Homecoming

Homecomings are fast becoming a thing of the past. Very few churches have them anymore and the ones that do are not attended like they once were. When I was a kid and even a young adult Homecomings were a thing that you looked forward to all year. If you had ever belonged to a church you always tried to make it back to Homecoming. I guess if you left mad you wouldn't but we never left a church mad at anyone. So it was a special time for us. 

When the Homecomings were at our church my mom would cook for the whole week preparing for it as did all the ladies in the church. Much the same as how I do today. You needed to be one of the first in line if you were to get any of Mrs. Spencer's chicken and dumplings or her chocolate pies. My mom was a good cook and would make huge pots of stuff but it was usually all eaten. 

Years ago we would have the meals outside on tables set up on horse saws. The air was hot and the flies were plentiful. Then eventually most of the churches had enclosed shelters or Fellowship Buildings. Most Homecomings are in the summer or early fall and it is usually hot. That is when the fans come out. We usually had fans provided to the church by a funeral home with their advertisement on them. But they sure came in handy not only to fan to be cool but to fan the flies away. 

For years Homecoming would last all day. We would have a special Preacher and special singers that morning and about 12:30 or 1:00 after hearing the preaching and singing we would go eat lunch. Lunch would last for about an hour and a half and then we would go back inside the church and we would have more singing and preaching until about 4:30 or 5:00. We usually didn't have night service. 

Now we don't have SS and we still have a visiting Preacher and special singers. Lots of times the Preacher is one that has previously been Pastor of the church. We do not go back in after lunch any more to listen to more preaching and singing. I think because people would be so full everybody would go to sleep. Ha, ha. And we do not have a night service. 

When we were going to House Mountain Church and I was singing with a group we were invited many times to sing at Homecomings. I will never forget when we were invited to a church somewhere between Halls and Powell and after lunch we started singing. The church was sitting on corner stones and when we began to sing the song "Ground Breaking"  the people began to shout and walk on the floor and James said he could feel the building shaking and thought that it might fall off the corner stones. There was also a graveyard beside the church that you could see out of the window and he said he looked for people to start coming out of those graves any time. We really did have some good times going to Homecomings and singing. 

Like I said at the beginning Homecomings are fast becoming a thing of the past. It is hard to get people to attend church any more for a regular service and then they don't want it to last more than an hour at the maximum. I am glad I have these memories of times past.