Drive-In Church,
Daytona Beach, Florida, 1956
In last week’s slide the trailer was burning. So this week we go to church and pray. But not just any church! Oh no! We’re going where you honk to say amen!
A ’55 Pontiac, ’55 Ford, ’56 Chrysler and ’54 Chevy are parked for prayer. The preacher preaches from a shaded pulpit on a platform. His sermon is delivered from the same pole-mounted speakers that gave sound to the B-movie that played just a few hours before. Between Saturday night and Sunday morning this drive-in serves two very different purposes.
I wasn’t raised in a religious household. My family never went to church. My used-car-dealer-dad and my happy homemaker mom taught my big-bruiser brother and I to simply live by the golden rule – “do unto others as you would have them do unto you”. And so I do.
But long about my fifth grade year my mother apparently began to feel guilty about the lack of organized religion in my life. So she signed me up to attend a bible study class that took place in a long, long trailer that had been converted into a religious classroom. For several months the trailer lumbered into the school parking lot every Thursday afternoon. For 55 minutes we read the bible, sang and of course prayed. I do remember something about the “path of temptation” but, frankly, not much else because I was far too distracted by spectacular quality of the trailer’s knotty pine paneled interior. As a fifth grader it was the best I’d ever seen. My imagination was inspired and my spirit soared! To this day I don’t think I’ve ever seen better wood paneling.
Miraculously, this drive in church still exists. I did a quickie Google search and it was top of the list. It’s been a part of the Daytona Beach religious scene since 1953. It no longer does double duty as a theater and the screen is gone. But the preacher still personally greets each car as they drive away at the end of the service. It’s worth a visit to the site just to hear the theme song. driveinchurch.net
Let us now bow our heads and pray – for burning trailers, drive-in churches and the best wood paneling I ever saw!
Honk…honk…honk!!!
Well Thank the Lord ! Thank you Jesus ! We need to be thankful because the lord does know what typically happens in cars at drive ins! So we can be thankful that it is now just a church! I wonder if they kept the concession stand. A little pop corn with my sermon would be inspiring for sure ! Take care Charles. Looking forward to the new book.
Charles, you devil, you!
Although I worship at the altar of Emily Post, housewives-in-doubt might want to turn to _God in my Kitchen: fifty two thoughts for homemakers_ by Dorothy C. Haskin (1958). Mrs. Haskin’s chapters are commonly stories about how Christian it is to save money or not complain about the neighbor’s barking beast of a dog, but my favorite is the one titled, “Dishwashing Devotions” which endeavors to help a woman walk in the Lord’s light while “rising above the monotony of housework [...] Beds have to be made. Dishes have to be washed. There is no way to avoid housework; while putting your hands to automatic tasks, your thoughts can be on God and your life be filled with joy.”
Pray while scrubbing the grease off the dinner pans, ladies! It will help you pass the time!
However, as we are in the sin-den of a drive-in today, I thought I would concentrate on a little pamphlet titled _What Every Christian Girl Should Know_ by William W. Orr (no publication date, I’m guessing it’s from the late 40s – early 50s). As Mr. Orr looks down on most modern attractions and fun in general (he only likes “travel pictures, educational school films, [and] home movies”), I’m guessing he wouldn’t cotton to a driving into a passion pit in order to worship the Lord. However, he can help us at the beach. Summer days are upon us, and we might think about asking the Lord for some bathing suit guidance. I turn now to a little chapter called, “Sports and Swim Suits”:
“One of life’s most enjoyable sports is swimming. Today, almost everybody swims, from Grandma to the hound pup. That’s super, for swimming is just about the perfect exercise. [...] But I’m not so sure that the modern swim suit is pleasing to God. I fear that the modern style in bathing suits (both girls and boys) is not only conducive to the lust of the eyes and the lust of the flesh but it’s also a brazen, defiant flaunting of one of God’s basic principles.[ ...] What shall a Christian girl do? Perhaps the key is to dress as conservatively as possible. Choose for a suit one that covers well and yet doesn’t point you out as a fuddy-duddy. Ask the Lord for special guidance here.”
Ask and ye shall receive fashion advice. What bathing suit would Jesus wear? Lord, does this one piece, skirted suit make my thighs look thinner?
xoxo!
Miss Sharon
I would be thanking God, too, if I had one of those cars. I’ve been praying for one for years, but so far, no such luck. Tried to win one in a contest at the Albertson’s–took every card they had. Got writer’s cramp filling them all out. No luck. I guess I just haven’t gone to church enough. I guess the church of rock and roll doesn’t count. Sigh…
i bet curbing the urge to make out was a real test of one’s commitment to the lord!
While the subject is Drive-Ins:
The Prelinger Archive has some wonderful vintage intermission ads that can be viewed with a few short clicks…
http://www.archive.org/details/DriveInMovieAds
“Collection of super short advertisements used during intermission at drive-in movie theaters during the 1950′s and early 1960′s to get people to consume junk food from the concession stand.”
Charles, your wit and insight continue to amaze me. “Pray for burning trailers”. You slay me.
Gee, I thought Reverend Schuller was the first one with the idea for drive-in church!
Well,You do have to admire the “Creative approach” the Good Reverend took to bring in followers.At least you can yell at the kids,listen to a game,or maybe even catch some shuteye before hearing about your final damnation.I wonder if he was interupted by that universal mono-tone guy that says,”Attention folks,The snack bar will be closing in five minutes”.I also wonder if you ride in inside the trunk,do you still have to give to the collection plate?
Thanks so much, Charles. This photo and your description really did bring me back to a different time. I did go online to the site
and, although I am not a Christian, I loved the music and the spirit
behind it. It really was a wonderful adventure.
well, there really is a drive in church. I dont know if it is still there but remember it as a kid and drove by it hundreds of times along A1A while going to Ponce Inlet. This photo doesnt look like it but I dont know if the on im talking about is still there. been about 5 years since i drove down there. sad. i only live about an hour away now. always made me wodner who went to churches like this?
is this the “fast food” of church? i go to a baptist church.
wish i woulda took more photos of me in my 66 stang when i was in my 20′s all around daytona. its ALL different now. The dollar won over historical factor.
I was searching thorugh pix of Daytona Beach. I saw this in almost disbelief. The little boy in the back seat of the 55 Ford is me. We attended the drive in church during the time my father was in construction working on building the Thunderbird Motel at that time. We lived in Johnson’s Trailer Park next to Gill’s Bar-B- Que in Holly Hill. In later years he bacame a mininster himself in Fort Myers, FL. Wow; who would have ever thought in 1956 that you, some fifty odd years later, would see yourself in a picture on a system of computers attached to each other avalable for the whole world to see. Makes one want to behave themselves. You never know were you will pop up these days.
Thanks for the memories.