What was the Hayride Prayer Meeting?

As anyone who grew up as a good Funda-Baptist knows, a Hayride Prayer Meeting was a church-sponsored alternative for that holiday that occurs in very late October and celebrates Satan and tooth decay and movies about mythological horror creatures that Jesus did not die for. It is not a "Harvest Festival," because those are too close to pagan celebrations like Lughnasadh, the Irish celebration to the god Lugh that included sinful practices as feasting (gluttony), matchmaking (lust), trading (greed), and the Tailteann Games (pride).

Such things are anathema to good Funda-Baptists, and so an alternative to the alternative had to be created. First, it needed to be called a prayer meeting because the only activities you can have outside of Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, Christmas Eve, Good Friday, Maundy Thursday, or is it Wednesday, and Just-Okay Saturday is Daily Vacation Bible School, a tent revival, or a prayer meeting. DVBS is for little kids. Tent revivals are too much like celebrations, and celebrations on that late-October Satan holiday are too much like having fun. In a prayer meeting, you can pray out Satan and take back the night, or something.

The original Hayride Prayer Meetings occurred long ago. Students from the Groner's Cove Funda-Baptist Church met in a barn. They ate non-celebratory snacks like bologna sandwiches, bug juice, and crackers that looked like Goldfish Crackers but they were called God-fish crackers from the Christian Supply Store. They had "ICHTHYS" on them and tasted like soap. The students sang songs that had been written when their parents were kids accompanied by the college intern on a guitar. Their youth pastor was a progressive, so they got to sing "Father, I Adore You" in a round.

After an hour of singing, they broke into groups and had an hour of personal prayer requests, like for friends who were out celebrating Satan with snacks that actually tasted good. Then they got together and had another hour of praying, mostly for the country that was out eating bad food that rotted their teeth while celebrating Satan. Then they broke for more bug juice and prayed that they would be strong enough to never celebrate Lugh.

At the end was the hayride. The owner of the barn piled his trailer up with loose hay and hitched his donkey (not a mule, because that's an animal that's made of two things which is too close to being a wolfman and that's bad), and the kids piled on. Meanwhile, the adults cleaned up the bug juice cups and had no idea what was going on in that jostling, rocking, pile of hay. The youth did, though. Some saw it. Others heard the witnesses' whispers. But all believed—Bartholomew held Anne-Marie's hand for at least four minutes under the hay. Which happened to fulfill Bartholomew's prayer request. They only let go when the cart came to a hill and everyone had to get off because one donkey can't pull twenty kids.

Most of the kids walked back to the barn. Then a thunderstorm came, and the donkey broke her harness and ran off. Five of the students hid under the cart and prayed for the rain to stop. When it did, they pushed the cart back up the hill and decided to become missionaries.

The prayer meeting inspired many others, like the Hayjude Prayer Meeting in Liverpool, the Haywood You Bug Off Prayer Meeting in Boston, the Hay, Hay, We're the Monkees Prayer Meeting in LA, and the Haystack Prayer Meeting in Williamstown, MA.

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