September 18 '04
Volume 433


Church Service Ushers' Finest Moments

I’ve been a churchgoer since my folks got interested in attending First Baptist Church, Iuka, MS, back around 1947. I remember Jack Cranford was the pastor, but I don’t recall what folks called him. Perhaps, they called him Brother Jack. Maybe, he was Brother Cranford, and it’s possible he was simply, Parson. As a five-year old, I didn’t have to know what was proper terminology and what was not. My parents were baptized by Jack Cranford, but I can’t say at what point in their respective lives they became Christians. Neither, can I remember a single sermon or sermon topic preached by the man that baptized my parents. However, I remember standing whenever the congregation sang. For some reason, Heavenly Sunlight, one of the hymns sung, has stuck with me over the years.

I doubt the church had a church staff other than the pastor and possibly a church secretary. I know that to be the case at First Baptist Church, Pontotoc, in 1953. James Monroe was pastor, and I remember everyone called him Brother Monroe. I don’t remember any of his sermons, either, but on many a Sunday morning the church was filled to capacity. I heard the number 500 mentioned a lot and was told we sometimes had 500 folks in the cramped confines of an auditorium smaller than the present one. Strangely, our present capacity is still around 500.

Troy Pitts was "song leader." In those days, "song leader" was a volunteer position and often those who served were not compensated for their talent. The "song leader," like the organist and pianist, the department directors and teachers in Sunday School, and Training Union, were all volunteers.

Over the years, First Baptist Church has changed with respect to the number of staff members. The church now employs a pastor, a Minister of Music, a Minister of Evangelism and Discipleship, a Minister of Youth, and in the summer hires a Summer Youth Worker. Additionally, the church employs two secretaries, a custodian and a church hostess. The church organist and church pianist are also compensated positions.

As far as I know, it’s not written into the constitution and bylaws at FBC, Pontotoc, but I doubt the church will ever call a pastor who doesn’t have a seminary degree, preferably a doctorate. Likewise, a seminary degree is desirable or required for other positions of ministry. I am noting the educational aspect of ministry simply as an expectation that wasn’t always deemed a necessity.

It’s not "Sunday School" anymore, it’s "Bible Study." Likewise, "BTU" for Baptist Training Union, which everyone called Training Union, has changed to "Discipleship Training," and whether the name change or change of emphasis is to blame, I can’t say, but something has pretty much killed it. The demise of Training Union and Discipleship Training has left a generation or more of Baptists who don’t know what they believe, let alone why they believe it. Ah, but I digress.

I’ve observed that as churches grow and more staff members are added, fewer volunteers are required. For example, when FBC, Pontotoc only had one minister, the preacher, a volunteer directed the choir and lead congregational singing. Department directors often reported attendance figures at some point during the worship service, and various individuals in the congregation led in prayer, mostly prior to collecting "the offering" or else voicing a prayer of benediction at the close of the service. Customarily, the pastor prayed "the invocation" and sometimes he prayed immediately before or after his sermon but generally relied on others for the offertory prayer and benediction.

As I look over the typical order of worship on any given Sunday morning worship service at FBC, Pontotoc, I note only one occasion in which persons other than staff members have a major role of service, namely, "the offering." I’m not inferring that choir members don’t contribute to the service or discounting the role of the congregation in singing, giving, or silent prayer, as those are important aspects of worship. But, practically the entire service is staff-oriented.

A staff member prays the invocation; a staff member leads the choir in a call to worship; a staff member makes announcements and welcomes visitors, and if we had enough staff members, they’d probably handle the offering. However, volunteer ushers are still used to pass the "offering plates" throughout the congregation, and an usher typically voices the offertory prayer. Roughly 99 percent of the time, the usher who prays is the one who works (or ushers from) the east door. I don’t know why the prayer assignment normally goes to the east door usher, but it’s become traditional.

If anyone is disgruntled with the present distribution of power with regard to our worship services, I’m not aware of it, except to note a cousin of mine mentioned more than a year ago that our church services were dominated by staff members. Given the fact most church members are content to come and see, I’d say they like things the way they are. Yet, I maintain, the more individuals who actively participate in a worship service and the more responsibility is shared by a congregation, the more one is led to believe his or her service is important to the life of the church and the more satisfied he or she will be with the worship experience.

The service required of an usher is relatively undemanding. Most anyone can hand out a worship guide, greet a visitor, help someone find a seat, or pass a collection plate. Women are exempted from ushering at FBC, Pontotoc, not because they aren’t up to the task, but they are excluded due to fact that women didn’t usher in the New Testament church. But, perhaps it’s believed that women can’t conduct themselves with the same degree of dignity and solemnity as their masculine counterparts. Though men aren’t always successful in pulling off the task of ushering with dignity, either.

Years ago, Bobby Davis dropped an offering plate as he walked down the aisle. It hit the aisle rolling, and Bobby made a few quick steps in order to catch up to it. It was not Bobby’s finest moment as an usher, and he didn’t look very dignified trotting straddle-legged in his recovery effort.

While serving as an usher, Ronnie Browning peered through a crack in the doors and on multiple occasions noted our associate pastor’s lack of decorum whenever a church member was praying. Ronnie claimed the associate bowed his head but kept his eyes open and looked around the auditorium, perhaps making notes as to whom else was doing likewise. Ronnie would have never noticed had he not been guilty of the same. Again, it was not an usher’s finest moment.

I think the individual who best exemplifies an usher’s finest moment is Thomas Boyd, who, when asked to say the offertory prayer during the portion of the service in which ushers gathered in the aisles and prepared to hand out visitor-information cards, dutifully and quite solemnly offered thanks for, "the offering we are about to receive." Unfortunately, the comment Thomas made, when afterwards his fellow ushers teased him, disqualifies him from the Ushers Hall Of Fame, "He asked for an offertory prayer, and by God I gave him one."

I had usher duty last Sunday, and things went fairly smoothly until the east door usher, Larry Ramsey, stepped forward to pray. The congregation had just concluded singing a chorus when Larry set aside his offering plate and started up the steps of the podium. Unfortunately, the steps are not designed for tall guys with long feet. Larry stumbled but didn’t fall. A muffled chuckle or two arose from the congregation as Larry suppressed a smile, and I’m sure he was quite serious as he incorporated a phrase from the just-sung chorus, asking God to lead us "step by step." If anyone in the choir was peeking two-eyed at the time of Larry’s prayer, then they caught me biting my lip to keep from grinning.

Immediately after Larry’s prayer, Mark Crenshaw and I tried to pass two plates down the same row in the middle section of the congregation. When I realized our mistake, I grabbed my plate back from the hands of our slightly startled Minister of Youth, explaining, "I changed my mind." No, it wasn’t my finest moment, either.

Somehow, I figure the days of ushers are numbered. With two Sunday morning church services, neither of which amounts to a full sanctuary, ushers are not needed to help someone to a seat. Worship guides won’t be needed when we eventually get around to projecting everything on a big screen, and, as for taking up collection, I imagine something like a night-deposit box at all entrances would serve the same purpose. In the meantime, I’ll keep a watch for more "finest moments" from the ushers.


September 11, 2004 by Lamar Carter

On Saturday afternoon of 9/11, 2004, I couldn't keep my attention on the US Open tennis match on TV and every time I looked out the window, the view was of that "hole in the sky" where the twin towers used to be.

So I wandered out into Washington Square Park, a block away from where I live.  The Park was filled and alive with all kinds of people -- thousands -- as it often is on a glorious late summer Saturday afternoon in New York City.  I noticed a large collection of people surrounding a chalk-marked open circle and as I approached closer, over the heads of other people I could see a man dressed all in black with a curious little stovepipe black hat.  It's not unusual to find performers who draw audiences in the Park on weekends.

But then I recognized him.  He had that magnetic presence that draws attention away from anything else that might be going on around.  He was doing acrobatic things and juggling and magic such as pulling coins out of the ears of children sitting on the edge of the chalk mark...and doing it all in mime.  I had seen him several times before.  I remembered one year his walking a rope he'd strung between trees in the Park, and on other occasions as well.  Of course, he is the famous Philippe Petit who has mesmerized people in many places in the world,
being particularly known before 9/11 for walking a wire between the towers of Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris and other places.

Just about the time the twin towers were nearing completion in 1974, he and a team in the middle of the night managed to slip into the two buildings with hundreds of pounds of equipment and get it to the tops of the buildings.  Despite mishap after mishap, they were able to string a wire seven-eighths inch thick between the two buildings as early morning
approached.  Then, as the rising sun lit up the towers, he stepped out onto the wire.  For almost an hour, back and forth, he walked, danced, ran, and knelt in a salute upon the wire.  As reported, "he even lay down to rest, the city and harbor spread beneath him.  Seagulls flew under and over." 

I remember seeing from my apartment window that morning what looked like a figure moving, obviously on some kind of cable, between the towers' tops but, given the distance I only imagined it had something to do with final construction...until quite soon I heard differently on the news. Petit was arrested, taken to court, where a judge sentenced him to put
on performances on a wire in parks for children.

So on my Saturday afternoon in the Park, as the crowd around him watched in unusually --relatively-- respectful silence, it seemed a fitting, and all seemed to understand it so, tribute he was making on this anniversary of the towers destruction ... and in memory of the 2,700+ lives taken so unthinkably.  When he concluded his walk this day on the rope between the tree and a lamppost, he silently slid down the tree trunk, carefully wrapped up the rope, stashed his equipment in a shoulder bag, checked his unicycle and prepared to leave.  There was a
very respectful applause...and unasked the audience began to hold out currency notes, dollar bills and other denominations.  He silently
passed his stovepipe hat around the circle ... and the bills overflowed it.  Still without a sound from him, he packed his bag, strung it over his shoulder, got on his unicycle, motioned for people to open the circle so he could have a path to leave, and when we'd done so, unicycled South out of the Park in the direction of where the towers had stood. 

It was a moving experience, I guess about the most powerful salute I've seen or heard in memory of those events of the day we here remember simply as 9/11.

(There's a beautiful children's style book that tells the story of Petit's walk with graphics and a minimum of comment.  It is by Mordicai Gerstein, "The Man Who Walked between the Towers," Roaring Book Press, Brookfield, Connecticut, 2003.)


The Perfect Name By Tami Harrell

Your column about perfect names reminded me of all the trouble we had in finding the "perfect name" for our third and last child, Benn.

Since Lewis and I had both lost our grandmothers during my pregnancy with this child, we thought it a fitting tribute to name "it" in memory of the two grandmothers, Jessie Hayes Bennett (mine) and Lois Jackson Maurer (his).

We tend to be "old school" about finding out the gender of a baby so we had to have two names ready. A girl was easy…Jessie Maura Harrell. Maura was a play on Maurer and Lewis’ sister’s name too. But the boy name had us stumped. I liked "Bennett" but because it was my maiden name nothing sounded good BEHIND it. Our first choice was really good and a wonderful tribute but alas, "Jessie Jackson" was already taken!

We finally found a name that honored both sides of the family and would be uniquely his, Jackson Bennett Harrell.

We thought we had done well…no famous (or well known) person could possibly have his name. That is until his first Sunday in church at FBC, Indianola. Joy Card walked up and said, "Aw look, it’s little Jack Benny!"

You can’t win for losing!


Bodock Beau Signs Found In Kitchens

There is seemingly no end to the lists to help one determine if he or she is a redneck. One of these days, I may discover that I’m a redneck.

More Ways To Tell You Might Be A Redneck

  • You find yourself judging a "catfish cook-out" and liking it.
  • Your prenuptial agreement mentions chickens.
  • You have jacked up your home to look for a dog.
  • Your neighbor has ever asked to borrow a quart of beer.
  • There is a belch on your answering machine greeting.
  • You have rebuilt a carburetor while sitting on the commode.
  • None of the tires on your van are the same size.
  • Your idea of getting lucky is passing the emissions test.
  • Your town put the new garbage truck in the Christmas parade.
  • Your local beauty salon also fixes cars.
  • Your doghouse and your living room have the same shag carpet.
  • You’ve ever slow danced in the Waffle House.
  • Starting your car involves raising the hood.
  • Your garbage man is confused about what goes and what stays.
  • You whistle at women in church.
  • You actually wear shoes your dog brought home.
  • You’ve been in a fistfight at a yard sale.
  • You carry a fly swatter in the front seat of the car so you can reach the kids in the back seat.
  • You think people who have cell phones and e-mail are uppity.

Signs Found In Kitchens

  • I clean house every other day. Today is the other day.
  • So this isn’t Home Sweet Home…Adjust.
  • Ring bell for Maid Service. If no answer, do it yourself.
  • I would cook dinner, but I can’t find the can opener.
  • My house was clean last week. Too bad you missed it.
  • A clean kitchen is a sign of a wasted life.
  • If you don’t like my standards of cooking…lower your standards.
  • Apology: Although you’ll find our house a mess, come in, sit down, converse. It doesn’t always look like this. Some days it’s even worse.
  • A messy kitchen is a happy kitchen, and this kitchen is delirious.
  • Martha Stewart doesn’t live here.
  • If we are what we eat, then I’m easy, fast, and cheap.
  • A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand.
  • Help keep the kitchen clean. Eat out.

Shared by Kim Goslin

Share this article with a friend.


get this gear!

Home

Copyright © 2000 - 2004 RRN Online.