Tag: church

The morning Sister Claudie Mae claimed her pew

“I have prepared a place for you … just not this pew.”
— The understood 11th Commandment

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“Saw in the newspaper where one of those big mega churches is selling reserved seats for the Sunday sermon.”

“That’s one way to stimulate conversation at the morning coffee shop gathering,” I thought.

Someone near the coffee pot was heard to say, “It’s been done before, long time ago. But in this day and age? In the South?”

“The way I read it, that didn’t end well in the Bible,” said one of the local preachers, an occasional coffee shop drop-in. “Jesus drove sellers, merchants, and money changers from the temple.”

“I don’t know,” drawled another. “Shouldn’t have to pay anything to attend worship service. Offerings when the plate is passed, or a fundraiser — now that’s different. Seems to me,” he went on. “You might be perceived as favoring the rich to get the better seats.”

Silence slipped by for about half a minute before someone chuckled, “Well, it might solve one problem at our house. It’s a challenge to get the kids ready on time. We always get there about the second verse of the first hymn. Looking for a good seat.

“Now, I’m not saying we’re habitually late,” he recanted, “but the smokers on the front porch start snuffing out cigarettes and heading for the door when we pull in the parking lot.”

“Here’s an idea,” mused the preacher. “If we made the front seats free and the back seats the most expensive seats in the house, I could see this working.”

I was trying to determine if he was joking or serious when someone asked, “So, what do you think, newspaper man.”

Taking a long draw on my coffee to think, I carefully submitted the biggest challenge. As I saw it.

“It reminds me of a small East Texas congregation where I worshiped a few years ago,” I ventured into the spirited discussion. “One Sunday morning, some visitors came in, introduced themselves, and took a vacant seat. Little did they know they had parked in a pew known to be Sister Claudie Mae’s undisputed and long-claimed spot. The end of the fifth row, left side.”

Sister Claudie Mae was the sweetest, kindest little lady you could ever hope to meet. She had outlived two husbands and been present for every service longer than anyone alive could remember. Her “on time” arrival coincided precisely with the minister stepping to the pulpit for welcoming remarks, announcements, and to update the prayer list.

Sure enough, on that morning, Sister Claudie Mae walked in right on schedule. The preacher paused motionless in the pulpit, watching her walk slowly to the end of the fifth row on the left side. All eyes were on Sister Claudie Mae when she stopped, smiled and said sweetly to the visiting couple, “Good morning. I do believe you are visitors. Welcome, we are so glad to have you. And what is your name?”

“Thank you,” the man said warmly. “We’re the Wilsons.”

“We are thrilled that you are visiting with us,” Sister Claudie Mae responded. “And we genuinely hope you will come back. However, Mr. Wilson, you and your lovely wife are sitting in my pew, and if you will be so kind as to find another one, we can start our service.”

The startled couple scurried to the closest empty pew, allowing the good sister to sit in “her seat,” thereby ending any further discussion on the 11th Commandment of “thou shalt not sit in someone else’s pew.”

With that story, I suggested to anyone in the coffee club thinking paid seating at church was a good idea might want to first determine who among them would break the news to the many Sister Claudie Mae’s in congregations everywhere.

“Who is going to tell these lovely ladies that they will have to pay every Sunday to sit in the seat they have called theirs since before many of you spent Sunday mornings in the nursery,” I asked.

The conversation quickly moved to other stimulating topics like courthouse politics, the weather, and the rumor that yhe vacant lot near being cleared near Walmart is going to be a Burger King.

But I pondered more intriguing matters. Recalling the morning when Sister Claudie Mae claimed her pew. Was the song leader’s opening hymn selection merely coincidence or quick thinking when he invited the congregation to join in the singing of “I Shall Not Be Moved.”

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.

Knowing who needs a prayer

“When your church is small, you know everyone’s prayer requests before they even ask.”
— Author unknown, but if you attend a small church, you know it’s true.

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Small churches and country preachers are the best at delivering sermons that combine spiritual appeal from the word of God with a touch of practical wisdom rooted in their own personal lives.

I was raised in a small town by loving parents. My mom attended church every Sunday, and it was an unspoken expectation that we would be going with her. No excuse was good enough for her to warrant missing the assembling of the saints.

Throughout my lifetime of hearing country preachers, I have acquired a deep appreciation for their dedication. And sacrifice. Because preaching at a small church is not a get rich quick proposition. Usually requiring what one preacher friend called “a day job” to make ends meet.

Like the East Texas preacher some years ago. An elderly gentleman with an ever-present smile and a kind word. A presence of stoic stature who, by the looks of his white hair and unfaltering recall of scripture without so much as looking at a Bible, had been delivering Sunday sermons for several presidential administrations.

A minister who not only preached the word of God and the promise of eternal salvation but included tidbits of practical advice for this side of heaven as well. Suggestions learned no doubt from years in the pulpit and tending to people’s spiritual needs.

“Your body is a temple unto the Lord,” he often delivered, leaning over the pulpit for extra emphasis. “Keep it healthy and ready for service by engaging in some form of exercise every day.” And being a minister who practiced what he preached, he always added that he personally walked several miles a day. But what he didn’t mention while proclaiming that walking was good for one’s health was that his “exercise” was usually executed with a cane pole over his shoulder. Walking in the general direction of a nearby fishing hole.

Another of his suggestions was to do God’s will through action. “Squeeze in random acts of kindness at every opportunity,” he preached. “Do a good deed every day.”

On this advice, he once admitted in a sermon that if he had to choose between doing a good deed for his neighbor or saying a prayer to God, God might have to hold off for a few minutes for the prayer until he was done helping someone.

Another tidbit of his advice was to “make two or three good friends among the old folks while you’re still young.”

Like everything he said, I agreed with him wholeheartedly on this one. I had just one problem. By the time I understood that philosophy, I was well past the point in life considered young by common standards.

Stories of down-to-earth wisdom from heaven-oriented country preachers came to mind last week. Carrying out my “once-a-year, whether it needs it or not” desk cleaning, I happened upon a message from my daughter, Robin. One from almost 30 years ago in which she included some preacher’s suggestions that she had collected.

One credited to a Tennessee preacher who advocated, “Most people are kind, polite, and sweet-spirited … until you try to sit in their pew.”

Another answered complaints about a preacher with, “If a church wants a better preacher, it can usually get one by praying for the one it already has.”

This one, I’ve heard many times since, but is still timeless. “A lot of church members who are singing ‘Standing on The Promises’ are merely sitting on the premises.”

There was also food for thought from Oklahoma. “We were called to be witnesses, not lawyers.”

And from Ohio, stating, “Every evening, I turn my troubles over to God. He’s going to be up all night anyway.”

Included with Robin’s communique was a message I’m sure is preached somewhere by a country preacher in a small town every Sunday. She didn’t say where she found it, but it’s called “The Bible in 50 Words.”

“God made; Adam bit; Noah arked; Abraham split; Joseph ruled; Jacob fooled; Bush talked; Moses balked; Pharaoh plagued; People walked; Sea divided; Tablets guided; Promise landed; Saul freaked; David peeked; Prophets warned; Jesus was born; God walked; Love talked; Anger crucified; Hope died; Love rose; Spirit flamed; Word spread; God remained.”

Whatever the tidbits of wisdom might be, somewhere every Sunday a country preacher delivers a spiritual message with a deep understanding of human nature. Focusing on faith connected with a sense of rural life. 

And one knowing who needs a prayer before they ever ask for it.

—Leon Aldridge

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Aldridge columns are featured in these publications: The Center Light and Champion, The Mount Pleasant Tribune, the Rosenberg Fort Bend Herald, the Taylor Press, the Alpine Avalanche,  the Fort Stockton Pioneer, the Elgin Courier, The Monitor in Naples, and Motor Sports Magazine.

© Leon Aldridge and A Story Worth Telling 2025. Excerpts and links may be used, provided full and clear credit is given to Leon Aldridge and ‘A Story Worth Telling’ with appropriate and specific directions to the original content.