As you walk in you look up and see stars and glitter painted in the walkway. There are boxes of food against the wall and then you turn a corner and there is where everyone else is. You look to your right and there’s a guy sitting behind a table of merchandise as you wonder how “ethical” that is. As you look around for a seat you notice on towards the front so you walk by rows of metal chairs to find steps people are sitting on and pillows on the floor where you can sit if you would like. The worship band starts up with a couple of songs and then goes into a prayer. Where at the end they say “and bless this food as nourishment to our bodies”. For sure, you have no idea what’s happening and thinking that’s a new way of praying for the sermon. The thought of the words God has laid on the speaker’s heart as nourishment to us. But then you realize there’s a meal for all who have come, so everyone gets up and grabs a plate of food to eat before everything gets started. Then they start playing Outkast, Everclear, and “Gangsta Paradise” songs to fellowship and eat by. After about an hour a woman stands up and starts telling everyone the announcements of the week and reminds all that there isn’t enough money to keep this place going so she encourages all to bring friends and family and help support and to buy a t-shirt from the man behind the table to help support. She also introduces the speaker. The speaker talks on Mark 5:21-43 the stories about the woman who has been through 12 years of bleeding and the death of a religious leader’s daughter. The speaker talks about how the stories are told in a certain order for a reason and how they both show the ways we come to Jesus. The bleeding woman had to work to get through the crowd and had to have faith about what would happen if she touched Jesus. She sought him out and followed Him no matter what happened. On the other hand the religious man’s daughter did nothing but Jesus still came to her. These are ways we come to Jesus in our own lives. Some seasons Jesus fights to get to us and we do nothing and then other seasons Jesus is hoping that we will get off our couches and work to get closer to Him. He loves us and will do what He can to get to us. (Side note: so at Bible study we were talking about 1 Corinthians 1-4 and two of the guys started talking about how we live for Jesus. One talked about how He has already done everything for us so we don’t really need to do anything because it will all work out if we focus on Jesus. The other guy talked about how we need to do things to show Jesus to others and that if we can do enough our faith will grow. Kind of like this story about Jesus in Mark. Alas I believe there is a halfway mark between us and Jesus. What are your thoughts???) After the speaker finishes, there is communion and a note that it is gluten free! Then there are more worship songs and a benediction to have a blessed week. Then they blare “Love Addict” as people help clean dishes and the building and also help stack chairs. The people you see around are pierced, tattooed, a different race, fat, short, skinny, tall, wearing stylish clothes, wearing video game clothes, clean, smell weird, a biker with a long beard wearing leather, a young blonde girl who loves to play with that biker, there are old men, teenagers, an older couple dressed up for a night on the town, the speaker had a Mohawk and a fork in his belt. It was a huge mixture of backgrounds and life experiences. This was church. The church I came to experience. How was IS God working in downtown Denver? (What a mind-frame I’m in thinking “was” is how that sentence should go!) What IS God doing in my life, in my thoughts, in my relationships?
Check this website out: www.scumoftheearth.net
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