I impressed upon them in Charlotte , the day before heading to Faith, the rarity of such gatherings of Christ’s body. I said that, at that moment, the ten of us gathered in Tony Joiner’s living room were possibly—and probably—the largest gathering of the body of Christ in the country, and possibly the world.
I told them how proud Paul would be that true believers were carrying on his message two-thousand years after his death. I said: “‘Paul to the Romans’” was probably “Paul to the dozen people gathered in Tryphena’s living room.”
“This gathering is important,” I said. The importance lay in the togetherness, the encouragement, the bolstering of one another’s faith. It is the giving to one another the encouragement needed to hold fast to the faith, to never abandon the grace of God. With so many distractions in life, it is easy to give up, or to loosen one’s grip. The apostle Paul endured unfathomable hassles traversing land and sea to greet, in person, his fellow believers. He needed them as much as they did him. Facebook is one thing, email another, but neither is the ideal. The ideal is to greet the beloved and feel how real this all is.
Which brings me to Faith. Hello, ya’ll. I reckon I’m fixin’ now to write about y’all in Faith. The northern stereotypes of southern hospitality are twangfully, wonderfully true.
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| Donna greeted me in the parking lot with: "Look at me, Zender! I'm free from sin while smoking a cigarette!" |
Anne and I drove through a town of purest South, and of everything wrong with the Bible Belt. The little social hall (so unlike a real church), called “The Potters House Fellowship,” sits smack in-between two “real” church buildings of the condemnation/death variety. Sitting boldly between these is the fellowship I was invited to address: sunny, bright, inviting, happy, “great to have y’all.” A woman named Donna called out to me in the parking lot as soon as I emerged from Anne’s car: “Hey, Zender! Look at me! I’m free from sin while smoking a cigarette!”
It was one of the best introductions ever.
It’s wrong to count people; don’t ever do it. I avoid it like the literal plague. In another era, it would qualify as a jinx. David once numbered his kingdom, much to his regret. I am content, as you know, with a gathering of two. There were ten people at Tony Joiner's home the day before, which was a crowd by any contemporary measure. But Anne couldn’t help herself: “There were 75 here,” she told me after the meeting. “Holy crap,” I said.
Okay, this was weird. So let’s go ahead and play the dangerous numbers game (this is an administration of grace, after all), and count warm bodies. Faith was a shock. The number of people was startling. They just kept walking into the building. What had God wrought? Surely, something was askew with Alan Hess’s message. But no. Alan is the real deal, as real as can be. He has suffered persecution. The town considers him a false prophet, a freak, a forerunner of the Antichrist. He teaches the reconciliation of the universe, through the blood of the Christ. His is not the teaching of the Universalist, or the Unitarian, for Alan heralds truth based on the blood of the cross, rather than the “niceness” of God, or the worthiness of the human.
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| (Click on photos to enlarge.) |
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| Anne caught me--standing in back--making last minute reference to my notes. I am supposed to be singing a hymn. Tony Joiner is next to me. |
Alan Hess “correctly cuts” the Word of truth. That is, he distinguishes Paul’s gospel from that to Israel . Everyone here gets that; they take it in stride. More than that, they took me in stride. I will link you to a streaming video recording of my Sunday address. The video lacks some technical finesse, but you’ll appreciate the content. I unloaded everything. Not only was I not stoned afterward, but people lined up to have me sign their copies of The First Idiot in Heaven.
I don’t know what is happening here in Faith, except that the faith is true. People shook my hand, telling me, “What a fine message”; “Really enjoyed it”; “Appreciated what you said”; “Thanks for coming”; “Got a lot out of that.” Donna, the woman who first greeted me in the parking lot, asked me to sign her copy of First Idiot. I said, “I’m going to sign this, ‘to my favorite smoker.’ She laughed and said, “No! Sign it ‘to my favorite tattooed smoker.’”
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| Alan's parents. |
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| Anne mans the book table. |
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| Some of the beautiful ladies of Faith. |
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| Alan Hess is the real deal. |
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| Alan's wife Jamie and their baby girl Charley. |
I’m coming back tomorrow night (tonight, as you read this), when I will teach at 7 p.m. on my book, How to Be Free From Sin While Smoking a Cigarette. You can watch this live at www.thepottershousefellowship.com: Tuesday, February 12, 7 p.m. Eastern time.
Thank you, faithful of Faith. Thank you, God, for giving Your people truth. Thank you, Paul, for remaining faithful to the message in the face of such rabid opposition.
Thank you, God, for Alan Hess.
© 2013 by Martin Zender
