The Church That Chased Bumbs

Many years ago we were in a Christian and Missionary Alliance church in Portland Oregon. The pastor was confronted by some of the people in the church on the sermons and use of psychology in the church. 

In the coming weeks the pastor gave a sermon on the need for psychology. He then held the Bible over his head and declared "all the answers to life's problems are not in this book and all the answers to life's problem's are not Jesus Christ." 

We had already decided to leave the church for other reasons, but this was the last straw on the camels back when this happened.

While I was there helping to prepare for a women's luncheon, a homeless man was sleeping on one of the pews. The pastors wife came up stairs to find him and chased him around in the church to get him out. She returned to the kitchen to brag about having to chase that "bumb out of the church." I was horrified, here we were, preparing a lot of food for women who had plenty in their own homes, while neglecting to offer the homeless man a plate of food.

I saw this as a test from God as to their level of Christianity. The man was not given any food when it was readily available and to make matters worse he was never given the gospel, just chased away as though he were pond scum. This church failed the test miserably, their desire was to have a nice clean, fun happy church that was not bothered by those "icky" people.

I thought back on that situation many times, thinking that God could have begun a ministry there to the homeless, not just feeding them food but feeding them the gospel too. But since they failed, they managed to smudge the name of Christ as One Who only gives to rich deserving people. The building was in an area where homeless came through regularly, it could have blossomed into a ministry that glorified God.

We never went back, but were accused of causing division by leaving. I had been saved about ten years and my husband was a new believer, that church was the first Protestant church he had ever been in after leaving the Catholic church. I am so glad he was strong enough to know right from wrong in his infancy as a believer.

It is frightening how much damage self serving pleasure seeking churches can do to the name of Christ. I don't know what happened there in the coming years, it has been a long time since that time, but I would hope that God worked to break hearts into compassionate hearts of flesh rather than the stone that I saw.