Related articles and links |  1 of 5

Lugging backpacks and Hefty bags on Sunday at sunrise, they trickle in to the expanse of dirt and gravel under Interstate 35. Littering this city block between 4th and 5th streets in Waco, Texas are taillight shards, pigeon feathers, and at least one dead bat. The men sit mostly in solitude at the base of support columns, waiting for something to happen.

More than a dozen are there when, just after 9, a van with men from two drug rehab centers eases over the curb and parks. Two pickup trucks follow with trailers of folding chairs and sound equipment. One flatbed truck doubles as a stage. Recovering addicts line up chairs beneath the northbound lanes.

A hoodless, bumperless Chevy pickup arrives. Made from '73 to '85 parts, its burnt-orange bed is filled with balding tires, plastic drums, aluminum cans, wire-tangled innards of mechanical devices, and a push broom. Former drug addict and ex-con Kenneth Kucker gets out, slams its blue door, and hands a visitor a peppermint, his smile peeking through a lopped-off ZZ Top beard. He smells of the axle grease that permeates his jeans, but he's dressed for worship in his best T-shirt that reads CHURCH UNDER THE BRIDGE.

"It's a humble bridge," Kucker says. "Today it's going to be sanctified."

For Waco's homeless and hard-living people, there may be no safer place than this bridge on Sunday morning—as safe from street crime as from the glares of worshipers in other churches.

The interdenominational Church Under the Bridge (CUB) began in 1992 when Baylor professor Jimmy Dorrell, 54, began a Bible study for homeless men who slept under this overpass. The group grew to include more homeless, poor, drug addicts, prostitutes, and bikers. They were later joined by others who had no church experience or felt they didn't fit into area congregations.

Now the people who worship under the bridge are a demographic snapshot of this city of 100,000 people and 257 churches. Black, white, Asian, and Latino students from Baylor University, and others from the upper middle class, form the body of Christ with the down-and-out of all colors.

CUB's calling is to be a church to the unchurched of all socioeconomic levels and races, and to serve the poor and marginalized. Ex-prisoners and food-stamp recipients worship with the well-heeled and educated. Along with breaking down class barriers, racial reconciliation is one of the church's main pillars. At one service, Dorrell had the assembled break into small groups to talk about any prejudice they harbored, and to pray for forgiveness.

"Several times a year," Dorrell says, "we address the issue in a sermon, have a couple of different-race friends or marriage folks share their struggle and victories, and then pass out a list of questions for the racially mixed groups to discuss."

The church's core values include a rejection of attractive "holy" buildings; 51 percent of offerings support outreach in Waco, Haiti, and India. Nothing goes to rent and utilities. Should prospective construction work to widen the highway or other events keep worshipers from their usual space, CUB has purchased another piece of land for $3,000.

"It is a backup, next to another bridge where the homeless used to sleep, which we can use if we are ever run out from our current spot," Dorrell says. "Even at that vacant lot, we have no intentions of building a facility."

Kucker, 54, drove a Cadillac in the 1970s when he earned $50,000 a year as body shop mechanic. He's a Vietnam vet with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, a self-described former "junkie, car thief, and alcoholic" who became a Christian while in prison. Once out, he drifted, homeless, among the big cities of Texas. He moved to Waco to be near the Veterans Administration hospital psychiatric ward.

next page... |  1 of 5

April 2004, Vol. 48, No. 4