Singing Friends Memories

We had Penn View's Quartet as overnight guests Wednesday night. We stayed up way too late talking, laughing, and having a good time.

We ended up talking some about the wild and crazy things that the Singing Friends got themselves into over the years.

Probably the strangest service we were ever in was in Columbus, OH.

A Southern Gospel promoter from Eastern Ohio called us and had two churches that wanted us to sing for them, one on a Sunday morning, one on Sunday evening. The Sunday A.M. concert has long since slipped from memory. Except for one thing. The promoter was in attendance at that concert, and apologized in advance for getting us into the church that we were to sing at Sunday evening. That should have been our first clue.

We pulled up in front of the church that Sunday evening. Store front church. "Old Sons of Thunder Church of God" was the name on the front of the church. "Old Sons of Thunder"???? I never have figured out what that name meant.

This church happened to be in the worst part of town. Really bad part of town. Really bad.

Have you ever seen those comics/cartoons in the paper that have a big hooked nosed, really ugly, big boned caricature of the "bad guy?" You know, the one that you just know by looking at him that he is going to be the one doing the crime and the time? The one who has a short little side kick that does what the big guy says to do?

Those guys had been hired by the church to guard the parking lot during the service because of all the break-ins and thefts that had taken place. That night they were also to guard our bus, since the only place to park it was at the curb in front of the church.

Now, some of you have figured out by now that this was not a Conservative Holiness church. Oh, no. Not by a long shot.

These folks put the charismatic in the name. Pentecostal, tongues, what ever you want to call them, they were it. To the extreme.

Several interesting things happened that night:

1. Their own people sang for better than an hour and a half before we were allowed up to sing.

2. There were lots of manifestations of "tongues" that night.

3. The pastor's wife had a "new Divine revelation" that week. She said that the Lord had shown her that even though God was displeased with the people that were building the Tower of Babel for trying to get to heaven that way, God WAS pleased with their unity, so He gave them the gift of tongues. (!?!?!??)

4. Several people tried to leave during the service, but the church members literally pulled their coats off of them, and dragged them to the altar.

5. We left the service and went to the bus because it got so wild and crazy. While sitting on the bus, we prayed that the Lord would bind the ones that were speaking in tongues while we were singing. The Lord answered that prayer. I will never forget one woman sitting to our right as we sang that looked as if she was bound by invisible ropes.

6. While we were loading or unloading our equipment, (I can't remember which) a drunk stumbled down the side walk between the bus and the church. I do mean stumbled. He could barley remain vertical. The city of Columbus had had the foresight to plant tree's in the middle of the sidewalk just to be a nuisance to drunks.

This poor fellow had gone all the way past our bus when one of those tree's jumped right out in front of him. His face missed it by about an inch. Something about that jarred this inebriated man enough that his brain said, "hey, dude, you just missed something!" So he turned around, looked at me, and slurred, "Hey, nice VAN!"

We lost it.

Last, after we had finally sang, the pastor walked up to me, handed me a $100 check, and said, "You have, (here he paused for a second) a unique sound."

Then, he turned around, and those were the last words he ever said to me.

We never were invited back. And would have declined if they had asked.