Old Time Religion

I found this picture of the old St. Luke's Episcopal Church in Belton, Texas, as it appeared in the latter days of its life as a functioning church. It was abandoned to the Bell Fine Arts Assn. when the new St. Luke's was built in 1970 and for many years was an art gallery and museum. I found this article about how it now sits in dire repair, although with some hope of restoration funding.

I came into St. Luke's in the fall of 1970 when they had just moved into the new church. I needed money to finance the next summer at Interlochen so I was desperately seeking employment and just by chance happened upon an ad outside the music department of Mary Hardin Baylor College seeking an organist for St. Luke's.  I had studied piano for 5 years and organ for a couple of years so I decided to try out for the job. I had some experience in church music having played piano for Sunday School and various other church activities in the First Baptist Church, so I had access to their wonderful grand piano and organ and could come in and play whenever I wanted, living just a block away. It became my second home in many ways, so when I was actually offered the job at St. Luke's, I was very torn about leaving the Baptists. I had many fond memories of years of choir practices and competitions, wonderful revivals and fellowship, and memorable services which included my cousin and me singing a duet and my voice cracking, whereupon we both fell apart in giggles. The choir director played to the end of the verse as we stood there and giggled. Then we had to slink down under our seats for the rest of the service. The pastor was not amused.

St. Luke's turned out to be a great turning point in my spiritual life. I loved the order of service and the music, so simple and sweet. They had a little Hammond organ and I did the best I could with it, but it suited the space, which was modern and clean but didn't have the quaint character of the old St. Luke's. I had rarely seen the inside of it in my 10 years in Belton, but it was always a fascinating and spiritual site to me and I often passed by wishing it was open. I do remember getting in to see it finally and it really did feel like a very holy place to me.

1970 was the first crest of the charismatic movement in the Episcopal church and our vicar was just out of Southwest Seminary, filled with the Spirit, quite genuinely. He was rather high church leaning and introduced a bit of incense, which was my first experience of frankincense. He also decided to introduce charismatic gifts to St. Luke's and we had several very interesting and probably Spirit filled gatherings where people spake in tongues and interpreted and may have been healed or delivered. I was only 16 and may or may not have really been speaking in tongues, but I definitely felt the Spirit there for the first time.  It was all too much for most of the church, however, and a parting of the ways was soon to come. I only spent one year there as organist and then got into Interlochen Arts Academy for my senior year and had to move on, but it was a year filled with much spiritual as well as musical growth and my mother and I went through confirmation class and got confirmed in the spring of 1971. Before I left for the summer at Interlochen (playing bassoon) I also went to some real Pentecostal churches with some friends and witnessed the real Holy Rollers. That was something to behold, but as much as I wanted to be a part of that, I didn't really feel the Spirit like I had at St. Luke's.  Which reminds me of the usher at St. Mary's who was heard to say to the woman who was slain in the Spirit and claimed that she had religion, "well you may have religion but you didn't get it here!"