Thoughts from the Donut Shop

Weekly papers from the Wednesday table at the Blue Line, Flint 

and how they came to be.

Every Wednesday morning from 11 to 1, we sit at a table in the Blue Line Donut Shop in Flint. We drink coffee. We eat donuts. And we talk about the things that most people never say out loud — the shame, the failure, the hurt somebody else caused, the hurt we caused, the voice in our head that keeps telling us God gave up on us a long time ago.

These papers came out of that table.

We started writing them for one reason. Somebody would come in on a Wednesday, sit down with us, hear something that hit them, and then leave. And by Thursday morning the world had already started rewriting what they heard. The voice in their head — the one that has been lying to them for years — would kick back in, and whatever moved them at the table would slip away.

So we started leaving papers on the tables. Something a person could pick up, take home, fold into their pocket, tape to their bathroom mirror. Something they could still be reading on the drive to work. Something the voice in their head could not shout down as easily.

Each paper is short — three or four pages of plain talk about one honest question. What forgiveness actually is, and what it isn’t. Why the storms don’t mean God left. Who you are now, in the eyes of the God who made you and bought you back. How to talk to a God you can’t see. How to read a book you don’t understand. What to do when you’ve blown it again. What to do when nobody else showed up.

We are not trying to be clever. We are not trying to sound like preachers. We are writing to broken people — because we are broken people — and we are writing about the God who has been rebuilding us anyway.

Every paper is soaked in the Bible. We do not water it down and we do not dress it up. Every verse we quote comes from the New Living Translation, because it’s written in plain modern English and it reads the way people actually talk. Most of us at that table have been burned by religious language. We are done with it. We want the Book, not the show.

If you are reading this at 2 a.m. because you cannot sleep, or on your phone in a parking lot before a hard meeting, or on your break between shifts, or in a jail cell, or on a couch after another fight with somebody you love — these papers are for you. You do not have to clean up first. You do not have to know any Bible verses. You do not have to belong to a church. You just have to be honest that something is not right, and willing to hear that there is a God who has been waiting for you a long time.

If you find yourself in Flint on a Wednesday, come sit down. Ask for Peter or Bill. We’ll be there from 11 to 1, at the Blue Line Donut Shop. (Except the first Wednesday of the month — we’re praying at the Mayor’s office.)

If you’re anywhere else, read the papers. Talk to God about what you read. Find one other person who won’t lie to you and won’t run. And know this, even if you never meet us in this life: you’re not alone. You’re in the Father’s hand.

The Refinery, Flint  —  a joint ministry with Christ Heart Ministry