When I was growing up, there was an old abandoned building that sat adjacent to my parents' property.  The building was probably once some kind of neighborhood grocery store or something, but it had sat empty for as long as I could remember.  One summer, it was purchased and converted into a small one room church.  There was never a huge crowd attending this church, probably a dozen or so during "services." 

Not long after this church was established, we learned that their goal was to bring the Word of God to their neighbors.  Near and far.  It might sound legit at first.  Isn't that what most churches strive to do?  But this particular church, the one only separated from our backyard by a shotgun house and a wooden privacy fence, decided to hang big speakers to the outside of their building broadcasting their every church service to the neighborhood. 

Now, I love Jesus. But I don't need to hear a monotone sermon followed by off-key monotone singing blaring loudly as I try to float in the backyard pool.  So night after night (they seemed to have church a lot) we would listen to the hymns as we swam in our pool.

What made this little church even more problematic was that the song choices were always about blood.  Jesus' blood.  Power in the blood.  Are you washed in the blood?  Covered by the blood.  Nothing but the blood of Jesus.   

I had grown up in church and had heard all of these hymns sung over and over, and when I was older realized what the blood of Jesus meant.  But for crying out loud.  Every song? 

To make it even creepier the "song leader" who led the congregation in these bloody songs (and apparently had a microphone that fed right to the outside speakers) was a creepy songster who made the songs about blood all that much more eerie.  Have you ever heard "The Memory Remains" by Metallica?  You know the slightly unsettling vocals throughout the song (sung by Marianne Faithfull -- I Googled it)?  That's what this voice sounded like.  Day in and day out.

There were several calls to the police, and my dad threatened to go cut the wire to the speakers, but the blood music would play on.  It got to the point to where every time we had a pool party, Blood Church would start up the choir and start singing about blood.  We'd try to drown them out with my dad's stereo (which also had outside speakers), blasting the grunge music of the 90's. But to no avail.

They even tried to out-song us during a pool party we were hosting for the youth group at our church, oddly enough. 

My mom used to joke that they were over there "handling snakes" in the make-shift church.  I know exactly what they were doing.  Annoying the hell out of me.  No pun intended. 

After that summer, the church finally went silent.  I don't know if they relocated or if the congregation got tired of singing about blood.  I never heard another monotone song about blood after that. 

As I sat in church this past Sunday, with the praise band playing an upbeat, peppy version of "There Is Power In The Blood," I was suddenly back in high school, floating in my parents' pool, listening to my jams.....then abruptly startled by a Marianne Faithfull-type voice singing Are You Washed In The Blood? 

I guess those hymns will never ever be the same to me again.  Ever.