Dinner on the Grounds and Revival
It was more than a thing. Back in the day, it brought communities together - juicy gossip and threats of going to hell included.
By Donnie Johnston
COLUMNIST
These hot, sweltery July nights remind me of the Baptist church revivals of my childhood.
Revival was a big event for small rural congregations like ours, a time for the renewal of one’s faith and a chance to bring unrepentant sinners to the Lord.
It was also a big social event and the week (sometimes two) of preaching often started with “homecoming” on the Sunday with the revival services beginning that night.
If God and the weatherman cooperated, there was “dinner on the grounds” and many rural churches had permanent sideboards (built of rough lumber and covered with tablecloths on festive occasions) constructed off to one side of the churchyard.
They had one purpose – to hold the covered dishes the ladies of the church cooked and brought, and often they were used only once a year.
Homecoming was just what the name implied, a time when those who had grown up in the church and moved away could come back and renew old acquaintances. It was also a time when members of neighboring churches would come and visit. Even a few Methodists snuck in and joined in the hymn-sing that often followed the meal.
Sunday school at 10, preaching at 11, dinner at one, a hymn-sing at three and revival starting at eight that night (a few hours in-between for the farmers to go home and do the feeding and milking). It was a full day of religious celebration.
The visiting preacher had to come from at least three counties away. If he had any controversy associated with him (some member of every Baptist congregation dislikes the pastor and spreads rumors), it should be left in a far-away county.
Out-of-state preachers were preferred, especially from North Carolina. North Carolina, with Wake Forest University, the Cadillac seminary of Southern Baptists, turned out some fine evangelists. If the visiting preacher was from North Carolina, you could bet he was good.
Thinking back, I don’t remember any visiting preacher from West Virginia, however, which was much closer. But then there were the stories of the snake handlers over there.
Each night the visiting preacher and the pastor always “took dinner” with a different family in the congregation, almost always a deacon but occasionally a member whose check made the plate heavy when it was passed on Sunday.
And members whose families had been in the church for generations were on the list.
One thing about revivals: you often didn’t get your regular seat because some visitor who didn’t know the rules would beat you to it. Regular seats are important to Baptists and congregations have been known to split because someone dared sit in another’s seat.
Still, on a revival night you didn’t look daggers at someone who dared sit where you father and your grandfather and his father before him had sat. You just suffered through the frustration and made sure you got there earlier the next night.
There were the usual hymns and prayers and the passing of the plate before the sermon began, with special music (by a visiting group or singer) occurring just before the visiting preacher stepped up to the podium. At our church, the highlight of the week was the Mennonite choir that came over from the next county. They were delightful.
Sometimes if the visiting preacher had a wife with a good voice, he would bring her along for special music. Otherwise, the wife stayed home.
After the special music the preacher stepped to the podium, rolled up his sleeves (on a 90-degree night in an un-insulated building with no air-conditioning, he had long since shed his suit coat), took off his watch and placed it face up beside his Bible, a false indication that he would be careful not to preach past his allotted time.
He always started with a humorous story or anecdote that might or might not tie in with the sermon. He spoke quietly at first, gradually getting louder and more animated, occasionally pausing to wipe the sweat from his brow with a white handkerchief, which he had placed on the other side of his Bible.
Sometimes the hellfire and brimstone sermons would get so loud that they would wake the old men who had forgotten their hearing aids, cause the little kids to snuggle close to their mothers and drown out the sounds of the crickets, barking dogs and passing cars (occasionally some wild teenager would scream out a car window) that came through the open windows.
Through it all the cardboard fans with the tongue-depressor handles that advertised a local funeral home would wave in a futile attempt to move the hot air toward someone else.
And in an aisle seat the old game-legged owner of that funeral home sat during at least one night of revival, surveying the congregation for future customers.
Then the “repent or you’re going to hell” sermon wound down and became a pleading for the unsaved to come to Jesus. The pleading often continued through the singing of the invitation hymn and the preacher, arms uplifted, might instruct the last verse to be sung again so that the unsaved might have one last chance.
Today there is often little emotion associated with conversion, but in those days it was a vital part of the process.
And when the sermon was over, we went home revived and feeling good. That was the way it was.
Neil Diamond described it accurately, only our revivals were mostly in July and not August, and not in a tent.
Homecoming and revivals. They were important summer events for rural Baptist churches.
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