Early Church Memories

I’m not really sure if my first memory of church life dates back to our second stay at the Benton Place or our time at Abilene.  I recall a few things about church life in Abilene, like walking to Sewell Auditorium on the ACC campus for Sunday morning service.

Mostly I remember the church in Hico.  The present day congregation is on the same property where the building was located then.   It was a frame building, which has since been replaced.  Of course there was no air conditioning.  The funeral home gave us fans, and when it came time for the evening service, the leaders of the church agreed to move the benches outside and had services out there in the summer time.  They had electricity in town, so they strung some lights over the area.  I’m sure there must have been a significant bug problem.

Those were the days when Texas churches were debating the Sunday School issue.  Some people thought it was wrong to have Sunday School classes, since the Bible doesn’t mention them.  They were derisively referred to as “antis.” We were not among the “antis.”    However if the non-class folks had noticed how poorly we did Sunday School, they probably wouldn’t have been all that upset.   The grown folks had class in the back of the auditorium.    The pre-school class met at the front of the assembly room – just next to the pulpit.   I don’t remember if there were other classes for older children.  I think there had to be.  

Our class was called the “card” class.    That’s because our Sunday School literature consisted of a small card, about the size of a playing card (though the people of that day would have been aghast to think I would make that comparison).  On one side of the card, we had a picture from the life of Jesus.   The one I remember was Jesus holding a lamb in his hand.   The other side of the card contained a lesson on the good shepherd.  I don’t know how the teachers held our attention with that.  

The anti’s were also “anti-literature.”  The card was our literature.  They really didn’t have that much to get exercised about.  But I liked going to Sunday School.  Being an only child from the country, I didn’t have much involvement with other kids.  I remember a little girl in the class.  I thought she was the cutest thing I had ever seen, but unfortunately I don’t recall her name.