When I was a kid my family would often indulge my desire to one day preach the Bible by sitting through my sermons. Sometimes I would even put in the effort to "build" a make shift church and invite everyone who lived on our rural gravel road to attend. Yes I was a strange kid.
On one particular occasion I gathered up every lawn chair and tree log I could find and put them in nice neat little rows on my grandmother's front porch. My grandmother was especially supportive of my efforts, and welded a special kind of influence upon the rest of the family when it came to matters of religion. A psychologist might call it guilt. So she would see to it that the inhabitants of our community we affectionately referenced as "Loydville" would be there for my church service. Like any good pastor I enlisted some of my friends to help with the construction of this neighborhood church. We worked all afternoon in the heat of the Mississippi Delta to insure that those attending the service that evening would be as comfortable and receptive as possible. Finally everything was in place, and I returned home to change into my "church clothes", excited that everyone was coming to hear the Word proclaimed.