Growing up in a Baptist church has shaped me to where I am today. I prayed every night; I still do actually. Every time the doors were open on Sunday morning, Sunday evening, and Wednesday evening, you better believe my family was there! Here are just a few of the many things I can remember growing up in a Baptist church:

1). You were always in Sunday School right before morning worship.

As soon as it started you counted the minutes to when it would end.

2). You knew everyone and everyone knew you.

Really. And you couldn't get away with anything in the community because everyone would know you were wild as a buck.

3). Your youth group went to the same school.

You had the same clique in church AND in school.

4). Your church played the same traditional hymns just about every other week.

"Amazing Grace", "I Surrender All". Ring a bell?

5). We only did Communion once a year, and that was on Palm Sunday.

Palm Sunday was a sacred time to reflect on ourselves before celebrating Easter the following week.

6). We had Communion with stale crackers and grape juice.

Good old Baptists didn't drink alcohol, nor did they dance!

7). The choir always rehearsed after the Wednesday evening service.

Both my parents were in choir, so I stayed up for long hours listening to them rehearse.

8). Vacation Bible School!!!

Or as it's called in my family, "The week in the summer where we dump our kids on you while we work."

9). When you made out a place to sit in a pew, you stayed put!

My grandmother would tell me I go nowhere except to greet people during fellowship, then come right back.

10). You helped your mom when it was her turn to tend to the nursery.

I loved helping with the babies. Still do.

11). You were an offering usher once a month.

And you didn't know where to pass the offering plate because some rows would pass it to the next ones, and some would give it to you.

12). The Sunday evening service was designated "Testimony" time.

Instead of digging deeper into the sermon, some nights we would testify how good The Lord has been to us.

13). A deacon was the pastor's "substitute" if there wasn't a guest speaker.

No explanation there. The deacons were "second in command" of the pastor.

14). Church wide dinners all the time.

Not just on Wednesday night before service, but after church there was always some occasion to cook for the whole church.

15). When someone got saved everyone shook their hand.

And the pianist would play the tune of "At Calvary".

16). If you missed a church service everyone knew you weren't there.

Didn't matter if you were sick or had to work, everyone knew.

17). We had church lock-ins on the Sunday evening leading into a Monday night where we didn't have school the next day.

Labor Day, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, even on Memorial Day one year.

18). Everyone's kid was in the Christmas play.

And I mean the children who just came out of the womb. They were baby Jesus.

19). At the end of the month we sang "Happy Birthday" to the people who had birthdays that month.

If you had a birthday in January, or the last Sunday of the month. April birthdays, same thing. October babies, and so on.

20). When someone went to the altar to pray all the deacons went with them.

It was good to know you had a lot of support behind you while talking with God.

21). When you graduated high school you received luggage from the church.

The congregation didn't want you to leave the church, but they were preparing us for when we would finally move out of our parents' home.