Easter Sunday morning the church was overflowing with worshipers. Before the singing commenced, several people were baptized. The baptistry is beautiful with a large, colored glass mosaic of Jesus in the background. I thought of the church I attended when we lived in the little house under the big oaks, before my family moved to town.(This was where we lived when my brother and I got lost in the woods.) That church was in a school house. I played the piano. We had a song leader but no choir. Everybody sang heartily. And loudly.We made joyful noises unto the Lord and hopefully the Lord was pleased with our musical offerings. The minister didn’t have a sound system to carry his voice to the far corners of the church. There were no far corners. And he didn’t need an amplifier. But he was a sincere man and we appreciated his understanding of the Bible.
When my mother was a young girl at Etta in northeast Oklahoma, there was no church building and no regular Sunday meetings. They had revivals that lasted a week or two, in the Etta school house. The revivals were usually in the fall when the crops had been gathered and farm work had slowed down some. Then after the revival, everyone went to the Illinois River. The horses pulled wagons onto a large gravel bar and there, at a ford in the river, new converts were baptized.
After church yesterday, my family and I sat down to a large and delicious Sunday dinner. My son grilled meat and vegetables and my daughter-in-law and granddaughter had made a tasty cake and other good things. Then the grandchildren hunted for eggs. As I watched the children’s excitement, just enjoying being with my family, my heart overflowed with gratitude for the Lord’s blessings. To me, worship is more than gathering in a church building, whether it is large or small. Worship is simply an expression of love for our Savior. In the lives we live those six other days of the week, we are saying Thank You to our Creator.
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