Waco Tribune-Herald online
For 15 years, Everyone's been Equal
at the Church Under the Bridge
By Erin Quinn
Tribune-Herald staff writer
They call themselves “trolls.” Those who attend Sunday morning church under one of the busiest interstates in the nation.
Each week, 300 or so trolls fight the elements to worship.
The unpredictable, falling pigeon poop. The often riotous flow of traffic overhead. The rain, snow, heat and freezing cold.
Here, there’s no need for Sunday best. Or to be a member. Or to fill a collection plate.
In fact, there’s no one to answer to. All you need is an open mind.
For these trolls, church convenes at 11 a.m. each Sunday under Interstate 35 at Fourth and Fifth streets — the Church Under the Bridge.
Under that bridge, everyone is the same.
There, for two hours on Sunday morning, they are not Kenneth with a mental illness or Lindsey the Baylor University freshman far from home. Here, they are all just trolls under a bridge, honoring God.
Next Sunday will mark 15 years for the unconventional church whose name is also a perfect metaphor for the bridging of all parts of Waco — from the impoverished to the wealthy.
The Rev. Jimmy Dorrell, who is also the executive director of Mission Waco, founded the church. He and his wife, Janet, decided to go to the bridge and talk with the five homeless men who lived there.
After their conversation, the men asked the Dorrells to come there each Sunday and read Scripture to them. They did.
The congregation of five men gradually grew. Soon, Baylor students trickled in. Some of them started making sandwiches to bring for the homeless. Then others showed up. And it kept growing.
Now, it’s more than 300 strong.
“Everything in our culture says to run away from the problems and run out to the suburbs and build your walls,” said Dorrell, 57. “People that come out here see how the barriers are broken, and learn from each other and realize that we’re really all the same.”
A flatbed trailer with microphones, speakers and drums is wheeled in as the pulpit from which Dorrell delivers his nondenominational sermon.
More than 300 metal folding chairs are set around the makeshift pulpit and the massive concrete pillars of I-35, but at least 100 more people stand in the back and fill in the sides.
Others lie on blankets or sit on the hood of their vehicles.
Enough to go around
At the opposite end are tables with heaps of free food. Each Sunday, a different church group supplies the meal and serves it to whoever wants it.
Some of the hungrier-looking folks pile exaggerated mounds of spaghetti and bread on their plastic plates.
Folks with dirty limbs and rank clothes stuff bread and bags of chips in their coat pockets and extra bags.
No one says a word. There’s enough to go around.
The food is served well before Dorrell starts preaching, and there’s no one telling anyone they have to stay for the service.
“If you wanted to leave, it’s fine,” Dorrell said. “We want there to be freedom in this church. It may take some people two to three years for some of the unchurched people to stay for the service.”
But all seem to stay for the duration. Few stragglers take the food and wander off.
The church is noisy and friendly. Lots of hand-shaking.
“Watch out for the dive bombers,” a smiling, sparsely toothed, bearded man says — referring to the pigeons.
His name is James Royce. It’s muggy and swamplike outside, and the interstate does less to shield the beating sun than one would think.
Still, the 59-year-old man is dressed in weathered black jeans, sandals and a navy jacket. It’s his only outfit. He was homeless for a couple of years but now lives here and there. He rides his bike everywhere he goes.
What other church in town is going to want him sitting among them in the pews, he wonders?
Warren Houston, 41, details cars for a living. From coming to Church Under the Bridge, he said, he has learned to be humble.
“No matter who you are or what you believe in, you can blend in and feel unified here,” he said. “This taught me that there are people out there who genuinely care for one another.
“We don’t have a stage, or a 50-member choir, or stained glass. We don’t need it.”
Gene Chillous, a 47-year-old cook at a restaurant, said this church literally saved his life after he abused drugs and alcohol for years.
“I messed up my life,” he said. “I couldn’t take care of my family.”
But Chillous found the right friends at Church Under the Bridge. Friends who helped.
“These are people that are always there,” he said. “They never let you go. No matter what you’re going through.
“Acceptance is something you don’t just get everywhere.”
Now, Chillous is clean and has five children and five grandchildren. He was baptized through the church 11 years ago.
It’s these people, Dorrell said, that people can learn from.
He said research shows that it’s the homeless person, the drug addicts, the prostitutes who still have faith in God.
Dorrell said it was these people — these “trolls” — who Jesus gave value to. These are people who, 15 years ago, were getting told they weren’t welcome inside certain churches in Waco.
“This has become a last-resort church for lots of people,” Dorrell said. “A place where people go before they stop believing altogether.”
Dorrell has countless stories of how in the past 15 years, the church has helped people — simply by not being afraid of them and not giving up.
“People tell me all the time, ‘If it wasn’t for this place, we’d have no reason to go to church,’ ” he said.
equinn@wacotrib.com
757-5748
15th-anniversary event
For its 15th anniversary, Church Under the Bridge will start at 8:15 a.m. Sept. 23 at the Mission Waco Meyer Center, 1226 Washington Ave., for a 1.4-mile “homeless walk” to various charitable organizations in the city. The church service under Interstate 35 between Fourth and Fifth streets will begin at 10:45 a.m. A free meal will follow
