Early Church Years I voted early today. This may seem like an odd topic sentence. In some ways, it was an answer to prayer. You see, the building where I voted was constructed close to the site or almost on the exact site where the original church I attended built. A helpful guard happily answered my questions and pointed me to a picture of the church. I was young when the church moved to the southside of Winston-Salem. Just as the doors of the Moravian churches around town are distinctive, the architecture of our church said Alliance to me. It was my church. The things I remember most about the early years were the music. I remember the Beginner department where we lined our chairs in a single row and sang about “The Hallelujah Line … not going back to station of sin … traveling on the pass of the shed blood of Jesus.” I think we enjoyed making the train noises most, but even at the tender age of 4 and 5 we were reminded that Jesus was the only way to Heaven. The songs we sang in big church excited me more. I think two that I remember most are Glory to His Name and Shelter in a Time of Storm. My understanding was greatly limited as nonconcrete thinking four year old. I think in those early years, the greatest favor my parents did for me was to encourage Scripture memory. They even allowed me to say them occasionally on Sunday evenings when Pastor asked for testimonies. Thank God for the patience of a pastor and a congregation who let a lisping four-year-old quote Scripture during those testimony times. Larry Fowler said in Rock Solid Kids, we can look at children as if they are a bother (WRONG), a tool to reach their parents (and that is practical and church growth tool), our future (somewhat true), but the best way to treat children is that they are people. I was treated as person that mattered. I believe that is one that that made me stay despite the doubts that besieged during me teen years. It matters how our kids are treated.