Walking to church

I always thought it would be nice to live so close to church that I could walk. How far is too far to walk to church? Well, I suppose it depends on how bad you want to go to church.

The following is from Compendium of Baptist History by J.A. Shackleford.

Beaver Dam church, Ohio county, Kentucky, is one of the oldest churches in that state, it having been constituted as early as 1798. Some of its members lived twenty miles distant, but were regular in their attendance. They would leave their homes on Friday afternoon, many times on foot, and go part of the way, stopping to hold prayer meeting at night with some brother on the road. The journey would be finished the next morning in time for the eleven o’clock sermon. There would be preaching on Saturday both in the morning and at night, also on Sunday at eleven o’clock and at night. Monday morning the members living distant would return to their homes. There were conversions and baptisms at almost every meeting of the church. If such were not the case the members would consider the church in a very luke-warm condition, and the next meeting was usually preceded by fasting and prayer.

Such consecration and earnestness would not doubt be attended with the like results at the present day. The indifference of many church members to the interests of their church work is a said commentary upon their profession.

People do what they want to do. These people wanted to go to church, so they walked.