Have you ever eaten banana croquettes? Chances are if you've been to a church dinner in Kentucky, you've had the opportunity to give them a try.
My little country church had Homecoming Day today. Once a year we invite everybody who has spiritual roots in the church to come "home" for a special service. That can be a lot of roots since our church was celebrating 201 years. In years past, we've invited former pastors back to speak to us, but since we've now had the same pastor for around thirty years, we don't have a large pool of former pastors to pick from. So the last few years my husband's Southern Gospel group, the Patriot Quartet, have been delivering the Gospel in song during the morning service.
My husband has been singing in groups for forty years. When he started singing, most all the country churches in the area had Homecomings. They'd have preaching in the morning and singing in the afternoon. Sometimes there would be four or five singing groups. That could get looonnnggg! Especially when you had three kids to make sit quietly the way I did then. Over the years, the attendance at afternoon services shrank and shrank until most churches quit having the singing services in the afternoons. Now the group generally sings in the mornings and then enjoys the church dinners. Oh, those wonderful church dinners. You can see a couple of our church youngsters loading up on desserts here and that was just one of the dessert tables!
But those dinners have changed too. Now you see a lot more dishes cooked at Kroger and the chicken nearly always is Famous Recipe or Colonel Sanders or sometimes Kroger too. But when I first got introduced to Homecoming dinners, the chicken was skillet fried before church on Sunday morning and the cakes and pies were homemade. Country cooking - yum!!
One of the dishes you could always find at a church dinner was banana croquettes. I love banana croquettes. I used to make them, but making banana croquettes is a lot of trouble and messy. Now I skip the salad dressing and just dip my banana in peanuts in an individual serving just for me. But at a church dinner you can sometimes find the real thing. Some people make a fancy salad dressing, but most people just slice the banana into sections. Sometimes lengthwise too. Then they coat the banana in salad dressing. (That's the messy part.) Last, they roll them in chopped or crushed peanuts. (More messy part.) They don't keep well, so you have to eat them all right away. I'm usually up to the challenge if I make it through the dinner line in time to snag any of them. We have a member now who always makes banana croquettes for our dinners. But today her dish got mistakenly put on the dessert table and most people missed it. But a couple of those peanut covered bananas were the perfect dessert for me.
Have you ever made or eaten banana croquettes? Been to a country church dinner? If so, what was the dish you liked best? We had some great desserts, besides those banana croquettes. One an old fashioned chess pie. That's what my son ate and he told his kids it had no food value, just sweet and good. But the value of food is not always nutrious. At a country church dinner, sometimes the food makes you remember. Like the wonderful lady gone on to celebrate homecoming in heaven now who used to always make two chess pies every homecoming day.
Ahh, the memories food can give us. Hope my grandkids will have some good memories of Goshen Homecomings when they get older. My oldest granddaughter here did try a piece of cake that she said was the best chocolate cake she'd ever eaten. So there's one good memory!
"Memory is a way of holding onto the things you love, the things you are, the things you never want to lose."
Goshen had a great 200th birthday celebration today. Our church was overflowing, something that hasn't happened our way for a long time. A lot of people who grew up in the church came back to celebrate and remember with us. We had to get out chairs. At a church, it's always good when the deacons have to go carry in chairs. We ran out of parking places and everybody had to park behind the other cars until some of the people were a captive audience. Several times we had to announce, please move your car so somebody could leave. But it was good. Everybody was happy and smiling as you can see in the picture.
Here we had gone back over to the church after a potluck spread that was a smorgasbord of delicious. Trouble was, there were so many people I wanted to talk to that I didn't have time to eat. I did get some of that butterscotch cooler dessert I love so much. Yum! But I didn't even get over to the table of salads. That's my favorite part of church dinners. Forget the veggies. Let's eat those fancy salads and desserts, right?
Several people got up to remember back when they used to come to Goshen and as you can see some of the times were funny. Laughter is good medicine and memories can warm the heart.
"To look backward for a while is to refresh the eye, to restore it, and to render it the more fit for its prime function of looking forward." ~ Margaret Fairless Barber
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This is the little country church I attend - Goshen Baptist. On Sunday we are going to celebrate our 200th year. To give a little perspective on how long that is, when Goshen first began meeting, the members couldn't sing the national anthem because the "Star-Spangled
Banner" had not yet been written. They couldn't claim to live in
Anderson County because Anderson county had not been formed. Lawrenceburg was a tiny village called Lawrence with no churches. James Madison was president and Isaac Shelby was beginning his second term as Kentucky governor.
In December of 1811, the Salt River Church (formed from the Dover Baptist Church in Manakin, Virginia) granted a constitution to 29 members to form a new church. Goshen Baptist Church was constituted on January 4, 1812 by John Penney, Sr. (an ancestor of the J.C. Penney who went on to establish the department stores) and William Hickman Jr. with those 28 members. Goshen first met in homes before a log building was erected in 1813. By the time an addition of 20 feet was added in 1829, the congregation had increased to 107. John Penney served as pastor from 1812 to 1822. His son, William White Penney was ordained by Goshen Church in 1822 and became the church's second pastor from 1822 to 1833. Both men died in the cholera epidemic of 1833.
In 1838 an anti-mission faction split from Goshen and formed New Goshen. This group led by Jordan Walker held to the belief that God would convict, save and preserve His elect without any added human effort. In fact, they believed attempting to assist God in His purpose was sinful. This split brought hard times to Old Goshen as shown in a poem written by Martha Penney Bell in 1838.
Now we are scattered and bereft
And but a few of us are left.
Oft without a pastor we
And in sad decline you see.
By 1870 the church building was no longer fit for use and the church began meeting in the Lyceum Schoolhouse. That was still their meeting place in 1886 when William Dudley Moore began his long pastorate at Old Goshen. He served the church for 24 consecutive years until 1910, and then returned in 1927 when the church called him for life. He was killed in an auto accident in 1935.
In 1887, Bro. Moore began promoting the idea of building a church, and land was donated by James & Nancy Hendricks and J.B. & Nancy Case. The present sanctuary was dedicated on September 29, 1889 by Bro B.F. Hungerford, who made this entry in his diary. "Took an early start for Old Goshen church 7 miles from Lawrenceburg to preach the dedicatory sermon of their new house of worship. Br. Burford is a slow driver. Road hilly and rocky. Was two and one half hours going 7 miles. Was worried at the pace but couldn't complain. Reached there at 10 1/2 a.m. House full of women and babies. Woods full of men and horses. After some choir singing, preached the sermon. Text Psalm 127:1 and Ex. 19:4,5,6. An old time basket dinner."
In 1910, ten members were dismissed to assist in organizing Kirkwood Baptist Church. In 1946, the church voted to erect a new building at an estimated cost of $12,825, but later decided to remodel and add Sunday school rooms. The Sunday school addition was dedicated in 1949. The Fred L. Knickerbocker Fellowship Hall was dedicated in 2006.
And now we're celebrating 200 years with another of those "old time basket dinners" this Sunday. And if you've ever been to an old fashioned church dinner, you'll know everybody there will be in for a treat. We'll also have the treat of some great Gospel music as the Patriot Quartet will be singing at 10:30 a.m. Come on out if you live nearby.
Through the years, Goshen has seen times of great blessings and times when the doors seemed to be ready to creep shut, but through God's grace and because of many dedicated members through the years, here we are celebrating 200 years.
My husband has been singing in groups for forty years. When he started singing, most all the country churches in the area had Homecomings. They'd have preaching in the morning and singing in the afternoon. Sometimes there would be four or five singing groups. That could get looonnnggg! Especially when you had three kids to make sit quietly the way I did then. Over the years, the attendance at afternoon services shrank and shrank until most churches quit having the singing services in the afternoons. Now the group generally sings in the mornings and then enjoys the church dinners. Oh, those wonderful church dinners. You can see a couple of our church youngsters loading up on desserts here and that was just one of the dessert tables!
