Last weekend I had the opportunity to speak and play at The Upper Room in Cordova, Tennessee. The Upper Room meets in the upstairs balcony of a rather hip looking indoor skate park called The Skatepark of Memphis. Tucked away and mostly undisclosed among other warehouses and offices, the Skate Park of Memphis is a haven for folks who think outside the box.
The Upper Room itself is a small group of mostly college-aged folks who aren’t necessarily skaters, but who are definitely seekers. Before I spoke to the group at their weekly Monday night meeting, I asked them to raise their hands if they came from a Southern Baptist background. All, with the exception of two or three, raised their hands. There are a lot of Southern Baptists in Memphis.
Upper Room folks meet because they’ve found a measurable amount of hypocrisy in the church. Bellevue Baptist Church, one of the largest if not the largest Southern Baptist churches in Memphis, is probably one of the largest of it’s kind in the U.S. One or two from the Upper Room attend or have attended there as well. Though they observe that the Holy Spirit appears to be at work at Bellevue, it is hard for them to feel completely committed to their church because exorbitant sums of money adorn the place (in addition, a strict dress code prevents newcomers from entering if their looks or dress aren’t up to par). Plasma T. V. screens hang in the hallways outside the main worship area. Thousands of dollars go into creating a club-like gathering place with baseball fields, soccer fields, basketball courts, etc. All this happens when homeless folks on the streets of Memphis can go nights without food or a place to sleep.
Several of the Upper Room gatherers in the course of my weekend there explained to me that they find very little concern for the “…least of these” in both their church’s work and proclamations of the Gospel. The Upper Room community seeks to zero in on a potent word of God, but not when it is done selectively, focusing primarily on sexual immorality and personal sins when the sins of the institution itself go largely overlooked.
Though I was there to tell my story and sing my songs, I found myself greatly affected by their stories and the vision of their small community. If the church has any chance to survive as a healthy and integral foundation in today’s world, it is because of folks like those who frequent the Upper Room!
My thoughts and prayers are with them in the weeks and months ahead. Certainly, God has called them to do the work of the Holy Spirit, to stir up an ever emerging Gospel truth, to speak strong words to those in power; to strengthen those who live in poverty. And, finally, to pursue what it means to become humble and vigilant followers of Jesus.
(Note: I don’t mean to focus primarily on Bellevue and/or other Southern Baptists with regard to institutional hyprocrisy…for this is a reality that infects most church institutions and all individuals. Bellevue simply provides me with illustrations more blatant than others of which I am aware. 
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