(Enjoy this article written by guest author, Nancy Posey. Nancy grew up in such similar circumstances as did I, that reading her recollections of Gospel Meetings took me straight back to my childhood.)

As the oldest child, I probably logged more hours of car rides with my dad than any of my sisters, listening to his stories and engaging in adult conversation as I accompanied him to gospel meetings (what the Baptists call revivals). We rode to churches with such names as Gravel Hill and Sandy Hook, close enough to home to make the drive back and forth on weekdays, while spending all day Sunday for both services.

I ate my fill at dinners on the ground, learning to stand near Daddy who was always called on to ask the blessing then placed in the front of the line. I knew there would be plenty of fried chicken and potato salad, fresh-sliced homegrown tomatoes and cucumbers, but I didn’t want to risk missing out on the fried okra or homemade peach or apple pies.

I loved the singings that followed the meals. Even though we all declared we were too full to sing, we sang. Loud. We sang all those old standards: “Send the Light” and “Old Rugged Cross.” Mama had taught me to sing alto one afternoon in the kitchen, choosing “Angry Words,” an easy song for harmonizing. I also learned to love those foot-stomping Stamps-Baxter hymns that let the basses or the altos show out a little—“Salvation Has Been Brought Down” or “Paradise Valley.”

I loved eating dinner the rest of the week in the homes of church folks who competed for the honors of hosting the preacher. We thought nothing of eating outdoors with the family’s six dogs beneath the table hoping someone would drop a scrap or two. If I was lucky, those who welcomed us might have kids my age who sometimes became instant best friends—and then I saw them the next summer and the one after that or I never saw them again.

At those summer gospel meetings, I loved the certainty of responses to the invitation song: “Almost Persuaded” and “Oh, Why Not Tonight?” sung, as the preacher always said to mark the end of the sermon, “while we stand and while we sing.” Weeping penitents filled the front pew, and many young folks or long holdouts among the adults chose these occasions to “come forward” to be baptized. In fact, one song often led to another—“just one more verse.” Many of these little churches didn’t have their own baptisteries (or indoor plumbing, for that matter), necessitating a trip to the nearest creek bank. The churches that had added a baptistery usually had a painted mural in the background that showed a tree-lined river with blue sky and white clouds.

As I got older, I don’t remember going to as many of those little churches as I do the gospel meetings at our home congregation. Nowadays it’s almost laughable to imagine expecting church folks to show up every night for a week to hear preaching meant to pack those front pews when the invitation was offered. Some consider Wednesday night Bible study onerous. Now that we’ve experienced the limits of the current pandemic, I wonder if dinners on the grounds will go the way of the dodo bird. I hope not.
Maybe what we need now, though, is a real revival, a time to be “pricked in our hearts” like that first audience on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter spoke, led by the Spirit, without worrying about stepping on toes. I know Daddy could still stir hearts from the pulpit, and I’d be sure to stand beside him for the blessing at dinner so I could get to the front of the food line.