Put on your church genes

From the time that I was still being knit together in my mother’s womb with some defective parts God had left over after making my big brother (he made me write that part), I’ve been attending Southern Baptist churches.

In fact, one of the first known photos of me was taken on a Sunday morning in 1970 when I had recently been de-wombed and my mother was posing with me in the front yard, both of us wearing heavily-polyestered church clothes.

So I guess you could say that I grew up with red Vacation Bible School Kool-Aid coursing through my veins, and my Southern Baptist heritage has had a profound impact on my worldview–including the high value I place on a 9 X 13 casserole dish.

Here are a few signs that you, too, were raised in the nap-proof wooden pews of Southern Baptist (or similar) churches in the 1970s and 80s.

First, you were always excited about the prospects of a trip to the fellowship hall–because it usually involved red Kool-Aid and/or several 9 X 13 casserole dishes.

And speaking of food, you knew that “dinner on the grounds” was a sacred form of congregational picnic that featured, you guessed it, red Kool-Aid and several 9 X 13 casserole dishes.

And speaking of more food, you knew that when the Lord’s Supper was being administered in “big church,” the sermon might be a little shorter, and the Dallas Cowboys were probably playing at noon.

And speaking of even more food, you considered stale Certs mints and Clorets gum from your mother’s purse appetizers to get you through that fourth verse of “Just as I Am” before you headed to the fellowship hall, dinner on the grounds or home for a lunch that was probably baked in a 9 X 13 casserole dish.

Before any meal, you could say a blessing in the King James version because you could use “Thee,” “Thou,” Thine” and “Thy” without sounding like Daffy Duck.

During “big church,” you could do amazing sketch art with one of those eraserless pew pencils and the back of a complimentary tithing envelope.

...continued

swipe to next page