I remember when:

• Children sat in church with their parents and doodled on the tithe envelopes with a golf pencil found in the pew.

• Pastors wore suit and ties, but when the preaching was really good, he would take off his coat and throw it to his wife on the front row.

• Cutting edge Sunday school technology were felt boards.

• On the felt board, the teacher only had one male character used the same man for Jesus, Peter, Moses, daniel, etc. and one female character for Esther, Hannah, Miriam and any other female in the Bible.

• There was a little sign at the front of the church that told the attendance, offering and how many visitors we had at church.

• We had church Sunday mornings, Sunday nights and Wednesday nights and to miss any of the three meetings was next to heresy.

• The Pastor actually lived in the downstairs part of the church and we used the bedrooms as classrooms on Sundays and Wednesdays.

• The Sunday school director, at the end of Sunday school, took 20 minutes to read the attendance and offering amount of every single class.

• The only instruments in the church were a piano and an organ. Guitars and drums were for the nightclubs and bars.

• Favorite songs could be identified by the page number of the holy hymnal. My favorite was #267 or “I’ll Fly Away”. For some reason, though, we never sang the third verse of any song.

• You could get in big trouble if you got your “church clothes” dirty before church started.

• It was considered a “great Sunday” when the preacher did not preach and people prayed at the altar instead.

• People who sang “specials” never sounded that special and always had to read the words of the song off the back of a cassette label. They would say “don’t listen to me, just listen to the words.”

• The church building always smelled like sheep actually lived there during the week.

What do you remember?