With a tambourine in one hand and the musical styling of the Midway Middle School band trumpeting “When the Saints go Marching In,” longtime Church Under The Bridge member Freddie Mae Montgomery felt at home with her congregation at Magnolia Market at the Silos.
“Oh, it feels good,” Montgomery, a church member for 22 years said. “It’s a whole lot different with more room, but we are still all here.”
About 200 congregation members met at 10:45 a.m. beneath the underpass at South Fourth and Fifth streets and Interstate 35 before the church made a pilgrimage from beneath the thunderous underpass, their site for the last 26 years, to the Silos.
The move comes amid the planned expansion of I-35 that will force the church to relocate for three to five years. “Fixer Upper” stars and Magnolia-themed moguls Chip and Joanna Gaines offered to temporarily host the church.
“This is such a joyful journey that we’d been on for 26 years and the sadness of leaving our place of home is only compounded by the joy of us being able to walk into the Silos, a place where 30,000 people come every week to see,” senior pastor Jimmy Dorrell said. “They invited us to have our church there, so it is just fun and a prize from God.”
The crowd made the quarter-mile march to Magnolia following their last meal beneath the I-35 overpass. Adam Anspaugh, 32, said he had been struggling with substance abuse problem and entered a Mission Waco program when he was introduced to the church.
“Pastor Jimmy has been talking about a tabernacle church lately and it doesn’t really matter where you go as long as you are carrying the right message,” he said. “I just graduated from my recovery program and I am working now. They’ve done a lot for me, so it’s been an awesome journey.”
The diverse group of churchgoers united in song and music for their inauguration at the Silos amidst chilly, 40-degree weather and light rain. Dorrell said he was happy to lead his congregation to the marketplace.
“You can’t get this at your ordinary church,” Dorrell said.
As the church service began, Dorrell welcomed the crowd to the Silos, many of whom bundled against the cold and the whipping wind. Some seated themselves on benches beneath a covered area. Dorrell picked out the Gaineses, and brought them to the stage.
“If Jesus were walking the earth today, this would be His church,” said Joanna Gaines, standing to Dorrell’s left.
Chip Gaines told of his longtime admiration for Dorrell and his ministry, his interest in Dorrell’s decision to build a grocery store, Jubilee Market, at 15th Street and Colcord Avenue. He said he read newspaper accounts of how Church Under the Bridge would need to find a new home while the state widened I-35 through Waco.
“They needed a new place to worship,” he said. “I thought, ‘Why not my place?’”
Chip Gaines said several congregants, before the service began, took time to relay their love for Dorrell and how the church had changed their lives.
Standing at the rear of the crowd, Chip Gaines stayed for the duration of the hourlong service, which ended with the singing of “Amazing Grace,” a closing prayer and a dismissal to enjoy pizza donated by Pizza Hut.
“And here we are, just a bunch of squatters who meet to worship under a bridge, receiving an invitation to meet here,” Dorrell said. “It’s hard to believe.”
— Wacotrib