CHURCHES AT BAY: POST #62

There never was a church of any kind at Herman Junction that I ever heard of. But, in Bay there were four churches and today as far as I know those same four churches are there, plus as Assembly of God church. The First Baptist church met in a rock building on the Northeast side of town, the Broadway Baptist met on Broadway St., and the church of Christ and Methodist church both met on church Street. When the First Baptist church built a new building the Assembly of God bought their old one and today all of those churches still meet in the same locations.

I was raised in the church of Christ, baptized at the age of 12 and made my first 'talk' in church at the age of 12. Aubrey Vanwinkle asked me one Sunday morning after services if I would like to speak to the auditorium class that night. Aubrey liked good, long, advance notices you see! Well, with my Mom helping me work it all up I made my first public appearance that night and it wasn't long until I was doing that quite often. I also began leading singing at about that same age and Jimmy Chester and I did a lot of the song leading until we both grew up and moved away. I loved to sing and still do. I have some wonderful memories of church as I was growing up. We were always the first ones to arrive. We always parked in the same place. I remember going to 'gospel meetings' in the summer time and the house being completely filled and people standing outside and looking in and listening from the windows which were wide open because it was so hot. I recall many, many, baptisms, dinners on the ground, afternoon singings, vacations bible schools that lasted two weeks, gospel meetings that lasted 10 days to two weeks, and the church growing and was strong. The gospel was preached in love and I don't remember any big fusses or the church splitting because of personal differences.

I went with my buddy Jim Isbell to visit the Baptist church one night and I hoped that nobody would see me and tell Mom that I had gone to the Baptist church. But, you can't get away with much in Bay! I had hunkered down as low as I could so Max Taylor couldn't see me but it didn't work. When Max asked all the visitors to stand and I didn't, he said, "Well, I see Hook Knight back there to but he didn't stand up." Now, everyone in four counties knew that I had been to the Baptist church! Well, as you can see, I survived it!

I don't remember any big fights among the churches although there were severe disagreements doctrinally. I think that we all knew that those disagreements existed but we all agreed that there was a way to address those disagreements with a good spirit. That's the kind of people that we had at Bay and they even let us Herman Junctionites come into town and worship with them and I enjoyed it immensely.