“Some bright morning, when this life is over, I’ll fly away…”

Have you ever been to a place filled with joy, hope, faith and love.  A place devoid of all the World says matters?  A place where genuine care, brotherhood, sisterhood and family, trumped fleeting pursuits.  A place that replaced want and need with acceptance of the very situation where life had placed each person?  A safe place that loved the difficulties of life away.

I have.

If you arrive a little late you’ll hear joyful noise filling those little white buildings that dot the landscape of those hills and hollers of Eastern Kentucky.  If you’re early and with your grandma, you’ll likely spend the service smelling like the perfume of every sweet mom and grandmother in that little room.  Remnants of the many hugs and kisses generously poured out on you.  You’ll watch the desperation of a hardscrabble life and temporary situation give way to love, joy and the flooding of the sweet, sweet spirit that is the only hope and life that matters, Jesus.  So much Jesus!

I have.

Have you had the privilege of singing Onward Christian Soldiers, where the women and men naturally sing their parts?  Have you watched the reverence of a room singing The Old Rugged Cross, acknowledging the Savior’s sacrifice of his life so we can join and worship him for eternity?  Have you listened to and considered the beautiful harmony of every person close to your family fill those little rooms with Amazing Grace as they surrender their current situation to the promise of what is to come?  Has your heart compelled you to take that step out of your current situation that Just As I Am invites?  What a friend we have in Jesus!

I have.

Have you ever witnessed a country preacher get into a cadence of delivery where there is a melodic movement of their words that are entrancing and a little intimidating?  Have you giggled uncomfortably with your siblings because of this new type of sermon delivery?  Have you heard a good hell, fire and brimstone sermon that is the counter-point to God’s love?  A sermon that pleads the fact that Hell is real and when we reject Christ, we are choosing an eternity too terrible to fully comprehend.  Have you watched a preacher who feeds his family as a farmer, a coal miner or any other sort of job, transform into God’s voice in the wilderness for those amazing communities?  It is something to behold.

I have

You see, those houses of worship were filled with family and friends so close that they were family too.  Where worship was a collective, unified noise of the voices who made up the heartbeats of life in that holler.  Where the Sunday best dress, was likely hand made, passed down or newer overalls than the ones worn day to day for work.  Where sickness brought a flood of food and help and affirmation that no one was alone.  

Those little Baptist, Church of God, Pentecostal, Methodist churches were what God designed his Church to be.  Centers where the community did life.  Where a wall sign updated you about attendance, giving, baptisms.  Most of those churches were surrounded by the members who had graduated to Heaven, leaving their physically worn out bodies marked by headstones, to remind those still on earth of their contribution.  The grass and shade that protected and invited were pallets for suppers on the ground.  Where pie socials were the catalyst for many of the marriages and families.  Those buildings were special because they represented hope and promise.  They were the source of welcoming and sending off.

I have spent a lot of time in those little churches so giant in their reach and their influence.  Can I tell you that these buildings and their members were megachurches before the concept and the counting that assigns ‘mega’ status existed.  There were giants in these churches and they went by the name mom, dad, grandma, grandpa, daughter, son, aunt, uncle, cousin, sister, brother.  They were family.

“They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching, to the fellowship, to the breaking of bread, and to prayer.”  Acts 2:42 (CSB)

Have I told you of the amazing joy contained in those little buildings singing “take my life and let it be, consecrated Lord to thee?”

I have.