The Baptists and the Blood
I had a totally bizarre dream last night in which I returned to my hometown of Bartow, Florida, to take pictures inside First Baptist Church, the place I attended from 1980-1986. This was noteworthy for me as I have an intensely strong, psychological desire to venture back to various places I’ve lived just to take digital pictures. You know, of schools, houses, stores, etc.. I’m not sure why this is, but it just is. Returning to Hialeah, Florida, where I lived from 1978-1980 is probably the place I most want to return to, but Google Earth is holding me over in the meantime.
In the dream, I found myself inside FBC with my digital camera. It was a Wednesday night in my dream, and that’s when the church would serve the weekly dinner that preceded the midweek service. The church building itself was constructed in 1925 and seated about 600 people on its beautifully finished oak pews that curved gently toward the front of the sanctuary. It had a wrap-around balcony that sat between the upper and lower sections of stained glass windows. There was also a 37-rank Mohler pipe organ in the front of the sanctuary with 427 pipes exposed in two console boxes that were mounted on both sides of the baptistry. The church itself has an interesting history, and one of its former pastors is Dr. Charles Stanley, who is now pastor of FBC in Atlanta. I’m sure you’ve at some point seen his “In Touch” TV program as you have flipped through the cable lineup. I always wondered if the pastors after Stanley were jealous when many in the congregation would rush back home on Sunday nights to catch Stanley’s TV broadcast.
Bartow itself has a colorful history as it was the first major white settlement in the state of Florida built to defend settlers against the Seminole uprisings that were coming from the southern part of the state. This “city of oaks and azaleas” was originally named Ft. Blount, but it was later renamed in honor of the first Confederate general to die during the Civil War. The town itself is relatively small—about 15,000—but at one point it had the highest per-capita income in the country, at least that is what I’ve heard over the years. It’s not too hard to believe because there are a large number of historic mansions along its oak-lined streets (although there are fewer oaks than before given that the eyes of 3 hurricanes in 2005 passed over Polk County).
The main industry in the county has been citrus, phosphate mining, and cattle. One of my most vivid memories was playing Dixie Youth League baseball on manicured fields as the sweet smell of burnt orange rinds wafted through the warm summer evening air. (That’s what the orange juice plants would do with the rinds—burn them, and they smelled great. It’s better than the smell of the Staley plant in Lafayette!).
All that to say that I’m back home and with my digital camera in hand. My imagination gave me a high-definition experience inside the church, but for the sake of time and space, I’ll describe just a few observations. First, the sanctuary itself was about 3 times larger than what I remember it being in real life. This struck me as odd, even in my dream, as the places of our childhood are usually perceived as being smaller when viewed later in life. The sanctuary in my dream would seat 1,500 easily if the traditional pews had still been in place. What shocked me more than the size increase was the layout of the main floor. Although some oak pews were in place—there was a section of pews in the front and center that had obnoxiously thick red cushions on them—the remainder of the main floor had been transformed into various arrangements featuring oak dining sets. Most of the dinning tables were standard height and were pushed together in groups of 4 or 6 tables, but in the section immediately behind the oak pews, there were several clusters of bar-height chairs and tables that spread across the width of the sanctuary.
Although I haven’t been back to the church in 20 years, I was struck with the postmodern significance of this physical rearrangement, despite the use of the traditional oak wood in the new furniture. Rather than having church members face the front of the sanctuary, they were now oriented toward one another. In other words, the fellowship of believers had taken precedence over any proclamations from the pulpit, which by the way, is a nation-wide trend at present. So, this was a kind of illustration of the decline of expository preaching in churches and the rise of the legitimacy of the average person in the pew when it came to interpreting and applying the teachings of scripture. I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue over the last few months, so it’s interesting how this theme worked itself into my dream via an architectural metaphor.
I had only taken a couple of pictures when I noticed that my camera was not functioning properly. In dream-like fashion, the icons on my view finder were in the wrong place, and even worse, I found that I had only 6 images left. I could have taken at least a 100. At least. So I made my way up to the platform area to get one final picture that looked over the pulpit and toward the congregation. As I lined up my shot, I saw that a few people had now congregated into the pews in the center section. They were just standing there, talking, and seemed oblivious to my presence. As I framed my image, I became annoyed that there were now two white marble slabs extending from the sides of the pulpit outward to a distance of about 10 feet. They also ran from the floor all the way to the ceiling. They were like giant, marble blinders for anyone in the pulpit. Being self-conscious because of my new group of onlookers in the pews, I snapped my final shot, but only to find the flash icon on my viewfinder had turned into a brilliant hue of red and that a slow rain of virtual blood drops began to pour down over the freshly captured image on my viewfinder.
Then I awoke.
In the dream, I found myself inside FBC with my digital camera. It was a Wednesday night in my dream, and that’s when the church would serve the weekly dinner that preceded the midweek service. The church building itself was constructed in 1925 and seated about 600 people on its beautifully finished oak pews that curved gently toward the front of the sanctuary. It had a wrap-around balcony that sat between the upper and lower sections of stained glass windows. There was also a 37-rank Mohler pipe organ in the front of the sanctuary with 427 pipes exposed in two console boxes that were mounted on both sides of the baptistry. The church itself has an interesting history, and one of its former pastors is Dr. Charles Stanley, who is now pastor of FBC in Atlanta. I’m sure you’ve at some point seen his “In Touch” TV program as you have flipped through the cable lineup. I always wondered if the pastors after Stanley were jealous when many in the congregation would rush back home on Sunday nights to catch Stanley’s TV broadcast.
Bartow itself has a colorful history as it was the first major white settlement in the state of Florida built to defend settlers against the Seminole uprisings that were coming from the southern part of the state. This “city of oaks and azaleas” was originally named Ft. Blount, but it was later renamed in honor of the first Confederate general to die during the Civil War. The town itself is relatively small—about 15,000—but at one point it had the highest per-capita income in the country, at least that is what I’ve heard over the years. It’s not too hard to believe because there are a large number of historic mansions along its oak-lined streets (although there are fewer oaks than before given that the eyes of 3 hurricanes in 2005 passed over Polk County).
The main industry in the county has been citrus, phosphate mining, and cattle. One of my most vivid memories was playing Dixie Youth League baseball on manicured fields as the sweet smell of burnt orange rinds wafted through the warm summer evening air. (That’s what the orange juice plants would do with the rinds—burn them, and they smelled great. It’s better than the smell of the Staley plant in Lafayette!).
All that to say that I’m back home and with my digital camera in hand. My imagination gave me a high-definition experience inside the church, but for the sake of time and space, I’ll describe just a few observations. First, the sanctuary itself was about 3 times larger than what I remember it being in real life. This struck me as odd, even in my dream, as the places of our childhood are usually perceived as being smaller when viewed later in life. The sanctuary in my dream would seat 1,500 easily if the traditional pews had still been in place. What shocked me more than the size increase was the layout of the main floor. Although some oak pews were in place—there was a section of pews in the front and center that had obnoxiously thick red cushions on them—the remainder of the main floor had been transformed into various arrangements featuring oak dining sets. Most of the dinning tables were standard height and were pushed together in groups of 4 or 6 tables, but in the section immediately behind the oak pews, there were several clusters of bar-height chairs and tables that spread across the width of the sanctuary.
Although I haven’t been back to the church in 20 years, I was struck with the postmodern significance of this physical rearrangement, despite the use of the traditional oak wood in the new furniture. Rather than having church members face the front of the sanctuary, they were now oriented toward one another. In other words, the fellowship of believers had taken precedence over any proclamations from the pulpit, which by the way, is a nation-wide trend at present. So, this was a kind of illustration of the decline of expository preaching in churches and the rise of the legitimacy of the average person in the pew when it came to interpreting and applying the teachings of scripture. I’ve been thinking a lot about this issue over the last few months, so it’s interesting how this theme worked itself into my dream via an architectural metaphor.
I had only taken a couple of pictures when I noticed that my camera was not functioning properly. In dream-like fashion, the icons on my view finder were in the wrong place, and even worse, I found that I had only 6 images left. I could have taken at least a 100. At least. So I made my way up to the platform area to get one final picture that looked over the pulpit and toward the congregation. As I lined up my shot, I saw that a few people had now congregated into the pews in the center section. They were just standing there, talking, and seemed oblivious to my presence. As I framed my image, I became annoyed that there were now two white marble slabs extending from the sides of the pulpit outward to a distance of about 10 feet. They also ran from the floor all the way to the ceiling. They were like giant, marble blinders for anyone in the pulpit. Being self-conscious because of my new group of onlookers in the pews, I snapped my final shot, but only to find the flash icon on my viewfinder had turned into a brilliant hue of red and that a slow rain of virtual blood drops began to pour down over the freshly captured image on my viewfinder.
Then I awoke.
posted by Raul Mosley at
2:24 PM
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