{"id":32619,"date":"2022-09-10T16:16:36","date_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:16:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wedding-under-the-bridge-couple-shares-special-day-with-homeless-friends\/"},"modified":"2022-09-10T16:16:36","modified_gmt":"2022-09-10T21:16:36","slug":"wedding-under-the-bridge-couple-shares-special-day-with-homeless-friends","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wedding-under-the-bridge-couple-shares-special-day-with-homeless-friends\/","title":{"rendered":"Wedding Under the Bridge: Couple Shares Special Day with Homeless Friends"},"content":{"rendered":"
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By Grace Thornton<\/em><\/p>\n

Plastic wrappers and other pieces of litter rolled like tumbleweed across the empty space under the Jefferson Street Bridge.<\/p>\n

Two hours later, enough chairs were set up to seat several hundred of Nashville\u2019s homeless, and enough chicken and baked beans had been prepared to feed them all.<\/p>\n

While many were still eating, a cloth was rolled down the aisle, and my friend Amanda walked through a crowd of her homeless friends to meet her fianc\u00e9 at the altar under the overpass.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s not homeless. Never has been. Neither has Heath, her fianc\u00e9. They just have tasted the grace of God and now see people through the eyes of Christ.<\/p>\n

\u201cHusbands are called to be the model of Christ in their marriage and, as a result, communicate to the world who Christ is,\u201d Heath says.<\/p>\n

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And Christ is a servant to all\u2014especially the outcast, he says. Getting married among the homeless and outcast was a step in communicating Christ\u2019s love.<\/p>\n

When people ask Amanda why they chose a wedding in such an unusual setting, she shrugs and smiles. \u201cIt doesn\u2019t really feel like we\u2019re doing something out of the ordinary,\u201d she said. \u201cPeople get married at their favorite place, and our favorite place is under the bridge. We feel closest to God here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Those of us who weren\u2019t regulars to their normal Tuesday night gathering of friends run by The Bridge ministry in Nashville, Tenn., didn\u2019t quite know what to do when we first arrived, except we knew one thing. The homeless were to be the guests of honor.<\/p>\n

Over and over we had the privilege of escorting guests as they walked to their seats, or talking with them and serving them plates of chicken and beans as they settled in for the wedding.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou look beautiful,\u201d one lady stopped and told the bride with a gap-toothed smile as she walked to her seat. Amanda beamed. She had carefully thought this through, and it was just what she wanted.<\/p>\n

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She had normal bride jitters, but she kept trying to remind herself that she and Heath were doing their favorite thing, they were just wearing different clothes\u2014a fancy gown she had bought intentionally to wear in the dust and gravel under the bridge.<\/p>\n

\u201cI knew it would be dragged through the dirt, but I felt like God was saying to be the bride of Christ,\u201d she said. \u201cI felt like He was telling me I shouldn\u2019t choose not to be beautiful just because I was going to be with the homeless, but to give them that gift.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a train whistle echoed under the overpass and Tuesday evening rush hour traffic shook the concrete, Amanda smiled out at a sea of familiar faces as the band played and sang \u2026<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are no strangers
There are no outcasts
There are no orphans of God
So many fallen, but hallelujah
There are no orphans of God.\u201d<\/p>\n

And then the couple pledged to love each other for a lifetime as they love the \u201coutcast\u201d together.<\/p>\n

As they walked back down the aisle as husband and wife, Amanda reached out and grabbed the hands of several of the homeless men. \u201cThat was special to me,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

She loves them personally. As Amanda puts it, she \u201clooks the homeless in the eyes\u201d every day on her way to work downtown. And she and Heath love them both spontaneously and intentionally\u2014once, they spent a date night passing out cupcakes to their friends in a local park.<\/p>\n

Their wedding feast was an extension of their everyday, missional lives\u2014a celebration with the least of these on His behalf. Amanda simply explained, \u201cWe want God to be glorified.\u201d<\/p>\n

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What Do Pastors Believe About the End Times? What Do Pastors Believe About the Book of Revelation? 3 Ways to Reach Non-Religious People in Your Community <\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Grace Thornton Plastic wrappers and other pieces of litter rolled like tumbleweed across the empty space under the Jefferson Street Bridge. Two hours later, enough chairs were set up to seat several hundred of Nashville\u2019s homeless, and enough chicken and baked beans had been prepared to feed them all. While many were still eating, … Continue reading “Wedding Under the Bridge: Couple Shares Special Day with Homeless Friends”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32619","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32619","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32619"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32619\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32619"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32619"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.biblia.work\/sermons\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32619"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}