Picture it—church on Sunday morning. The pastor has delivered the points of his message, and the congregation has responded in many ways. Some follow the pastor’s every word, focusing on him intently.

There are others, however, that rarely if ever focus on the Sunday morning sermon. What is going through these people’s minds?

I have heard several reasons that people give for going to church. Someone once said they went just to see what kind of shoes and outfit the flashy Pentecostal-style piano player would be wearing. Another said she went to ensure a good crowd at her funeral.

And then there are the reasons that people give for not going to church. There is one excuse that has been used so often that it has become a cliché, “I don’t go to church because of all those hypocrites down there.” There have been various responses made to this declaration, among them, “Come on, anyway. One more won’t make any difference.” I have been known to say, “You’re probably talking to the biggest one right now.” (I mean me, of course). I heard a minister on the radio give the best response to the hypocrite excuse—“How are you going to be able to spend an eternity with them in Heaven when you can’t spend one hour a week in church with them?”

I myself have gone through periods in life when I wasn’t the most attentive person in church. I used to count the panes of glass in the stained windows, the number of tiles in the ceiling. These can be good ways to study math, counting the panes in each window, then multiplying by the total number of windows in the sanctuary. This worked with the ceiling as well, counting the number of tiles on the extreme outside length and width and multiplying to determine the total number of tiles, assuming of course that the tiles are in straight rows. Then I could actually count the number of window panes and ceiling tiles to see if I had multiplied correctly. Interestingly, the numbers never changed from Sunday to Sunday.

I also used to read the Church Covenant every Sunday from start to finish. When I finished that, there were the names in the center of the church windows of the dearly departed who had purchased and donated them for the church. Hymnals were also a source of respite. I particularly liked the titles of the hymns we never sang.

When I was a young boy at Maynardville Baptist, a kind lady named Dramma Beeler would usually bring me a roll of Life Savers to church every Sunday. I would time the preacher’s sermon by them—if I ran out of Life Savers before he finished explicating the Word, he was too long winded. If I had a lot of Life Savers left after the invitational hymn and parting prayer, we had probably had a young visiting preacher.

There is a story of a preacher who used to time his sermons by the length of time it took a piece of hard candy to dissolve as he preached. This strategy worked for him until the fateful Sunday when he put a button in his mouth instead of a piece of candy. The preacher exhorted and exhorted, finally getting to the invitational hymn. He knew that Divine Providence was intervening on behalf of some poor sinner or saint in distress as his “candy” was not dissolving, so he prolonged the invitation. Finally the minister’s son came down the aisle. The minister shouted, “GLORY! HALLELUJAH! Yes, my son, God bless you.” The son went up and whispered rather loudly in his father’s ear. Unfortunately, the lapel microphone was still on, and the entire congregation heard the young man say, “Momma says if you don’t hush and let us out of here the roast’s gonna burn and not be fit to eat!” So much for grieving the Spirit of God and the forbearance of his people.

I would daresay that no two words from a preacher’s mouth have been more coveted by many both saints and sinners over the years than these two—“in conclusion”. I have been in services where these words uttered from the sacred desk have revived a congregation and given it hope for the future. Perhaps not the future of eternity but the anticipation of Sunday dinner at Ye Olde Cracker Barrel (or insert your favorite relative’s house or restaurant).

In conclusion, here are a few other “in C’s” from my world of email with which I take my weekly leave, Faithful Reader.

Sometimes I'm in Capable,
and I go there more often as I'm getting older.

I’m stuck in Confusion and can’t figure out where to go and when.
Am I just getting older?

I would like to go to Conclusions,
but you have to jump,
and I'm not too much on physical activity anymore.