The Baptisms

Week before last we held a Baptism at Douglas Mill Baptist Church. It was the first Baptism to which I've been witness since returning to my home Church. Actually, just walking in the front door door is forever a source of amazement to me. It is so very different from the Church of my childhood that it boggles my mind.




I spent every summer with my Grandparents, Dwight and Nancy Douglas, from a small child into my teens. I was a Summer Baptist, you understand. A Catholic girl when at home with my parents, a Baptist girl when with the elders during the summertime. The Douglas Mill of my childhood had broad planked wooden floors and hard backed pews, burned oil in a big old oil burner for warmth in winter and wooden window sticks for air conditioning to cool you in the summer...oh and those wonderful Miller Rivers Funeral Home fans on a stick for constant movement of said air. The pulpit was a simple wooden stand to hold Preacher Entzminger or Preacher Giffen's Bible, a simple wooden chair to rest in during singing. We had Deacons but they took up the offering and as far as I can remember never sat either side of the Preacher during the Sermon.



So, last Sunday I was witness to a Baptism that took place in the Baptismal water that is directly behind the Pulpit. Preacher Wayne had accepted that Harley and Will knew their hearts and had accepted Christ as their Savior and proceeded to make their knowledge Word. I watched them along with other family members as these two young people made their way into the water and Preacher Wayne took care of the rest. I couldn't help but remember the days when Baptisms only took place in late Spring and Summer. The entire congregation would walk down to Douglas Mill Pond and the Preacher would take the person down into the pond water to baptize them. In my mind I see them dressed in white sheets, but I'm sure it was Baptismal robes only worn for this special occasion. I can hear the singing as we walked down to the pond, the voices rising with pure joy as we went, I AM A POOR WAYFARING STRANGER.... listen to Trace Adkins bring it home...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EXX0S9P1SUo&playnext=1&list=PL68A5F68E91A00717


So, now in our little church by the roadside (where everyone is someone) we have stained glass in the place of plain window glass, the carpet is appropriately red, the pews offer comfort rather than rigidity and the Pulpit is still plain but oddly lovely. There are three chairs behind the Pulpit, one for the Preacher and one each for the Deacons, though I've never seen a Deacon sit there. We have central air and heat and no longer can you raise a window to get a breeze. But that's okay, there are ceiling fans to keep that air moving. But still, I missed my little Miller Rivers Funeral Home fan of long ago. My grandparents and Uncle Gary and Aunt Edith (Douglas) would be so pleased to see the changes that a constant congregational offering has wrought. It's such a lovely little Church that anyone would be happy to attend the Services. But I can still see the original rough draft and can smell the honeysuckle scent that came through the upraised windows, held open with simple wooden sticks. I can see my grandmother on the second pew, fanning a grandbaby with that little fan. I can feel the texture of the religious tracts she kept in her Bible, the ones we would read when the Preacher's sermon became to long and complicated to keep our attention. My favorite was always the one about the man who wept because he had no shoes till he saw the man who had no feet. Yes, our little Church is lovely, but my memories of how she was are precious to me. Nostalgia causes lumps in throats and hitches in hearts. I wouldn't trade the way Douglas Mill Baptist Church is today for that church of long ago, but the memories, I wouldn't take a million dollars for a one of them.