Bob Sanders: Good 'ol days at Mount Pisgah

It’s between laying-by and back-to-school time, therefore it must be protracted meetin’ time.

Protracted meetings (revivals) have gone out of style at many, probably most, churches, at least in the full week, twice-a-day format we used to have.

This was a huge event in the Mt. Pisgah communities of the world, Baptist or Methodist. A visiting preacher would usually be brought in for the occasion. A morning service would be held about eleven, then the night service at seven or so. Attendance at the morning service would be lighter because many of the men and boys had work to do. But for the evening service, no excuses, everybody went, members and a lot of visitors. Many Methodists from Oak Hill would come to Mt. Pisgah meetings, and Mt. Pisgah Baptists would often attend Oak Hill’s meetings.

I remember one time when me’n Ross’n Ed went to Oak Hill, hoping to pick up some girls and heard the scariest preaching ever.

Mt. Pisgah didn’t get electricity ‘til I was 15 or 16, so I remember well the flickering coal oil lamps on sconces around the room. Hot. All windows open. Funeral home and insurance company fans flailing away, trying to stir the heavy air.

Babies sleeping on quilts in the aisles, cigarettes sending tiny shafts of light as many of the grown men sat on Mr. Reeves’ flatbed truck parked right by the windows.

Cousin Ed Finch would lead a few Mt. Pisgah favorite songs. Brother Vaughn, our regular preacher, would say a few words.

There’d be prayers. Then the visiting preacher would step up and things would start to roll. Slowly at first, a joke or two, maybe. But then on to serious business, about your soul , and about how, you, you rotten wretch, would be burning in hell forevermore if you didn’t walk down that aisle and be “saved” tonight, “saved” being joining the church.

Soaked with sweat, he’d build up to that last inning: “ What if Jesus came tonight and you still hadn’t walked down that aisle? One more verse, please. Somebody is almost persuaded. Want you come?” “Why Not Tonight,” “Just As I Am,” “Almost Persuaded.” “One more verse, please,” until, finally, he had done all he could for that night.

I caught a lot of flak from readers long ago when I suggested that one of the, if not the, main reasons for joining the church was peer pressure. I still believe, know, that to be true.

Some boys would be sitting on a bench.

Heat from hell would be simmering, the walls would be charring like the inside of a Jack Daniels barrel, and somebody would whisper, “I’ll go if you will.” On down the line. “He says he’ll go if you will,” and so on. Maybe not that night, but before the protracted meeting was over.

On the way home, Aunt Mila Raee would say to Mother, “Oh, didn’t he preach a good sermon.”

Bob Sanders is a longtime radio personality with WAUD in Auburn and writes a weekly column for the Opelika-Auburn News.