[Image: Middle Ridge Church, JAVanDevender]
Deuteronomy 32:6–7 (NKJV)
6 Do you thus deal with the Lord, O foolish and unwise people? Is He not your Father, who bought you? Has He not made you and established you?
7 “Remember the days of old, Consider the years of many generations. Ask your father, and he will show you; Your elders, and they will tell you:
The old church building is meticulously maintained. It is obviously served by present descendents of centuries old families. This was not the original location. The building was moved to this place well over a hundred years ago. At the time horse and buggies would not have had the difficulty navigating off the "main drag" on to this side road as now. There is a very sharp, undercarriage scraping, muffler destroying drop off right at the intersection. Out of state tourists get no warning that the "trick" is to angle into the turn off, keeping one side of your wheels on the main road until the undercarriage is clear. For a saddle horse it would have been no problem.
Notice that there are no office spaces, modern Sunday School classrooms, and I am not certain about toilets. The community this old church served lived miles from the nearest town (as they still do, the area is very under-developed) and travel to and from would have been an all day exercise. Going to the "meeting house' on Sunday would have taken a fair amount of time and so I imagine that mom packed a lunch before they left, either to eat with their brothers and sisters after the service or on the way home.
I doubt seriously that either the worship service or the sermon were tied to a strict "one hour and we're out of here" mentality. If it took a family an hour or two to get there and another hour or two to get home, they expected their "money's worth" when they arrived. They expected their preacher to "lay down the law" to remind them of God's holiness and that the promise of the Gospel gave them hope in the face of their manifest faults.
"Flowery preaching" would have been viewed somewhat skeptically as so much "put-on", but that doesn't mean that eloquence was not admired. These were a people who needed "down-home" preaching. They needed to know how to trust in God when only a few children survived to adult-hood and adults were blessed if they made it to their sixties. Childbirth was dangerous to mom and the baby. The flu could wipe out an entire community. Injuries were not medivac-ed to modern hospitals and the danger of infection was always present on old farms where the pigs have to be slopped no matter how bad you're hurt. Life was hard... but it was not hopeless. And those who gathered in the pews at the foot of the pulpit expected, indeed demanded, that the preacher take the words of that blessed old King James Bible and touch them where they lived.
They didn't want warm milk, they wanted strong meat, and if they didn't get it, well the preacher wouldn't be all that respected and would remain an "outsider" until the local bishop or what ever wised up and sent another one.
But oh how they must have sung. That small sanctuary must have concentrated their voices wonderfully. The hymns were probably known by heart, etched in memories through constant repetition over the decades of attendance. Little children grew into old grand-parents sitting in the same pew singing the same words. There may very well have been more sermons in song remembered during the week than whatever it was the preacher said.
It's easy to over-romanticize these things. From my own experience, growing up in a small Methodist (only much later UMC) church in a somewhat similar area far removed from this location, everything I have described applied even then though we were a bit past the horse and buggy stage (though a few horse drawn wagons were still on the road) and medical care, though nothing like now, was far more available.
What is not the least over-romanticized I think is the seriousness with which those folks approached their religion. They lived in an unforgiving world and they had to trust in a forgiving God to make sense of it. God had to be good or else life would be unbearable for there would be no hope at all. "Doing right", even tempered by generations of inbred bigotry on occasion, was not just a nice idea. A man's word had to be trustworthy or he was of no use whatsoever. Men or women "fooling around" where they ought not to lead not only to social disgrace, but often to some serious violence. The community knew that their social integrity was just as important as their individual integrity. God had shown Himself to be very severe when His people did not stand up for what was right and enforce His laws.
Those generations had their faults as does every era. But a person could find a home there. The rules might be severe in some areas but you always knew where you stood. If you needed help raising a barn you didn't have to ask... people just showed up. If the rains washed out your crops there were neighbors who would drop off a "few things" that were "more than we needed" (which was not really true) and the kids would have something for supper. And when you gathered for Sunday worship it was important business you were about. It was God's Word but it was also the most important single binding element in the social structure. The community was the church and the church was the community.
"Remember the days of old..." Moses said. Looking back is important once in a while, just to regain perspective. It might be good for our day to question jut how "foolish" we are in some of the vain things we are chasing. Life is easy now, in many ways, compared to what they faced. But the thin veneer of so-called "civilization" that shields us from hardships they endured every day can be stripped away in a moment. The same God who gave them hope is He who may at last lose His patience with a people who no longer value integrity & character more than comfort, who no longer see their Christian religion in terms of community, and whose question is "what can God do for me today?"
I doubt the "old days" will ever come again and that's, ultimately, a good thing. The progress that has been made must not be denied. But the lessons they can teach us about life, what's truly important, and how Christ truly is our hope, are just as valuable today as they were essential then.
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