Which meant they had red brick walls, stained glass windows, big white columns at the front door and a shining steeple with a bell up top ... with signs near the sidewalk announcing something like, First Church of Rome or maybe Corinthian Baptist Church.
Oh, I understood enough to know the church at Ephesus probably didn't have an organ, but surely they had a choir, choir robes and a Minister of Music. And after hearing the Sunday School report, he'd motion everyone to stand up from their pews and turn their hymnal scrolls open to sing #72 ... "With the first as the last."
(Since nobody had cars back in those days, I wonder where the deacons went after the service to stand around and smoke?)
That was my picture of what church must've been like 2000 years ago, because pews, steeples, stained glass windows and dressing-up make the building we know into a church.
Sounds silly and naive now, doesn't it?
But then I started wondering, what were the early churches really like?
