Before Boerne had traffic circles, turf fields, and Starbucks, and before it became one of the fastest-growing towns in Texas, it was a quiet Hill Country town rooted in limestone, family names, and Sundays. For the ranching and farming families who lived outside of town, out toward Sisterdale, Waring, Welfare, and Bergheim, getting to church wasn’t a short trip. It took planning, time, and a little grit, so many families built a second home in town. These small structures became known as Sunday Houses.
A Sunday House was simple, usually one or two rooms, sometimes with a sleeping loft, a small porch, and not much else. They weren’t built to impress anyone. They were built to serve a purpose. Families could travel into Boerne, spend the night, attend church on Sunday, and then return home. The purpose was to be there, and in those days being there often meant not just once, but twice on Sunday.
That phrase has always intrigued me. For years I heard it without really thinking about where it came from. Then, one day I was told a story about New Braunfels native Kliff Kingsbury when he was the head football coach at Texas Tech. He was asked what color belt someone should wear with a certain shirt and pair of pants. Coach Kingsbury, known almost as much for his fashion sense as his football knowledge, didn’t hesitate. “Brown. Once on Saturday and twice on Sunday.”
I laughed when I first heard it, but the phrase stuck with me. It sounded like something a grandfather might have said while sitting on a porch swing. The brown belt wasn’t just acceptable; it was dependable. If it worked once on Saturday and twice on Sunday, apparently it would work anytime. But the more I thought about the saying, the more I realized there was some history tucked inside that little bit of humor.
In the early days of Boerne and throughout the Hill Country, church wasn’t simply an hour squeezed into a busy weekend. Sunday was built around church. Families attended morning worship and then returned for an evening service. The day began and ended in church, and going twice on Sunday wasn’t unusual. For many families, it was simply what you did. Somewhere along the way, “twice on Sunday” worked its way into our everyday language as a way of describing something dependable, something you believed in, or something you would gladly do again.
I remember when that rhythm began to change. In 1994, our church made the decision to discontinue Sunday evening services. The reasoning was understandable. The thought was that a midweek gathering might have better attendance and families were becoming busier. Still, there was some drama surrounding the decision because to the traditionalist, Sunday night church was part of what Sunday was supposed to be. Some complained loudly, others quietly shook their heads, but there was also an uncomfortable truth in all of it. Some of the people who didn’t want Sunday night church to disappear weren’t attending it very regularly themselves.
Carla and I certainly couldn’t throw any stones. We weren’t very good Sunday evening attendees either. We usually had every intention of going, but Sunday lunch would linger, the kids would get comfortable, the afternoon would get away from us, and that second trip to church somehow became easier to miss. We weren’t making a statement against Sunday night church. We just weren’t consistently showing up for it. So, when the church finally made the change, I couldn’t complain. Still, I knew something that had been part of church life for generations was quietly passing away.
Looking back, I think what people missed most about the second service wasn’t necessarily another sermon. In fact, the evening message was often different and hopefully a little shorter. What people really seemed to love were the hymns, the old gospel songs, and the fellowship. Sunday evening had a different feeling from Sunday morning. It was a little more relaxed and a little more personal. You sang with people you knew, visited before and after church, caught up with families, and spent another hour with your community. People may have forgotten what the preacher said on a particular Sunday night, but they remembered singing those songs together. That was a big part of twice on Sunday.
That brings me back to those Sunday Houses. Today, if you walk through parts of old Boerne, you can still find reminders of them, although you may not recognize them for what they once were. Some have been added onto and remodeled over the years. What was once a little Sunday House may now be part of a restaurant, a clothing boutique, an office, or another business. A room that once gave a family a place to sleep between trips to church may now have a dining table or a rack of clothes in it. Boerne changed, and the Sunday Houses changed right along with it.
I like the fact that they are still around because those little houses tell a bigger story. They remind us of a time when families arranged their weekend around worship rather than trying to squeeze worship into the weekend. That doesn’t mean Carla and I were examples of perfect attendance. It simply means life had a different rhythm, and the Sunday House was part of that rhythm.
We don’t hear much about going twice on Sunday anymore because most churches don’t even have a second Sunday service. The phrase has outlived the practice. Today someone can say, “twice on Sunday” and never think about an evening hymn, a Sunday House, or a family spending the weekend in town so they could worship again before heading home.
Maybe that’s why I like the saying so much. It started as part of a way of life and somehow survived long after that way of life changed. A football coach can use it to answer a question about a brown belt, and an old Sunday House in Boerne can become a restaurant or clothing boutique, but underneath both is still a little piece of history.
Once on Saturday and twice on Sunday. It makes me smile when I hear it now, but it also makes me remember. Sometimes an old saying is more than just an old saying. Sometimes it reminds us where we’ve been, what we once did, and maybe even a little of what mattered along the way.
“Sometimes an old saying is more than just an old saying. Sometimes it reminds us where we’ve been, what we once did, and maybe even a little of what mattered along the way.”
Twice on Sunday
From the November 2026 issue of The Kendall Gentleman.
Coach Stan Leech has shared his voice with readers before in Rails, Mulligan and We Do What We Want. For more Boerne history from this issue, read The Dieterts: The Family That Put Boerne to Work.
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