Mark Bishop
Singing News Article
January 2007
There is a little church that sits
beside the road, in the small railroad town of Irvine, Ky. When I
say it sits beside the road, I mean that literally, because the
front door of the church is about six feet from the blacktop. The
parking lot is not paved. When you sit in the church pews, you can
hear the crunching of gravel as someone pulls in.
This church is just a block building. It is, as all the old songs
say, a little white-washed church by the side of the road. I have
attended a few different churches with my family down through the
years but this church... this church will always be the church of
my memory.
It was in this little church that I attended as a teenager with
mom and dad and my brothers that I first felt conviction. Many,
many altar calls were given that I ignored. But one night, during
a revival, I could no longer find any excuses that seemed to ease
my mind. I went forward and the church prayed for me. In my mind I
can still see the faces of the old saints of God who prayed around
that altar that night. Many of them have long claimed their
heavenly inheritance.
It was also in this little church that I met my wife. Her family
had been attending this church for many, many years before our
family started going there when I was in my teens. My most vivid
memory is how awkward it felt to walk into this new church for the
first time on a Sunday morning, seeing only strangers in every
face. Then seeing her turn and look from a pew. It was a pew about
five rows from the back on the left, she was sitting with a friend
and I still see her looking back over her right shoulder. This new
church didn't seem so bad.
Carolyn and I were later married in that same church a few years
later. This little church had no fellowship hall or banquet room.
As a matter of fact, back then it had no restrooms. Carolyn, the
maids of honor, and all the wedding party prepared in the
parsonage, which was next door. I was relegated, along with the
other guys, to a Sunday school room to change into the tuxedos.
Carolyn by the way, had made her own wedding gown. It was as
elaborate as any you might have purchased but she, along with her
sisters had been raised to know how to do such things. (Raised on
a farm, she can also clean chickens for cooking, milk cows and set
tobacco plants.) When the wedding was over, we had our reception
right out in the parking lot. I remember the cake was leaning a
little as the sun began to take a toll.
It was also in this church, while standing around the Bible stand,
that the Bishop family sang their very first song. It was a song
called "In A Land Where No Cabins Fall". Mom sang with us back
then. We recorded an album when Granny Bishop became too frail to
come to church. She wanted to still be able to hear her family
sing.
It has always been easy for me to write songs about the "little
white-washed church by the side of the road". It almost sounds
like a song-writing cliché' but for me, that place exists.
They say that you can't go back and I know exactly what they mean.
That little church is still there... they have since added
bathrooms... but it's impossible to embrace those memories again.
The faces have changed and many, many loved ones have gone on. My
brothers have grown up, that girl who caught my eye is now my wife
and we have children of our own. But every once and a while, I
take a detour and drive down that little country lane, and my mind
always comes alive as I slow down to remember the best of times,
there in the little white-washed church by the side of the road.
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