Tuesday, 24 March 2009

• Worshiping at Fatty's Burgers

  We had a treat Sunday, and it wasn't hamburgers.  We worshiped with a group of God's people who meet in a schoolbus-yellow hamburger restaurant.  It must be the only place around with wall signs that include "Best burgers in Texas," an ad for the Spurs, and the admonition to "repent and believe."  I'm no good with estimating numbers, but when I say I've never been in a room so packed with so many people, it's an understatement of fire code proportions.  A sea of faces of various beautiful skintones, the scent of the tasty taco lunch in the air, a cacophony of voices greeting one another in love and delight, and a view out the plate glass windows of an abandoned, broken-paned refrigeration factory across the street heightened my expectations as we began to worship our Lord Jesus Christ. We sang sweet familiar hymns and new songs punctuated with some outbursts of praise and a few lifted hands.  A young, new believer gave his testimony of rescue from unbelief, drugs, and graffiti.  We stood to read God's word, we prayed, a preacher preached.  Then the women banded together to serve lunch to the multitude, including some street people from the neighborhood.  The crowd spilled outside, dining while sharing and asking for testimonies of God's grace to them all. 

  One young man wore a T shirt proclaiming "Jesus Christ saved me from a pornography addiction."  A young woman testified to me of being raised in a church and professing faith as a teenager, a failed marriage at age 23, living with her atheist boyfriend, the boyfriend's amazing conversion to Jesus, their marriage, and their beginning to attend the church.  Testifying to feeling the hand of God pressing upon her, she soon realized her initial profession was a house on sand.  She's been a Christian two months now, and the wonder, still very fresh, is reflected in her face.  One worshiper has done some time and has a glorious testimony of God's rescue.  Several have backgrounds of drug addiction and promiscuity. But, behold, old things are passed away, and all things are new.  "...And such were some of you," as Paul wrote to the Corinthian believers.  (After lunch we headed to the YMCA for the baptism of two and the joining of the church by three more, all in their twenties.) 

  Oh, and about church finances, they give to missions in the Far East, to Turkey, to India, and other places.  They give out of their resources, emptying the coffers at the end of each month, trusting God for their needs the next.  Faith is a verb here, in more ways than one.

  What has happened in this place?  What's the secret to this kind of church life, when many of us long for converts in our churches, for the kind of  "180's" that characterize this place?  It's the grace of God poured out by the Holy Spirit in response to saints crying out to God in multiple prayer meetings weekly.  Wednesday night, Saturday 6 AM, Saturday midnight way into Sunday morning, spontaneous gatherings of believers intercede for those still dead in trespasses and sins.  It's costly, imperfect, messy, and not a little chaotic.  People are sacrificing time, sleep, money, and their homes to minister grace to those who need it. 

  As an onlooker I felt exhausted, giddy, and wistful.  I came home wondering at my unbelief.  We worship the same God those believers worshiped, the same God worshiped by the early church in the book of Acts. As usual the words of a song came to me with power:

  Give us Your strenth, O God, and courage to speak

  Perform Your wondrous deeds,  through those who are weak.

  Lord, use us as You want, whatever the test,

  We'll preach Your Gospel 'til our dying breath.

  Let Your Kingdom come, let Your will be done, so that everyone might know Your name.

  Let Your song be heard everywhere on earth, 'til Your sovereign work on earth is done.

  Let Your Kingdom come!

  (Words and music by Bob Kauflin, copyright 2006 Sovereign Grace Praise)

   

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