No picture tonight. I’ll be fortunate to get words to go since I seem to have gotten in the internet doghouse again. My grandson was here and he must have said yes to some game download when he should have said cancel or no. So groan, and double groan. I’m back to snail pace on the net for twenty-four hours. After that I may get out of the doghouse. He didn’t know he was going to get me on the slow train again, but I’ve got to teach him to say no. That’s not a bad thing to know anyway. Except to his mom and dad. Not good then.
We had Homecoming at Goshen today. Big crowd for us. Our church was full. Front pews and everything. Baptist front pews are always the last to fill. But I have been in churches where the members never sat on the back pews so that visitors coming in late could have those seats and wouldn’t have to walk down front. It’s funny how we want the back of the church and the front seats at ballgames. What does that say about us? But all our seat were full today.
Darrell and the guys, the Patriot Quartet, sang. Everybody really got into the spirit and liked hearing the morning message in song. Then we had an old fashioned dinner on the grounds in our new fashion fellowship hall. Our K-Hall was so full that some of the folks had to go outside and sit on the concrete yard wall just like old times. People have been sitting on that concrete retaining wall and eating homecoming meals for a hundred years, give or take a year or two. Our church is old. The sanctuary was built in 1875, but I don’t think the retaining wall was added until the early nineteen hundreds. Still that’s about a hundred years.
It’s always great to have a homecoming at an old church like Goshen when members and friends come back to visit. Some people don’t like the old traditions, but I do. I like thinking about all the people who have been faithful at our old church through its almost two hundred year history. I like thinking about all the “eating meetings” there have been and all the great pies and cakes and fried chicken people have enjoyed. Of course one tradition that’s different is that we go to town and buy the chicken already fried up now instead of going out and getting a chicken out in the chicken yard to fry up ourselves. That’s one old tradition I don’t miss. But I do like the echo of all the old hymns ringing in the church and I’m indebted to the faithful men and women who have been my Christian brothers and sisters over the years. Their love and kindness and tolerant forgiveness whenever I messed up are treasures without price.
I’ll do an extra post tomorrow (after I get out of the internet doghouse) and put on some kind of picture. I’ll be going to a burgoo tomorrow night where the Patriots are singing at another church’s homecoming. So who knows what picture might show up here. I also have some cute puppy and grandkid pictures. The neighbor puppies – but they seem way too at home here at my house.
Hope you have a fantastic first week of October.