Several years ago, a trip home brought with it an unexpected but welcomed and long-sought-after opportunity: a chance to visit the "church building" where I first "went to church" and spent many of my formative years and where lasting impressions were made. Forty years had passed but many memories came rushing to my mind as I entered the auditorium. Much of the old building---now used by a denominational group---was gone but what remained allowed me to reminisce.

There was the aisle down which sister Flippen walked one night with Mrs. Richardson, a Jewish lady who wanted to be baptized. The tears on the cheeks of the soon-to-be Christian meant an awareness of abandonment by her family (Mat.10:34-). Precious memories: a Christian woman bringing another to the Lord (Jo.1:40-) and providing encouragement as she "forsook all and followed Him" (Lk.5:11).....

And here on the left end of the front bench is where one of the elders, brother Bruton (and my grandfather), always sat---his way of showing support to the preacher---and from which he frequently said "Amen." A reminder that grandparents can, and should, have a powerful spiritual influence on their children's children (2 Tim.1:5).

It was in this auditorium and the classrooms, some of which remain, that I was introduced to the gospel and heard two of the best Bible teachers---men or women--I've ever known: sisters Crist and Perkins. It was here that I was baptized and first tried to lead singing and make a talk. How important it is to teach and train children early.

This is certainly no attempt to glorify an edifice: there is nothing "holy" about a building. Nor is it just "good old days" nostalgia. I've spoken of the good times and pleasant memories but there were those of a far different sort which I remember well and they, too, had an impact on an impressionable child. The lesson is this: there is---or at least their should be---something special about what children see us do and hear us say in the buildings and classrooms in which we assemble. Young minds are as impressionable as freshly-poured concrete (an illustration first heard in this old building) and the "marks" made on them will be hard to remove as they grow older. Impressions are now being made upon sensitive young minds about the church of which you are a part. Years or even decades from now, as they step back into or drive by an old building or just reminisce, they will have memories about what we are doing and saying now and their lives will be impacted. I hope they will be able to say as I can that, all things considered, the experience was a positive one and that so much of their spiritual charcter was impacted by those people and those events.

"Building" memories are great things to have but even greater is the duty to be building memories for future generations.