My aunt invited me to her church while I visited her for a quick weekend trip.
Though I don’t frequent churches and it had been quite a while, I obliged because I didn’t want to be rude and reject my aunt’s request.
I woke up that Sunday morning, got dressed, and off to church I went for the 11:00 AM service. While I walked through the aisle of the church trying to locate a place to sit, I noticed a few older women using hand-held church fans. This church had a central air conditioning unit, so I was a bit surprised to see the ladies using those church fans. The fans were made with wooden handles with thick stock paper stapled to them. The image on the stock paper showcased the name of the church as well as a picture of the church building. Seeing this made me smile because church fans were used many years ago to provide some relief to church goers during the warm Summer months prior to the days when air conditioners were readily available to the general public. Today, most churches have a cooling system installed, some have HVAC units while others rely on smaller window A/Cs, perhaps some use industrial-sized fans. But it is amazing that the hand-held church fan, an old invention, is still being used today in church buildings that have air conditioning technology. As mentioned, the women were older, so they became acclimated to using these fans, and therefore, the church fans became part of their church experience. I saw the fans as a great way to advertise the church as they could be used to recruit new members. Turns out, this was in fact another purpose of these church fans to provide advertisement for various businesses. Perhaps, I should have requested a few of those hand- held fans for my friends and family to promote and advertise my aunt’s church.