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What is your earliest memory of Church?


HisFirst

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On 1/18/2018 at 6:22 PM, HisFirst said:

My most vivid memory is of about 5 or 6 years of age and being very frightened to close my eyes in prayer - I thought something 'bad' would happen while our eyes were shut!!

 

*and also the adults after service outside the Church building, pinching my chubby cheeks and calling me Goldie locks and "oh, doesn't she look like Shirley Temple!!".... I wanted an escape route really fast!

My folks attended a VERY pentecostal church when I was a child. My first memory of church was being petrified of the visiting minister laying hands on me to pray (I had some kidney issues back then due to being very premature and the church was believing for my healing) ... everyone he touched fell down and I certainly didn't want too fall down too (I distinctly remember thinking that). I was probably 3.5 - 4 years old. I will say that my parents eventually drug me up to be prayed for and I remember being so scared .... I was in my early 20's before I felt "ok" with having anyone pray over me in a similar way due to this encounter and others like it in my childhood .... but that's a whole other topic.  :)

I also have very fond memories of hiding under the pews and coloring/drawing for hours ... those services were 2-3 hours long .... I had a LOT of time to master coloring. lol

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Growing up with a staunch Catholic mum and a staunch Anglican dad, with equally staunch grandparents respectively. (The scandal in the 1920s of my dad getting my mum pregnant with my older sister resulted in eloping to another city and marriage there...no photos anywhere exists of my parents wedding) . I was raised Catholic. Altar boy who learnt the Latin mass by heart but had no idea what it meant. I have no specific memories of church, apart from one that stands out over everything else.......

....After leaving high school, and having no more direct connection to the church, I stopped attending until one Christmas Eve when I was about 19yo. My friends and I, who were all Catholic, at least nominally, were at a Christmas eve party, when at 10 to 12 decided to attend midnight mass. There were 8 of us. One of us, whose house it was where the party was, was a non-believer. No religion at all, never attended any church in his life. Until that night. 

Enter 8 semi-intoxicated youths to local cathedral, very late, with very few seats remaining. We filter in making as little noise as is possible, in the middle of one of the more reverent and serious portions of the ritual. Spread out in various parts of the congregation, numbering maybe 1000 people, 6 of us finally made it to our seats. The remaining 2, Catholic with unbeliever following immediately behind still making steady progress forward until there was discovered two seats to accommodate them together. All is hush. 6 of us being as respectful and as reverent as one would expect in such surroundings. Final 2 friends approach pew when seats spied...Catholic genuflects friend crashes into him summersaulting on to the floor beyond. 

Despite the ensuing melee and mixed reactions of indignation, horror, and poorly suppressed laughter from different quarters of the building, all 8 managed to eventually leave without being struck by lightning. Although our reputations from that night forward were permanently tarnished in the minds of many. It was the last time I entered that building. It sadly burnt down about 10 years later. Not our fault, I swear.

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3 hours ago, simplejeff said:

Wooden pew.   Everyone sit straight eyes forward and stay somber, quiet (not in a good way).  Little children sometimes on their knees on the floor facing backwards while coloring book on the pew while they used crayons to color pictures during service.   Joy ?  < shrugs > no one looked joyful.  more than that ?  < shrugs >  "religious people" with a form of religion and no power to save nor to heal.  no gospel preached, taught or practiced. (didn't think so at the time,  only years later after meeting real joyful peaceful healing rejoicing dancing even young and old alike with true saving, saved, and healing, healed lives and words as from the One True Living YHWH and Jesus His Son The Messiah in line with all Scripture,  living as they spoke,  living as YHWH'S Word says to live. ) 

 

Hi Jeff, is this Catholic church?

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Just now, brakelite said:

Growing up with a staunch Catholic mum and a staunch Anglican dad, with equally staunch grandparents respectively. (The scandal in the 1920s of my dad getting my mum pregnant with my older sister resulted in eloping to another city and marriage there...no photos anywhere exists of my parents wedding) . I was raised Catholic. Altar boy who learnt the Latin mass by heart but had no idea what it meant. I have no specific memories of church, apart from one that stands out over everything else.......

....After leaving high school, and having no more direct connection to the church, I stopped attending until one Christmas Eve when I was about 19yo. My friends and I, who were all Catholic, at least nominally, were at a Christmas eve party, when at 10 to 12 decided to attend midnight mass. There were 8 of us. One of us, whose house it was where the party was, was a non-believer. No religion at all, never attended any church in his life. Until that night. 

Enter 8 semi-intoxicated youths to local cathedral, very late, with very few seats remaining. We filter in making as little noise as is possible, in the middle of one of the more reverent and serious portions of the ritual. Spread out in various parts of the congregation, numbering maybe 1000 people, 6 of us finally made it to our seats. The remaining 2, Catholic with unbeliever following immediately behind still making steady progress forward until there was discovered two seats to accommodate them together. All is hush. 6 of us being as respectful and as reverent as one would expect in such surroundings. Final 2 friends approach pew when seats spied...Catholic genuflects friend crashes into him summersaulting on to the floor beyond. 

Despite the ensuing melee and mixed reactions of indignation, horror, and poorly suppressed laughter from different quarters of the building, all 8 managed to eventually leave without being struck by lightning. Although our reputations from that night forward were permanently tarnished in the minds of many. It was the last time I entered that building. It sadly burnt down about 10 years later. Not our fault, I swear.

Lol, that's funny but at least u guys weren't kicked out for being half tanked.

I don't think the Baptist churches I attended would've tolerated that :)

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27 minutes ago, Gary Lee said:

You pretty much described my early memories, bryan. But the old catholic church I attended in the fifties  was probably over a hundred years old and looked like a small Notre Dame, with fifty foot ceilings, and a hundred paintings and statues and gargoyles. (and five hundred candles). And my memories were about my constant nervousness as a kid walking behind that priest as an altar boy, forgetting my (Latin) responses. Third or fourth grade. My mom wanted at least one of her six boys to serve mass, and I was elected. Up to my early teenage years, it was not uncommon for me to be in church five or six days a week. But never heard the Gospel. But I learned plenty of Latin, just not what it meant. And like you said, dark, quiet, and "reverent". Very formal. Strict. Today, so many years later, the smell of incense will trigger the dark age of my life.

Hi Gary,

I'm assuming this is a Catholic church?

Gargoyles staring down at me would've totally freaked me out as a kid lol.

I once thought a little old lady neighbour (I was about 7) was a witch!!

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7 minutes ago, HisFirst said:

Lol, that's funny but at least u guys weren't kicked out for being half tanked.

I don't think the Baptist churches I attended would've tolerated that :)

Likely not, no. But Catholics tolerate all manner of dubious behaviour don't they. There was a pub down the road not one hundred meters from the presbytery and this very church, that was known in the city as the "Catholic" pub. Even in those staid years of the 50s and 60s in NZ when all pubs had to close by 6pm, this particular pub would be open till 3 in the morning. A tap on the back door and entrance was free...with priests AND local cops in the gathering therein. All good Catholics of course.

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5 hours ago, walla299 said:

I didn't grow up in a Christian home either. Dad served in the Pacific in WWII and came back with a real hatred for God from what other family members told me. He was raised in the Episcopal church as a kid. I had the chance to talk to him about that before he passed. After seeing the things he did in the Pacific during the war he figured anyone (God in this case) who would allow all that to go on was either evil or just didn't care. No religious training at home, and didn't set foot in a church until I was in the Air Force and got invited to one by some of those strange "Jesus people" that were in my Squadron.

First ever church service was in a small Baptist church near the base I was stationed at in Arkansas. People called "Amen!" during the sermon like they meant it, no one screamed, yelled, or swung from the lights shouting "alleluia!" They actually taught the Bible as the Word of God back then and I was saved not long after at age 19.

I'm always impressed when teenagers come to the Lord, because as a teen and into my 20's, I was so caught up in the world, however I always prayed and was aware  I wasn't on the straight and narrow.

Hope your dad made his peace with God before he passed.:emot-hug: 

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Just now, brakelite said:

Likely not, no. But Catholics tolerate all manner of dubious behaviour don't they. There was a pub down the road not one hundred meters from the presbytery and this very church, that was known in the city as the "Catholic" pub. Even in those staid years of the 50s and 60s in NZ when all pubs had to close by 6pm, this particular pub would be open till 3 in the morning. A tap on the back door and entrance was free...with priests AND local cops in the gathering therein. All good Catholics of course.

Cops and priests drinking on the job!! Wow, aren't we in good hands lol!!

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17 hours ago, HisFirst said:

Lol! (I knew carrots were good for something!!!!)

Change of subject here but my mom loves to remind me of the first time I ever tried carrot cake when I was a kid (I love the stuff but I hate carrots).

She keeps telling me how I (I dont remember this myself) kept kicking up a storm over it until the cake was place in front of me and then it was straight from NO no, I hate carrots I dont want this!!!! To.....Oh.....yumm!!!

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14 hours ago, brakelite said:

Likely not, no. But Catholics tolerate all manner of dubious behaviour don't they. There was a pub down the road not one hundred meters from the presbytery and this very church, that was known in the city as the "Catholic" pub. Even in those staid years of the 50s and 60s in NZ when all pubs had to close by 6pm, this particular pub would be open till 3 in the morning. A tap on the back door and entrance was free...with priests AND local cops in the gathering therein. All good Catholics of course.

I will say they sure do tolerate lots of dubious and evil behavior .     Their main leader KISSES KORANS and budda statues and says all religions are finding their own way to GOD

WHAT A DUNG PILE LIE .   but its spreading fast into many churches this all inclusive behavior is.   Be on guard this spirit of all inclusive for world peace

is leading all to the son of perdition.      And whether I live or die,  the saying IS , JESUS ONLY SAVES and HE aint no minister of sin.    

The reformation has seen nothing yet .     This pope or whoever  will be calling us who warn out against him and his all inclusive THE WILD BOARS .

Better to be called a wild boar than to sit under the all inclusive WHORE .     man its a rhyme .   who wants to put it on a t shirt .   

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