Maine Churches

Maine has more churches than courthouses, it seems. Yarmouth, where I  grew up, had at least six churches when I lived there and maybe more that I've forgotten. My family attended the First Baptist Church on Main Street. At that time it was part of the American Baptist Conference, and our pastor was a friendly, welcoming man and preached sermons from the Bible which mainly were teaching sermons. He never preached "fire and brimstone" sermons which condemned all his congregation to Hell if they didn't shape up.

It was a great church in which to grow up with Sunday School in the morning and fun-filled meetings for Junior High and High School students in the evening. The Pastor and his wife usually led these meetings, and did their best to make them interesting. As corny as they sometimes were, I was willing to give them a pass, and tried not to judge them too harshly.

After I graduated high school, I left for Pennsylvania where I attended a private college. Unfortunately, it was a quasi-religious school which required chapel once or twice a week, and prayer meetings in the dorm. I enjoyed the classes and non-religious activities, but after two years of having religion forced on me, I decided to return to Maine and enroll in the University of Maine, Portland for my last two years. What a relief. That private college was the beginning of my path to a loss of faith.

I think I attended the Baptist Church in Yarmouth off and on until I was married there and then moved to an apartment in North Windham with my new husband. A few years later I heard of the retirement of the pastor who had guided me in a religion that was loving and honest at my hometown church.

Much later when my daughter was going to marry, I contacted my hometown church, which my older brother still attended, and requested a date for her wedding ceremony. Little did I know how much that church had changed until the woman I spoke with on the phone treated me as if I were Satan himself, and how dare I think I could use their Church. Even after I explained to her that it used to be my family church and I had spent many happy years there until the day when I was married there, it didn't matter. She was firm in her righteousness. I mentioned this to my father, and he must have told my brother who stepped in and made it possible for my daughter to be married in the hometown church where I had been happy. She had a beautiful wedding, but I lost all respect for that church's congregation who supported a religion filled with hate instead of the love of Jesus in whom they proclaimed to believe.