"It's been a long time between drinks" is a legendary and oft-quoted statement attributed to long-ago governors of North and South Carolina. Let me tell you about an incident that might be called "It's been a long time between invitations to preach."

The first invitation came to me in 1946, during my first semester at what was then Mars Hill Junior College, before I had fully decided to enter the ministry, and three years before I was ordained. I had sung solos, led choir and group singing, played the cornet and spoken at student meetings and at student-led conferences in several counties near the college, but my preaching for church worship services had been limited.

On my first visit home to Kenly from college at Christmas, someone came to our house and asked me to go to Castalia, a small village near Rocky Mount, to "fill the pulpit" on Sunday, Dec. 24. I was willing and eager to do so, but I did not own an automible. (That was the case with the majority of college students and veterans just after World War II.)

My oldest brother, James Allen, offered to let me use his car for the day. James, an overseas Army veteran living then in Selma, had bought a car at the end of the war when new cars were hard to get and radiator anti-freeze was not readily available. The temperature on that Christmas Eve was about 15 degrees, so on the way to Castalia, the radiator froze. I don't remember the particulars, but somehow I managed to get to my destination on time, and there must have been enough warming during the day for me to be able to drive home.

Because of my limited preaching experience, I was not adept at judging time and managing subject matter for preaching. The church's one-room frame sanctuary was heated with a pot-bellied stove, but even when the stove's heat was apparent with its several red-hot spots, the room never did get comfortably warm.

My only timepiece that day was a pocket "dollar watch," which had no jewels and was lubricated with oil. I laid the watch on the pulpit as I began to speak. As might be expected, though it had not occurred to me before, the watch's lubricant began to thicken in the cold, causing it to slow down. It seemed to me that time was passing slowly, so after I had used all my material and likely was only repeating myself, I just quit, with the watch indicating it was 11:50 a.m. As soon as the service was over, I realized that the watch had actually stopped, and to my consternation and embarrassment, I was told that it was 12:20 p.m. The room might have been cold, but I suspect my face was redder than usual or somewhat like the redness of some areas of the stove. The people, who were mercifully patient through it all, proved to be kind to me as a 20-year-old shirttail preacher. However, they did not invite me back, or at least not until 63 years had passed.

Castalia, in a beautiful farming area, is still small, but the church has grown to have excellent facilities, a vibrant membership and a capable, energetic and dedicated pastor, Chris Carroll. I met Chris at Buies Creek several months earlier, when both of us were attending a meeting of the Campbell University Board of Ministers. We sat together at lunch, and during our conversation, I told him about that first and only visit to the Castalia Baptist Church. Several months later, he extended to me the church's invitation to be its 2009 homecoming speaker. It had been more than six decades since my first visit there, and time had erased any bad memories anyone might have had about my first visit. About a half-dozen of the congregation's 1946 members were left. While some of them remembered the pot-bellied stove in the former one-room church, and one man said he built fires in the stove, no one remembered my visit.

I was pleased to accept the invitation to return and looked forward to telling the congregation about my first visit there. By going on Oct. 11, I found the church and its outside walkways decorated with beautiful fall flowers and colors. Because I was taking medicines that could cause some dizziness for me, my wife, who was unable to attend, suggested that I take someone with me to assist with the driving. Having already thought of that, I invited my good Smithfield friend, Stan Harper, to go along, asking him to drive on the return trip. His comment about the service and the dinner that followed was that "the church seemed like a happy church," and indeed it did. The service was alive with fellowship, reminiscing, lively and beautiful music, and my homecoming day sermon, unlike the one on my first visit, did not exceed the allotted time.

It was a good day all around. As might be expected, the fellowship hall's tables were spread with a wide variety of good home-cooking, on a pretty day that allowed dozens of the large crowd to eat at outdoor tables.

Unlike Methuselah and several centuries-old Bible characters, I will not be around after another 63 years have passed. It was good to go back, however, to see that the church must have gotten over its first encounter with me and to see the continuing progress it is making.

When I have the privilege and pleasure to visit groups of gathered people like those at Castalia, I experience a renewal of confidence in the future of this country. Unlike so many people in our large urban centers who seem to have lost their way, I believe the heart and soul of America can be seen and depended upon in thousands of small-town, country and crossroads churches and groups. The people in those churches and groups know and support each other, work to provide for their families and worship and study to nourish spiritual life for themselves, their children and others. These unheralded groups constitute what may be the cement to bind and perpetuate wholesome communities and insure a stable future for our nation. No one should despair if his or her church is small, if it is located on a country road infrequently traveled or if it is not one of the much-publicized mega churches.

This country will never be strong because of huge government-run programs, powerful corporate businesses and Hollywood-type entertainment extravaganzas. Its true strength will be because its people are strong and supportive of and nurtured by large and small churches and community groups.

We rightly sing "God bless America." My prayer is not that God will bless America just so the country can continue on a course that might disown and dishonor the creator. My prayer is that God's blessings will lead the people to do what's right and strengthen them in doing the things that will honor God and serve humanity.