Revival Meetings

[Grace]

Revival meetings with altar calls would be one of them. Another is the custom of having the preacher(s) go to the back of the church immediately following the service, where they greet every person as they leave. I asked our bishop about this, and he said he likes doing it because he likes to greet everyone by name and get to know them. I've always thought that evangelical churches do that because there is little fellowship after church and it's the pastor's only chance to get slightly acquainted with folks. Everybody just heads right out the door and goes home, where in Mennonite churches there is typically a long period of fellowship afterward.

Maybe this is regional, but doesn't the Weaverland (Horning) folks get to church really early to fellowship and then leave almost immediately following the service?

What you said has an element of truth. I was raised Weaverland Conference, but haven't been in one for many years. They segregate the men and the women and also segregate by age. They have sections for the older folks, middle age folks, young families with children, youth and even an older singles section. The women congregated in the women's antrum and the men in theirs, before church. And that is where the latest community news was shared. Then at one point the people filed in. I remember as a youth girl, us girls would be in the youth corner of the antrum ,chitter chattering, and giggling until the song leader would start the first song. Only then would we file in. The song leader didn't lead songs as in most churches, but all the song leaders sat at a "singing table". And it was one of the men at the table that began the songs, using a little black book, that had the words to the song, but no notes. After church, all the ladies would stand outside the church waiting for their men to pick them up.