Church History - Part I

My Church History - Part I      

My earliest memory of being inside a church building is in the late 1940’s, probably 1947, at which time a funeral was held for my brother who was killed in Germany in March, 1945 at the age of 19.

This is a picture of my brother, Ed and me in December, 1943.  (I am the short one.)  His body had been buried in a cemetery in Belgium until after the war ended and was then subsequently shipped home.

HENRI-CHAPELLE AMERICAN CEMETERY AND MEMORIAL

The service was held at the First Baptist Church in Seminole, OK and I must assume that is the first church that I attended.  My dad retired before I started the first grade and we purchased a twenty acre tract that was eight miles north of town.  I vaguely remember some remodeling and using the outhouse before we moved in.  After that, the outhouse disappeared.  

We lived only one-half mile from Highway Baptist Church and began attending there and we did so until Dad died in 1960 and mother and I moved back to town. On June 8, 1951 on a Friday during Vacation Bible School, I walked the aisle, prayed a prayer, filled out a card, was later baptized and thought that I had been saved and so did everyone else.  I attended a small country school with an enrollment of around 120-130 for grades 1-12.  My graduating senior class was the largest in years with 21 students. It was not unusual for a class to have less than ten.  There was no down side to identifying as a Christian and the majority of kids went to church.  I never did anything really bad unless you count throwing a watermelon on the front porch of the HS principal who was also my scoutmaster.

 

And I was a faithful church attender, Sunday morning, Sunday night, Wednesday night, and any other time that the doors were open.  It was not even a topic of discussion, we went to church and I had a bunch of gold stars to prove it.  Looking back, I am sure a lot of my motivation from about age 13 on was to see if Phyllis, Lynda, Sandra, etc. would be there.  We had youth choir during one period on Sunday nights and it was common practice to put your arm around your girlfriend in church and I did.  I even recall singing a few specials with my best friend, James.  He still sings in the choir, I don’t, ‘nuf said.

To sum up my Christian experience during this time, you could say I acted like the rest of the ‘good’ kids so that must make me a Christian.  I mean, my mom and dad were Christians, so I must be one too.  Wrong!  Part II will cover the span of time when Christ became real to me and I am convinced that it did not happen in 1951.

 

Stay tuned as my church history unfolds and you will understand why my blog name is ‘Grace Alone’.  As it says in Ephesians 2:8-9  For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, so that no one may boast.