Balling for Jesus-or Seabrook Baptist Church pt 2

A softball. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

So now, back to how I got to this point.

After I stopped riding the bus with my two brothers to go to Sunday School at Seabrook Baptist Church, I didn't attend church on a regular basis until I got into college.  During that interim period, I did attempt to read the Bible on my own, but let's face it, it's a hard book to read.

I got back into attending church in a different way.  One of my old high school friends and I were talking on campus.  He was telling me about his church softball team and wanted to know if I would be interested in playing.  I was always athletic and loved playing ball.  The only stipulation was that I would have to attend church on a fairly regular basis.  I don't think it was every Sunday, but at least most Sundays.  I decided to give it a shot.

When I started attending the church, and the softball practices, I discovered several of my old high school friends were attending the church and playing softball.  It was fairly easy to assimilate myself into the group.  With so many old friends in the group, and a few other people that I somewhat knew, it was no hardship to meet the minimum requirements to play softball.  In fact, I found myself easily attending much more than required.  In addition to Sunday school and Sunday morning worship, I found myself attending Sunday nights and Wednesday prayer meeting.

It didn't take too long for me to decide to rededicate myself to Christ.  Technically, I had always been on the church membership rolls, but now, rather than being an inactive member, I was now very active.  Outside of softball, our college career group did a lot of things together.  We used to get together on Saturday nights for an evening of Bible study and prayer.  One time, a group of us camped out at an event in Pennsylvania called Creation, or as I liked to call it "Woodstock for Christians."  It was two days of performances by various contemporary Christian musical acts.

I also became very active in the music ministry of the church.  I became a member of the church choir.  The church had a ministry with a nearby nursing home.  On occasion, a few of us would go to the nursing home with our guitars and provide music for the service.  Another time, we took our guitars down to DC on the 4th of July and played songs while a minister preached on the street.  At that time in my life, I also wrote songs.  I wrote a couple of songs that I performed in front of the congregation.

For the next few years, I was very happy at Seabrook Baptist Church.  Not only did I find myself wanting to be at church and involved in all of the activities.  My friends at the church were no longer just my friends, but part of a larger family.  We truly loved each other.  Still, as they say, all good things come to an end and sadly, so did my time at Seabrook Baptist.  In my next post, I will talk about how it all ended.