As I frequently do on a Tuesday noon hour when picking up my wife from her Bible Study at Grace United Methodist Church, I arrived early and slipped into the sanctuary for personal meditation time.
I engage in personal prayer and meditation a couple of times each day but those moments always have more serenity, deeper thoughts and an emotional tranquility when sitting in a church pew rather than my family room. It must be a learned reaction or my Lord hangs around His house more than my house.
Last Tuesday after personal prayer time, I opened my eyes and allowed them to wonder about the Christmas decorations, which beautifully adorn the sanctuary. I also began to notice how much different this magnificently designed Grace United Methodist Church of Decatur is as opposed to that Grace Methodist (minus the 'united') Church of Washington Park East St. Louis back in the mid-1950's. The Decatur church is four times the size of that Washington Park church and the differences don't stop there. The church of yesteryear did not have and organ, piano or bell choir nor a paid music director. Nope. The old church had a volunteer pianist on a Sunday morning banging out old hymns on a simple upright. Back in the day six or seven folks made up a civilian-dressed choir, which often sang off key with bravado.
Most folks from old Grace walked a few feet from their Sunday School class right into a familiar worship service pew. Those old-time Preachers never missed a chance to extend an alter call at the conclusion of a 'hell-fire and damnation sermon,' which profiled warnings about the wages of sin.
One of my children once suggested that I had perhaps grown up in a 'church' (religion) that promoted fear rather than Love. I never felt that at all back then. I knew God LOVED me because He sent His Son to be crucified for my sins while at the same time I had a free will choice to accept the gift of life forever or turn away from God's Love and suffer Hell. I don't know about all parents but I believe most parents are constantly sending messages to their children that if they 'do Right and make good choices' things will turn out better than should they make bad choices.
I noticed just as I ended my prayer last Tuesday afternoon in that church pew my prayer petitions and praise have not changed in the last sixty-years. Seems to me my Faith anchors my religion regardless of the participation building.
(Touch)The Chapel
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