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Love Feast shows God’s Grace
By Boyce A. Bowdon

Every Monday through Friday, Southern Heights United Methodist Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma, hosts an evening meal for people in the community, many of whom have low incomes.

 “Southern Heights has been doing this for 20 years,” says Denny Hook, Stillwater District Superintendent. “The church never knows whether 30 will come or 90 will come, but people who come know they will always be served good food and be welcomed and respected.”

Southern Heights has fewer than 40 members and worship attendance averages 25. So how does such a small church manage to feed so many people?

“They are very serious about sharing God’s love,” Hook explains. “That’s why they call it their ‘Love Feast.’”

Michael Brannon, the pastor, quickly points out that Southern Heights doesn’t carry out the mission alone. “This is something the Lord does through the community of faith,” he declares. “It couldn’t happen without God’s good people pitching in.”

Help comes from United Methodists, Baptists, Presbyterians, Disciples of Christ, Catholics, Quakers, Lutherans and others, Brannon says. “Churches from all over the community take turns cooking and serving.”

 Various civic and service organizations in the area also help. So do students from Oklahoma State (OSU), the university in Stillwater. Several fraternities and sororities, in addition to church–related groups, volunteer frequently.

United Methodist Wesley Foundation at OSU is a key partner with Southern Heights. Directed by Michael Bartley, Wesley has a Mission Training Station that gives students hands-on mission experiences. The Mission Station includes a food closet that students operate at Wesley Foundation near the OSU campus.

Southern Heights began serving the Love Feast in 1981, a few months after Michael arrived as pastor. Why did it start? Michael recalls that he was leading a Bible study in a government housing project less than a block from the church. Southern Heights sponsored the apartment project at that time.

“We were sitting around a bucket of Kentucky Fried Chicken having lunch, when the custodian at the apartments told us some children who lived there were going to bed hungry. When she said that, it was like she had thrown down the gauntlet. We just couldn’t ignore hungry children.”

Michael immediately began thinking about starting a meal program at the church for residents of the apartment complex and anyone else in the community who wanted to come. Knowing the need was greater than Southern Heights could meet alone, he went to the Stillwater District Board of Mission for help.

The board was having a banquet meeting the evening the district superintendent invited him to present his proposed project, Michael says. “After I told them we had kids going to bed hungry at the apartments, we passed the plate and took in $253. With that I bought a 50 pound bag of Pinto beans, a 50 pound bag of Great Northern beans, and the makings for cornbread. We saved back the money that was left for future purchases. In a day or so we started serving meals and we’ve been serving them ever since.”

During the early years of the Love Feast, Michael and his wife, Nancy, did most of the cooking. He vividly remembers the thoughts that were going through his mind one afternoon when he was in the church kitchen making a pot of vegetable beef soup.

“I was trying to decide whether to put beef bouillon in it like I do when I make soup at home,” he says.  “Well, if you are cooking for 50 people, bouillon is kind of expensive. Our budget has always been on the edge. While I was struggling with whether to spend the money for the bouillon, I felt like God was asking me this question: ‘If Jesus were coming to eat tonight, would you spend the money on bouillon?’ And I answered, ‘Oh, yes. If Jesus were coming tonight, I would make the best soup I could possibly make even if it took every dime I had.’ And God replied, ‘Well, I am going to be here tonight. And I’m going to be here every night. You won’t know who I am. I may be that elderly widow who comes in by herself. I may be that bratty child who stands on the table and pitches a fit. I may be that scraggly young man who doesn’t know what he’s looking for. You won’t know who I am, but I’ll be here every night.’”

So what did Michael do? He put in the bouillon. “I always remind myself and others that Jesus comes and eats with us every evening, and he is here for every ministry we offer.”

 He says most people who come to the Love Feast, except for those on Social Security, are employed in minimum wage jobs. Many have old cars that are always breaking down and have big medical bills but no insurance. Of course, Southern Heights doesn’t have funds to help with major emergencies, but Michael says he sometimes has a few dollars he can loan to help people skimp by until payday.

“One morning a man came to me and said he needed $10 for gas so he could get to work. He promised that when he got paid he would give it back. So I gave him $10, and that Friday he handed it back to me. That $10 hadn’t been in my pocket more than ten minutes when someone else came in and said he needed money for gas. So I gave him the $10, and in a few days he showed up and paid me back just as he had promised. Before the day was over, I loaned the $10 out again. This time it never came back. I didn’t worry, though. That one $10 had helped three families get to work so they could keep their jobs.”

Michael grinned and said, “You know, that’s a little like the loaves and fishes the Bible tells about. When we offer what we have, the Lord blesses it and multiplies it and blesses others with it. I have seen the Lord do that countless times.”

In connection with the Love Feast, Southern Heights has developed a variety of other ministries. One example is an after-school study hall with one-on-one tutoring provided by students from the university.

For several years, Southern Heights sponsored an extensive Christmas program. “A lot of children in the apartments were not going to get any gifts for Christmas, and so my wife started Santa’s Toy Box,” Michael said. “One Christmas we gave toys to 252 children. We aren’t doing this as much any more because other groups have developed programs and we’ve backed off to focus on other unmet needs.”

The little church even ministers to recently released prisoners, “We have a couple of rooms in the church for people who have just gotten out of prison and don’t have a place to live. They can stay here and eat with us while they look for jobs,” says Michael.

All kinds of people in all kinds of circumstances drop by for all kinds of help. Michael says when someone knocks on his door before he answers he asks himself, “What if it were me on the other side of the door and it was Jesus on this side? What would I expect from him?” Then he asks God to help him respond to the person on the other side like Jesus would respond.

 “I think I do respond as Jesus would some times. Other times, though, I’m just ornery and miss the mark. But that’s why we depend on God’s grace.”

Obviously, serving a Love Feast five nights a week for 20 years and hosting all the other ministries is a heavy load for Michael and those who serve with him. What do they hope to accomplish? What keeps them at it?

“Many people that we serve often feel forgotten and forsaken, and it’s easy to understand why,” Michael explains. “We try to demonstrate to them in a physical way that God loves them and so do we. We talk enough in the church about God’s love, but we need to show God’s love more. When we show it, people listen closer to what we say.”

Every evening at the Love Feast, Michael gives a brief welcome. “We explain to our guests that this meal is presented to them strictly because God loves them. We don’t take an offering, we don’t ask for anything in return. We tell them that this meal is a symbol. Just as God’s grace is free, so this meal is free. It’s one of the ways we celebrate and demonstrate God’s grace and care and concern.”

Boyce A. Bowdon is the director of communications of the Oklahoma Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The spiritual journey

After seeing the inspiring ministry Michael Brannon leads at Southern Heights United Methodist Church in Stillwater, Oklahoma, I wanted to know more about what motivates and sustains him. So I asked him to tell me about his spiritual journey.

"By the time I was 19, I had done my best to rid the state of alcohol," he said regarding his former drinking habit. "I had gotten my life in a mess and I was miserable."

He said his journey took a sharp turn one day in the spring of 1966, when he was a freshman at Cameron College in Lawton, Oklahoma. It was mid-afternoon. He was alone in his dormitory room feeling empty and hopeless.

"I had been in bed all day, and I had decided to just stay in bed for the rest of my life. I know that sounds silly, but that's how I was thinking. I didn't want to commit suicide because then I might be facing an angry God-if there was a god. On the other hand, I didn't want to live any more.

"Suddenly a little voice spoke to me and said, 'Try God.' Since I was an atheist, or at least an agnostic, that startled me. I sat up and blinked and thought, 'You know, I've tried about everything else. Maybe I ought to try God.'"

Feeling a need to talk to someone who might help him, he got out of bed and went to see the guy next door. "Several times I had invited him to go partying with me. I had even offered to pay for the drinks. But he had said, 'No, thanks. I'm a Christian and I don't believe in that.' I couldn't believe it. I had never turned down a free drink."

Michael knocked on his neighbor's door. "When he let me in, I got straight to the point. I asked him, 'Why do you think there's a god?' He told me how God had forgiven him and given his life meaning. And he told me that if I would ask Jesus in to my heart, he would come in.'

"I was desperate. So I got down on my knees beside his dormitory bed and I said, 'Lord I don't know much. But I know I'm not happy the way I am. Here I am. Forgive me and give me this new life.'

"You know, nothing happened. The sky didn't split open. In fact, I didn't feel anything. And I told my neighbor so. He had the presence of mind to say, 'Remember we are not going on your feelings. We are going on God's promises. God says if you ask him in to your life, he will come in. So you just trust and believe he has come in. That's what faith is.'"

Michael says he decided to stand on God's promises, even if he didn't feel his life had changed. "Four days later, it hit me," he recalls. "Joy came and a real sense of love and life came. The best way I know to describe what happened is to say I got saved. God didn't look down his nose at me and he didn't condemn me. Instead he reached down and gave me new life."

Michael says he still has good days and bad days, and he doesn't know what's ahead, but he says he does know this: "God loves me, and I want to help everybody I can know God loves them too."

-Boyce A. Bowdon



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