Children Such as These.

We’d been to lots of churches, so many I thought we’d seen it all. I thought we had the routine down pat. We’d seen big beautiful churches with parking lots so full they needed volunteers in orange vests directing traffic, like at a stadium on game day. We’d seen churches with so much going on, a ministry for every demographic, a pastor for every cause, they needed a sign listing today’s events like at a conference or a convention. We’d seen churches bustling with greeters possessing bright smiles and hurried handshakes. We’d seen churches so dead they could have been confused for the city morgue. We’d seen churches in dilapidated buildings, full of dilapidated people. We’d seen churches that were out of the way altogether of a different sort. We’d seen churches that fell everywhere in between.

I believed we represented a special segment, an otherwise forgotten, overlooked, never openly talked about group seldom visible in most churches. I believed we had a story to tell—one you needed to hear. God loves drug addicts, alcoholics, prostitutes and others who society has no use for and has discarded. By the power of God, our lives had been forever changed and we’d been healed, reborn and given a second chance. So, onward marching like good Christian soldiers we traveled from church to church telling our stories to raise the funds to help others like us.

But the gig in this church completely blew my mind.

This wasn’t some down on its luck forgotten church where seediness had replaced the former glory of better days gone by. This one didn’t start out as a church at all. Once it was a shoe store, or sold auto parts, or a laundromat, or something. The building itself was in a small strip mall in an area of the city that politicians call "blighted" and realtors call “distressed—the next up and coming”, where the the police don’t use words like “sir” and “ma’am” at traffic stops, preferring to protect and serve places and things that had more value.

We parked our van in between the craters in the parking lot and watched the heads of people on a church bus bounce as the driver took the more direct route through the craters to the store front, I mean, to the front doors of the church.

I watched the people pile off the bus, pretending to fall over one another, some of them laughing still mimicking the bouncing motion created by the ride through the craters. I thought to myself, “Who on God’s green earth dressed these people?”

Some of the women looked like they had applied their make-up with a spade. It would take a hammer and a chisel to free their faces from the caked on foundation, blush, eye shadow and mascara. Their bright red lipstick highlighted their rotting teeth. Behind me someone said, “She needs to take her make-up to the cross.” Men and women alike had worn-out, tired faces creased by time, cigarette smoke, and worry. Their clothes reminded me of what appears in piles outside the drop box run by Salvation Army, Goodwill, or the DAV.

We moved quickly from the make shift foyer into the sanctuary and took our seats. I felt relieved we didn’t have to make conversation. Our director quietly reviewed with us what songs we would sing and who would give his or her testimony.

We’d visited churches where the budget for the sound system and worship team exceeded the salary of most pastors. They tripped the light fantastic as they led the congregation from upbeat worship into solemn praise. We’d visited churches where the droning of the worship team put us to sleep and others where the only music was made by the chirping of crickets. Nothing prepared me for what happened next.

I watched as the worship team leader panted as he took center stage. “Wasn’t gluttony still a sin?” He welcomed everyone to join in worshiping the Lord. Before long the crowd was on its feet, and there was dancing and singing in the aisles. I’m not talking about good old fashioned moved-by-the-Spirit Pentecostal dancing and singing. That had become routine in our travels. These people were singing, dancing and having fun as they worshiped God. This was the moment they had waited for all week, and they were not going to miss out by holding back, pretending not to feel what was busting through their hearts.

At first I thought the enthusiasm was confined to the group of people I saw get off the bus. But as I looked around, it was obvious that the entire congregation was made up of people like those we saw earlier. Its not like I never saw them before or didn’t know who they were. These were the folks who stood outside the liquor store or the day labor agency or the waiting room of the ER in which I used to work, men who pushed shopping carts full of cans, women who pushed strollers full of laundry, kids who hustled change washing windshields while the light was red before the city passed an ordinance making it a crime. These were the folks I always hurried by, flashing a fake smile as my eyes quickly turned away, while clutching my purse a little tighter.

After a time the worship leader settled everyone in their seats and, doubling as their pastor, began the service. He invited prayer requests, and my heart broke a little as I listened in.

Someone requested prayer for a hurt foot. Another asked for “the nurses to be nice and not talk so mean.” Someone shouted excitedly something about his sister, but I couldn’t understand his garbled speech. The pastor reassured the man that God was taking care of her and always would. Someone voiced his disappointment that his family had not visited as promised, again. One woman shared how she had forgiven the man who hurt her when she was a little girl.

The pastor skillfully loved on each person as he lifted them and their requests up in prayer to God. He gave a short and simple—but not watered down—message. Then he introduced us.

Our director made a short statement about the organization and its purpose. I don’t remember what songs we sang, but I do remember our audience went wild with applause. I felt like a member of Hillsong. Carrie was first up to give her testimony. She told about coming from a broken home, how she had no dad, and how she ended up abusing speed. Linda testified about her involvement in one abusive relationship after another and her need to have a man in her life to feel worthy. Heather recounted years of depression, addiction, and failed suicide attempts that landed her in psych wards, Child abuse of every kind was covered in our testimonies. Alcoholism, abortion, casinos, prison, losing children to DHS—every misery imaginable, every trauma, every scar. The monotony of having heard these same testimonies every Sunday for almost a year had numbed me to their power, when suddenly a man from the back shouted, “Its OK. Jesus loves you, and so do I.” The audience went wild with applause and shouts of “Hallelujah.” We took our seats, and the pastor came forward again. I lowered my head less in reverence than in shame as he asked for the ushers to come forward to take up a collection for us.

Following the service we chatted with members of the congregation on a variety of subjects. Soon, buses pulled up to the church doors, and the men and women waved good-bye as they were carted off, bouncing their way through the craters. The pastor and a few men quickly set up tables and chairs in the foyer while his wife and some women produced crock pots that contained a meal for us. He asked for a blessing, and as we began eating, he shared his own testimony.

For years he had worked as a CNA in a nursing home. He had a heart for the people that everyone else overlooked, the ones deemed unacceptable by the more privileged and powerful who make the rules and run the show. When he was introduced to the love of Jesus Christ, he knew exactly who to share that love with. He knew where the soil was fertile and the seed would take root, because he knew people who desperately needed what Jesus offers—love and hope, faith and forgiveness. It turned out that most of his congregation came from nursing homes and group homes and subsidized housing around the city. A few from the missions and shelters. The rest were family members and a handful of others who believed in reaching the world in their own backyard with the love of God.

The meal finished, we left after a while, but that place and those people still haven’t left me. It is said that God never fails to provide what we need. I guess I needed an eye opener, or something to help me swallow my pride. How had I described our cause? I insisted we were “a special segment, an otherwise forgotten, overlooked, never openly talked about group seldom visible in most churches...who society has no use for and has discarded.” I believed we had “a story to tell—one you needed to hear.” Truth be told, I was on more of a mission of my own making than a ministry to others. I was there to teach others. I had something to say. I had something to prove. I needed others to listen to me. They had to change to get my approval. Its not that my message was wrong or even the method, just my motivation. I needed reminded of something I once knew but apparently forgot, seduced by thinking that I was an authority on the sin of substance abuse... and gluttony too. I needed the very rebuke I had perfected for others. He delivered it in the form of a bouncing bus filled with humility and modesty, free of conceit and ambition. He reminded me what truly constitutes the key to His kingdom.

May God forgive me, and may we—with the hearts of little children just as it is written—sing His praise for ever and ever.
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