Tonight, after work, my wife and I watched for the first time the 2017 movie "The Greatest Showman" starring Hugh Jackman.
Leading into the final scene, the circus performers find P.T. Barnum sitting at a bar feeling sorry for himself. The bearded lady's words to him spoke something very special to me. She said, "Our own mothers were ashamed of us. Hid us our whole lives. Then you pull us out of the shadows... you gave us a real family."
I could not help but think about the burden on my heart for people who have been pushed away by their parents. I have spoken with so many young people who carry around the pain of rejection; those who were on the receiving end of tough love taken too far; and those who witnessed hypocrisy in their homes growing up. These are the people to whom God called me to be a minister. These are the people for which Spirit and Truth Fellowship of Knoxville exists.
W.D. Wheeler, the brother in the brother-sister trapeze duo, continued Lettie Lutz' thought. He said, "And the circus...that was our home. We want our home back." Replace the word circus with the word church. Spirit and Truth Fellowship of Knoxville was created to be a loving home and family for those who identify with the circus performers in this movie.
In the scene before it, the newspaper critic (Mr. Bennett) has a conversation with P.T. Barnum in front of his burned-out theater. He makes this statement, "I never liked your show... I wouldn't call it art... But putting folks of all kinds on stage with you... all colors, shapes, sizes... presenting them as equals... Why, another critic might have even called it 'a celebration of humanity.'" That sort of sums up how Jesus inspires me—eating often with publicans and sinners—and it's how I want our church to be, even in the midst of all of our critics.