From the pastor:
Seven years ago, I was at a low point in my life. Fifty-one years old, freshly minted from seminary, I was the new pastor of the Triune Mercy Center, a mission church to the homeless. As a former journalist of 27 years, I thought I knew Greenville. I thought I knew its underbelly, its poverty, its ugliness. I didn't. As Triune's inexperienced pastor, I met people who lived in wood and ditches, under tractor-trailer trucks, in abandoned buildings, under bridges. I was overwhelmed by the needs, the casual violence, the stealing, the begging. I gritted my teeth and counted the days until I could quit without being labeled a quitter. And I watched who God brought through our doors. Jim was child-like, not only mentally challenged but mentally ill. He often recited lists of words to me that he was learning to read: fox, box, dog. Sometimes we found him undressing, or worse, in the hallway behind the sanctuary. One Sunday morning, he sat on the front row, fully dressed at least. As I was approaching the main point in my sermon, I heard a loud burp. I tried to ignore it. Then it came again, only longer. Buuuuuurp. Heads began swiveling to see where the noise was coming from. BUUUURP. Louder. Longer. BUUURRRRPPPP. Giggles and murmurs spread through the congregation. I could no longer pretend nothing was happening, so I stopped in mid-sentence. "Jim," I said. "That's enough." "But Pastor," he called, "I swallowed some wind." Oh, great, I thought. Not only is my sermon disrupted, but now I'm going to get into an argument from the pulpit. Luckily, my associate, Alfred, came swooping down one aisle, and a helpful parishioner down another. Each man took an elbow, and they gently propelled Jim to the fellowship hall for lunch. I limped through the rest of the sermon, my concentration -- and everyone else's -- shattered. No matter. That morning's real sermon was about how we accept everyone in this place, even those who can make no sense of the spoken word. Many readers of this newsletter are familiar with stories such as this. And you know that the year that I'd once set as a deadline slipped by, then another and another. August 1, 2012, marked my seventh anniversary at Triune. I'm pretty sure I've been ruined for any other church. As my husband says, "Once you've seen a drug addict sob through his baptism, it's hard to go back to a big-steeple church." And yet I didn't want to forget those early years, when my fragile faith was tested. So I wrote a book, The Weight of Mercy, about my first three years here. Published by Monarch Books, it's on sale now -- at Fiction Addiction (1175 Woods Crossing), Mr. K's (corner of Laurens and Verdae), and lots of online distributors. See www.kregel.com/mercy We will hold a Book Launch Party and Art Show in our dining hall 2 - 4 PM on Saturday, October 13. Later that same day, we will follow with a launch party at Fiction Addiction, 6 - 8 PM. Please join us for refreshments, and buy a book and some art by our Triune artists. They have also made bookmarks for you! You newsletter readers are among our most dependable supporters. I hope we'll see you at one of the parties. The Weight of Mercy shares one of our inside jokes at Triune -- how we take one step forward, six backward. All these years later, that is still true. At a fundraiser in April, we had professional opera singers perform Act One of a concert -- and our guys play guitars, drums and piano during Act Two. "I've never heard opera before and sure didn't think I'd like it," one young man told me during rehearsals. "But I love it." A week later, he joined the church. Four days after that, he was arrested for indecent exposure. When I visited him in jail, he had just one question: "Am I still a church member?" "It takes more than that to get kicked out of Triune," I assured him. We will probably always be the best represented church in the detention center. I'm certainly not proud of that. But we shoulder the weight and move on. * * * * * * * * I will be speaking and signing books at a women's dinner for First Baptist Church of Greenville's mission emphasis month 6-8 PM Monday, October 22. You are invited. The dinner is $10. Call 233-2527 for reservations (before Oct. 15). * * * * * * * * Triune will join our friends from Buncombe Street UMC in another Art Show, Sunday, October 28. Open from 8 AM to 5 PM in the Orders Parlor of Buncombe Street, the show will feature visual art media created by artists from both churches. Please stop by to support the artists and their ministries. * * * * * * * * And finally, if you are in the market for a Halloween pumpkin, consider buying it from our friends at Aldersgate UMC. Their seven-day-a-week October sale will benefit Triune. Aldersgate is at the corner of Edwards Road and Shannon Drive. Blessings,
Deb Richardson-Moore
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