Break Dividing Walls...

One of the things that Anna mentioned last night was that she misses things about her Black Baptist church back in Portland. I was just thinking about some churches that I used to attend (one of them regularly, and one whenever I visited my parents).

Blood n Fire in Atlanta was literally located in the projects. I used to sometimes ride my bike there, and every service was an amazing experience. There were more homeless / poor / drug addicts at church each week than at any other church I have ever been to. The pastor had given up a successful career in order to work with the poor, and one day that I was there he gave away one of his few remaining cherished possessions, his Harley Davidson, in an offering to be given to Jackie Pullinger. After that week, it was no longer parked up front in the warehouse/church building each Sunday.

This church regularly gave away more money than possibly any other church I have ever been too. Massive amounts, given to other ministries and outreaches, from possibly the poorest congregation I have ever seen. Massive amounts. (If I recall, I think one particular offering was in the thirty-something thousand dollar range).

Anyway - forget about the money... Some of the happiest, most radiant people I have ever met lived at that church. I'm talking about people that were crack-head crazy street folks before Jesus was involved. They lived in an old crazy building beside the church, and ran a ministry for homeless / drug addicted men getting their lives turned around.

Also, I helped out a bit one summer with a kids program. Once a week I went and helped some insanely patient people run an insanely crazy kids program with neighbourhood hood-rats; kids with names like 'Peanut', that would literally climb all over you if given the chance. One week we took them all to a public pool - half of them couldn't even swim!, so we would wade around the crowded noisy pool with three of the smaller kids clinging to each of us...

And church each week was definitely a 'clap-and-sway' kind of event. That was the minimum, actually. The first time I ever went, the pastor had all the young people (20's and younger, I think, 'cause it included me!), run around the big warehouse building, as part of the worship service. So we did; all the kids and the college folks like myself, running at full tilt in a huge loop around the building, while everyone was singing church songs. It sounds crazy, and it usually was, but it was all a part of the amazing exuberance that was in people's hearts... It just exploded out of them, and they knew how to express it outwardly, as praise back to the God that had done SO much for them. Actually, I don't know if half of them even had an option!

Anyway - I should do some work now...