It had been a long time—a very long time—since I had walked through the doors. Some things had been changed, added to, moved, or eliminated…but it was the same: familiar, warm, and comforting. I was back in my hometown of Kingsport, Tennessee and it was a Sunday. It was just before 11:00 a.m. and I found a seat about two of the way back and settled in. After 41 years, I was back in a pew at Mountain View United Methodist Church.
I had started going to the church youth group on a Sunday evening during the summer of 1966. Two girls, Andrea Carter and Sherry Cloninger, and the new pastor at the Church, The Rev’d Fred Austin, saw me sitting on my front porch, stopped, and invited me to the Methodist Youth Fellowship.
I went and discovered that the youth group, with me included, now numbered three. Yet it was to be a beginning—my beginning.
The congregation itself was housed in a small country church that would, in three years, add a new sanctuary as the membership grew dramatically.
I would be baptized in that old church and would spend nearly every Sunday, and a lot more days, in the building and on those grounds. I remembered when the new church was built and occupied.
Although I was just a teen, I felt as if the church were my church. My parents didn’t attend so I got rides, walked, or hitchhiked to church until I finally got a car.
Sitting in the sanctuary after so much time had passed—and yet it seemed as if no time at all had passed—memories, happy memories, came flooding back. It was over there that my youth comrades and co-conspirators sat during services. It was in that pulpit that I preached my first sermon on Youth Day, and a terrible sermon it was, although mercifully short at just 11 minutes. In this room and on the grounds strong friendships were formed.
It was in a Sunday School room of the old building, now gone to make way for a new Family Life Center, that I heard the Bible taught by Mrs. Jean Bridwell. It was there that the youth planned and executed outings, parties, retreats, fund-raisers, and that Christian awareness and growth came. It was in the church office that the youth published a monthly newsletter and featured some of my early efforts at writing. It was in this place that I first came into a leadership role, having been chosen as MYF President.
It was in the pastor’s office or in his home located on the property that a kid whose family didn’t go to church found friendship and mentoring. In was under the big tree that I confessed to the pastor, just before I went off to the Marine Corps during Vietnam days, that I wasn’t prepared to die and it was there that he gave me assurances that God would be with me—and He was.
It was at that altar, under the imposing cross that prominently hung on the wall, that my wife and I were married over 43 years ago.
Stephen E. Duncan, who grew up with me in this church, was my best man. It was from this place that I was first licensed to preach.
And it was there on that Sunday just a few days ago, that I was warmly welcomed as a guest, shook plenty of hands, heard and sang the songs, listened to the youth hand bell choir, heard the Chancel Choir’s special, listed to the pastor’s sermon, went forward for Holy Communion, and shed tears of gratitude for this place and the people who allowed it to be a refuge for me so long ago. No one, save one person, knew who I was and that was fine with me. For one beautiful hour, I had come home.
I was made here. I began my journey here.
Through the years, this place, and the experiences of my life here, have been with me throughout my life. I was changed here. What would later become my ministry was largely shaped here.
Thomas Wolfe said, “You can’t go home again.” But you can. If only to visit, to reflect, to remember, and to rejoice.
[ David Epps is the pastor of the Cathedral of Christ the King, 4881 Hwy 34 E., Sharpsburg, GA 30277. Services are held Sundays at 8:30 and 10:00 a.m. (www.ctkcec.org) He is the bishop of the Mid-South Diocese (Georgia and Tennessee), (www.midsouthdiocese.org) He may be contacted at frepps@ctkcec.org.]
