizes it’s Sunday and church going day and he gets a bad case of “Mommy, I don’t feel good. I better stay home today?” Of course Mom’s intuitive sense knew better and we went to church. (One Sunday afternoon while playing with cousins, a rock was dropped on the ring finger of my right hand and the tip was nearly gone—hanging by a thread. We made an emergency trip to Gunn Clinic and Dr. Gunn sewed the tip back on. Surely this would qualify for an exemption from Sunday night church, but nnnoooooooo, we were in the car headed back. I played the old “my finger hurts so much I might throw up” card and did get a single night reprieve from church going.
When God was calling me to be a pastor I rejected His call, not wanting to live a life devoid of joy. My early days as a pastor were marked by more Puritanical pursuits than joy. After all, I was a pastor and church going was serious business. I was wrong.
This last week as I was working my way through Deuteronomy I came to chapter 16, verse 11 and read (in the God’s Word translation): Enjoy yourselves in the presence of the Lord your God….Enjoy yourselves at the place the Lord your God will choose for His name to live. In the midst of all the teachings about sacrifices God tells His people to enjoy themselves in His presence. EVEN IN THE OLD TESTAMENT!
Today at Bacon Heights we enjoyed ourselves in the presence of the Lord our God. We sang Nick’s welcome song, a take-off on the YMCA song and I believe God smiled. I sure did. We baptized—a father baptized his son and another father was baptized along with his son. We clapped and I believe God smiled. Pastor Jerry challenged us about ministering in our neighborhood and spoke about a partnership project. I believe God smiled at his children taking seriously His command to take the gospel into the whole world, including our own back yard. Yes, I truly believe God smiled at our worship today. I know I sure did.