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Who is the fictional character you relate to the most?

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A Great Surprise (Part 10 of “The Misunderstanding of Christianity”)

After 5 1/2 years of my working at The Salvation Army Adult Rehabilitation Center (ARC) and 3 years of Ernie serving as the Director of their Nashville community center, a new Area Commander wanted to meet with us. He had a great surprise.

He asked us if we would like to start a “nontraditional corps” (church) in the closed Salvation Army church building by the community center. He explained that a traditional church had been opened and later closed in that building three times.

I told the new Area Commander that I had been dreaming about doing something like that all my adult life. After praying about the offer, Ernie and I felt like it was a gift from the Lord.

I would transfer from the ARC to serve as the Corps Officer (pastor), and Ernie would continue to run the community center while also serving as the other Corps Officer. In The Salvation Army, husbands and wives are always co-pastors.

The Salvation Army sent a young man who is from India to help us with the new corps and Ernie with the community center. He became like a son to us. They also hired a man with a lot of mission experience to help Ernie with the community center. He and his wife are among our closest friends. (About two years later, Ernie left the community center and was made full-time at the new corps/church.)

Because the building was being used for storage the pews had been removed. We cleaned it out and instead of pews we put chairs in a U-shape. We also took out the pulpit.

We started the new corps the first Sunday of August 2008. It was called The Salvation Army Berry Street Worship Center. The plan was to begin with a Bible verse, follow with worship songs, and then open up the meeting for anyone present to share as they felt prompted by God the Holy Spirit. Ernie invited many of the people who were served by the community center.

There were about 10 people at the first meeting. During the worship, Ernie came to me and said there were a lot of children at the door. We didn’t have any plans for what to do with children. A lady who had moved into the neighborhood with her husband and children so they could start a ministry for local children said that she would work with them. She and her husband were bright lights for Jesus in the neighborhood for many years.

After a few weeks, a growing church in the suburbs began to send young adults to work with our inner-city children. For 9 1/2 years, God provided volunteers to lead the children every Sunday morning, and we never had to recruit anyone. One man from another church oversaw the Sunday morning children’s ministry for 6 or 7 years. Often we would have more than 50 kids, so it required a lot of volunteers and coordination.

After we opened up the adult part of the first meeting for sharing, things were a bit awkward. People didn’t know what to do. If I remember correctly, I finally shared the testimony of how I first encountered Jesus.

We realized that it might take some time (especially in a racially diverse group) for people to warm up to one another and to get used to the unusual church format of open sharing instead of a traditional sermon. We began to invite someone each week to share a 10-minute testimony about how they met Jesus. For 90 or so Sunday mornings we had a guest (or regular attendee) give their salvation testimony. We invited everybody we knew who was willing to do so.

When people were slow to open up and share, we would introduce the person who was scheduled to testify that week. When the sharing flowed spontaneously, we would wait to introduce the scheduled testimony-person later. What an amazing experience it was to hear so many different types of people share how they became a Christian. Perhaps God wants you to share your salvation experience with someone today.

By the time we ran out of a weekly guest to testify, the people were comfortable with the participatory format and eager to share. The Holy Spirit orchestrated and ran the meetings beautifully and powerfully — far better than I could have.

Ernie and I felt like we were not supposed to lead from our official position as corps officers, but from our relationship with Christ. We believe that every Christian is equal in Christ. (That doctrine is called “the priesthood of the believer” and it was a big part of the Protestant Reformation.) We saw ourselves as overseers, not as directors.

We tried to be like basketball officials. As long as things flowed freely and in God’s order, we did our best to stay out of the Holy Spirit’s way. If the meeting was drifting away from focus on the presence of the risen Jesus, we would kindly redirect people’s attention to Him.

We also felt like we needed to have a different person lead praise and worship each week. That way no one individual would be seen as “the worship leader.” During the 9 1/2 years we estimate that we had more than 100 people or groups lead worship at least one time. We also had numerous people who rotated as worship leader.

Most of the worship leaders attended other churches but were eager for an opportunity to use their gifting. We were in a low-income neighborhood and instead of “taking an offering” by “passing the plate” we had an offering box in the back of the chapel, we couldn’t afford to pay anyone to lead worship. Still, they came and almost all of them talked about how strongly they felt God’s Spirit at Berry Street.

There’s so much more to tell! Be sure to read my next post: “The Misunderstanding of Christianity” Part 10 — Berry Street Stories.