Mother started taking us to church early in our
lives. New Home Baptist Church is the
first church I remember attending.
Slated pews and oil lamps with round reflectors hanging on the sides of
the walls were used for lighting the sanctuary.
I remember an organ or piano in the large choir, and that people came
from far and near and from all directions.
They came on foot, on horseback, in buggies and wagons; to hear the old
fashioned hellfire and brimstone sermon.
The mothers all took a jar of water and a blanket, which
were placed on the floor. It was here
that the smaller children lay down for a nap before the Amen. I can still see Imogene Wright, Charlotte
Baker, and myself lying there, on different pallets, making faces at each
other.
Paul Tyner and Ollie Brewer always got happy. Paul Tyner would get up and walk on the backs
of the pews, and Aunt Ollie would just simply fall backwards. Someone always seemed to catch her before she
hit the floor.
Those were good old days to remember. Just to crawl into a wagon loaded down with
neighbors again, headed for church; Uncle Jake and Aunt Julie Burr, Roy and
Delores, all the Bakers. People loved to
sing, and we all sang out in harmony to our Lord and our God. Today people don’t sing like they use
to. There is a difference. We use to sing from our Soul, but today we
sing from a book.
Uncle Carrol, Aunt Mabel, Genevieve, and Geraldine also
went to New Home. Mother, Marie, and
Clifton joined and were baptized here.
Mother and Marie were dismissed later, a scar that almost destroyed two
lives. Marie had a birthday party when
she was thirteen and Lewis Wyatt was there with his fiddle and playing
music. Marie and Florann Baker got to dancing
and someone told the preacher. Later,
the church asked for Mother and Marie’s letters.
Mother finally worked through all the resentment she had
for the Baptist some fifty years later.
After fifty years, she buried all the resentment and made piece with the
world. She had made piece with the Lord
years before, but she had resented the church for fifty years. But bless her sweet old heart, she was
baptized into the East Side Baptist Church in Paragould two years before her
death. She finally was over all the
resentment.
Marie, however, has still not worked out all the
resentment. She is working on it, by
reading and seeing for herself what the Bible has to say. We have had lots of long talks, but she
always remembers some old preacher selling Bootleg whiskey to the boys after
church. I remind her that the church is
not responsible for men like this, but we must learn from these examples.
First may we learn we can’t scare people into loving God
with Hell. John the Baptist said I
baptize with water, Jesus Baptizes with the Holy Spirit and Fire. Second may we learn that no man has the right
to say who is worthy to eat at the Lord’s table and who should or should not be
allowed in church.
The memories surrounding New Home Baptist Church are just
a few of the things that have made us who and what we are. We belonged to, and were a part of, a
community of good, loving, and caring people who helped us through a hard time.
New Home Baptist Church still stands today although most
of the older people have long gone home, but church services still
continue. Aunt Ollie Brewer’s
granddaughters, Linda Lou Pruett Gibson and Ava Sue Pruett Payne, still go to
church there. Both have sons. Rudy and Mary Sanford and their daughter Rita
Carrol and her family also still attend church.
