The exceptionally pleasant sunrise service on Easter morning outside Watts Chapel Methodist Church got me to thinking about a couple of marginally Biblical concepts, neither of which may rock your boat in 2011.

No. 1, how did folks get to church for a sunrise service before they had headlights on vehicles? Namely, how did they steer the horses in the dark, or did they just walk, inviting hungry coyotes to nip at their heels as they tiptoed around buffalo patties in the pasture?

Well, that’s not a hard one. I can visualize old settlers firing up the Coleman lanterns to help guide Dobbin to his destination. And I can imagine them loading and firing .22 rifles at the assorted varmints. If they happened to hit a free-range broiler on the way, they gathered that up for the after-church meal. We Methodists like our fried chicken. I assume you Baptists do, too.

But there were other prehistoric problems to deal with at frontier churches on the Sabbath. And I’m not even counting the Indians, outlaws and preachers who insisted on keeping a firearm at the lectern in case I went to sleep behind my sunglasses in the 12th pew.

“The first settlers were deeply religious, God-fearing, devout Christians,” according to a 1954 story for the Times-Review Centennial edition. “Their descendants have remained the same down through the years, honoring the heritage which was handed to them by these staunch and rugged pioneers, to make the county what it is today.

“Like all other early day activities, it wasn’t an easy matter for these pioneers to get together and worship, but get together they did, using log cabin homes, brush arbors and tents as a meeting place.

“Occasionally, a band of Indians would disturb some early-day worship, but not often. More frequent were disturbances the result of some cowboy drinking a little too much ‘fire water’ and whooping it up a bit in the close proximity of these makeshift places of worship.

“The pioneers were equal to all occasions, however. It didn’t take these tough settlers long to calm down the Indians and renegade cowboys, most of them becoming good Christian workers in the churches established throughout the county, at the crossroads, at the forks of the creeks.”

It is said that the first church services in Cleburne were held in 1867, the year the city was founded. There is no evidence they were held in conjunction with Antique Alley.

“The Persons’ home, owned by the parents of J. Ed Persons, Cleburne real estate broker and farmer, was used as a meeting place for members of the Baptist church before any church buildings were constructed. A little later, a brush arbor served the devout church-goers,” the story reads.

“These old brush arbors were used universally, throughout the county, as summertime meeting places. Men and boys in the various communities would select a spot for the arbor, then cut down trees, using the trunks for supports, smaller limbs as rafters and twigs and leaves to cover the arbor.

“These arbors served as shade for morning services and allowed cool summer breezes to flow through the crowds.”

Back then, the only technological relief from the morning heat was what they called a hillbilly air-conditioner. A block of ice was placed on a chair. A fan was placed behind the chair. A damp breeze was sure to excite the congregation when the fan was activated. Electrocutions were evidently rare.

“For the purpose of comfort,” according to the story, “many localities in rural areas have continued to erect these brush arbors for summertime revival meetings. There was only one drawback to attending a meeting under brush arbors. Bugs, attracted by sputtering kerosene lamps, had a way of stealing the show from the revival preacher.

“When one of these bugs managed to get inside the neck of a dress, it was more or less disturbing to the worshipper and others around her.”

Of course, it also added comic relief to pastor’s angry tirade on the subject of John Barleycorn, since everybody had turned to watch the woman with the bug jump around like Rumplestiltzken.

Much as Burleson is known today as the City of Lights — red and green stop signals control traffic the length of Texas 174 — Cleburne remains known as the City of Churches.

This can be a painful subject to non-theological types who want to get an early start to the golf course, lake or backyard barbecue across town and find that it takes them slightly longer to negotiate our tricky streets because of vehicles parked at creative angles in front of churches.

I’m afraid I have to agree with preachers who answer these complaints with the words, “If you’d been in church where you belonged, you wouldn’t have noticed how bad the church traffic was.”

Well, time passes and times change, more or less for the better.

As Larue Barnes has written, “The days of the brush arbors are gone. Occasionally, some special historical observance will involve such worship, but convenience and comfort have been built into the typical Cleburne church.

“Funeral home fans, with the advertising on the back and a Biblical painting on the front, are collector’s items today. Churches have air-conditioning. Many have comfortable padded pews, lovely stained glass, areas for fellowship.”

Hard to argue with the necessity of the modern setting, though sunrise service got me to thinking how much fun a brush arbor must have been. Nothing like a water moccasin in the collection plate to liven up the crowd.