Shane Claiborne | {Photography. Witness. Passion}

Church Under the Bridge

A while ago I went with my good friend Luis Rodriguez and Andrew Cagle went to Waco, Tx on a Sunday Morning for church. We had heard about this church that was made up mostly of homeless people as well as college students and families that met underneath of an overpass underneath I-10. So we drove up there to see what it was all about. I brought my camera, really didn’t know what to expect.

Well we pulled up to the overpass, which was very close to the Baylor campus. People were scattered all around the place and music was already going. we jumped out and found some empty chairs. It was packed mostly because of the speaker that came in from Philadelphia. Some of you may have heard of him, Shane Claiborne (future post). At this time the music stopped and a guy got up on the temporary stage and welcomed everyone to the service. He prayed for us and then we went on to worship. I sat back after singing a song or two and started just to think about the crowd that was here.

There were people in button downs, men who don’t have jobs or homes, kids from Baylor, crazy people, smart people, families, etc. It was awesome! I don’t think I have every seen such variety in a church before. About that time a huge semi went over our heads and added some noise to our voices. We keep singing for quite a while. People were wandering around the whole time. Homeless were just stopping and hugging random friends. There was joy around but also not a ton of order either. After worship ended, a man stood up and introduced Shane. Shane gave the message for the day and for those of you who havent heard of him let me say, he is a very unique guy. He purposely chooses to be homeless and his calling is to minister to other homeless that way but also he travels all over the country speaking. His message that day was very similar to his bestselling book “Irresistible Revolution” message. He talked of how Christians need to stop reading just their highlighted verses in their bibles and take to heart that ones that command us to feed the poor and love the widows. Pretty much he spoke to us to get up and start walking the walk instead of comfortably sitting at home.

After Shane gave his message we all sat down and they filled up the offering containers and a man got up and explained how communion would work. We were to get into groups of ten or more people who were next to us, friends and strangers. A person or two went up and got the juice and bread and brought it back to the group. We were told we could confess openly our sins or to ourselves and then we were suppose to eat and drink. Our group was made up of Luis, Andrew and me, four Baylor freshman girls and a middle-aged couple. It was cool because after a few quite second, the middle-aged man just kinda started talking about what communion means to him and what scripture says about it, then he passed around the communion.

After communion was over, a man went up on stage and talked about a few things the church was doing. Thanked the organization that brought the food before the service and then everyone was dismissed. We stayed around for quite a while, talking to people and helping put up the stage. Primarily we were waiting to talk to Shane, which we did. More on that to come in a future post.

Overall it was an awesome Sunday morning. Being Lutheran has given me a really cool perspective on Church. One of the points Martin Luther argued was the revolutionary idea that the church was not about the building but the people/ body of believers. His idea about church has never been so real to me until I stood underneath that overpass that Sunday with people smoking cigarettes, reading scripture and watched people of all beings worshiping together to the same Lord, our Christ.