The minute the superintendent finished his closing prayer, it was almost always a race for the door , down the steps from the church hall, a quick sprint along the little path and a short cut along the grass behind the fir tree to try and reach the church door first. A good push and we were into the vestibule, a sharp right turn and over to the table to join the queue. Our church like most in the Presbyterian denomination had a scheme running called League of Church Loyalty. It was a sort of incentive to get kids to come to church after Sunday School ended in the morning though I reckon few of us had any choice in the matter and probably there was also a hidden agenda in the scheme that if the children were coming to church,then there was a greater chance that parents might come too. We all had a little blue card, one side of which was divided out into a grid, with one square for each Sunday in a month so at a glance you could see how many days you had missed in a year. The man in charge or to give him his proper title, the superintendent, had a roll book and also a small stamper and stamp pad wit ha purple dye and every Sunday, when you arrived at his desk, he would stamp your card with a little purple shamrock. Only in July and August
did you get some relief from the stamping but if you attended another church, because the scheme was widespread, you would have been expected to get your card stamped or at least initialled wherever you worshipped. And of course the incentive as far as us kids were concerned was that a full book of purple shamrocks guaranteed a first prize on Children's Sunday.
Every Sunday, the vestibule was a busy place for the half hour or so before the service began. Parents would stand round the inside walls, waiting for their kids to reach the top of the 'Loyalty' queue while other adults and teenagers milled about, catching up with the local gossip or the previous day's football scores. And generally you always found the same people standing in the same locations. Sometimes the noise was deafening, other times there was just a low constant mumble, like thunder in the distance and there was almost always a member of the church committee or session welcoming people to the service and offering them a hymnbook, but unlike today, most people brought their own. I guess they had probably won them down the years through the 'Loyalty' scheme. Often the vestibule was still fairly full and the church half empty when the minister's car would roar up the drive and park randomly outside as he completed his mad dash from our sister church after the morning service there. On the opposite side to where the cards were stamped, was a small vestry, where he was quickly brought up to speed with announcements and any irregularities that might have occurred and which needed to be included in the service. By the time he emerged, the vestibule was empty and traditionally he always walked up the right hand aisle to the pulpit, with everyone now in position for the opening Psalm.
There were some other things I remember about the vestibule. First the communion utensils that rested on a wooden table to the right and had been presented by my family, in memory of my grandfather. Also at harvest time, the whole of the vestibule was completely packed with vegetables and flowers for the occasion.And in a strange sort of ritual, many years after the church was extended and a new vestry had been built, the minister and the session still paraded down the aisle after a communion service and went into the old vestry. But the main thing I recall was just how cold the vestibule could be because there was no porch and it opened directly to the outside on top of a windy and exposed hill. Many years after withstanding these chilly mornings, the committee eventually installed a blow heater above the door to make it a warmer environment.
I guess it the vestibule carries its own sermon and I would probably summarise it like this. Loyalty to your church really doesn't count for much at the end of the day if you're only interested in the praise of men, while for others, church tradition maybe gets more respect that it should. But maybe the most important sermon is that it is possible to be part of a church fellowship and still be cold, to be so near and yet so far, to talk the same language but serve a different teacher. So when Jesus said of the Pharisees of His day, 'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me,' maybe His words carry just as much significance today as they did two thousand years ago.
You can't really get closer to the main church building than the vestibule but it's still outside where it all happens. How close are you to God? So near or so far?
