“You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp, and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven.”
Matthew 5:14-16
An ex-con and a District Attorney walk into a church.
This isn't the opening line of a bad joke, but the reality of a normal Sunday in the early days of Frontline. People gathered together who otherwise wouldn’t have been in the same room. From the beginning, this was a defining characteristic of the church. At the risk of being overly poetic, the church was like a mosaic with different broken pieces brought together to build one beautiful picture of what God was doing.
After planting in Josh and Nancy Kouri’s living room on Easter Sunday in 2005, Frontline eventually began to gather in a storefront space on Automobile Alley. Standing outside on the sidewalk on any given Sunday morning, you could see the unique nature of the church on full display. A motley crew of vehicles stretched up and down the street. Nearest the door was a row of Harley-Davidson motorcycles that seemed more at home in front of a shady dive bar. Indeed, most of those bikes had spent many a night at shady dive bars. Immediately next to the Harleys was a group of Vespa Scooters covered with band stickers and ridden by guys whose appearance could best be described as punk rock lumberjacks. As your gaze continued north past the scooters, you saw the bicycles. There were Sundays with so many bicycles in front of the church that it looked like an 80s elementary school. Some were the fixed-gear bikes of hipsters, while others were loaded down with the personal property of the homeless. Across the street, parking along the west side of Broadway, were minivans of soccer moms, luxury SUVs of Boomers, the Toyota Prius of baristas, and the giant pickups of south-side small business owners.
In all kinds of ways, all kinds of people traveled for the sole purpose of gathering together for Sunday worship at Frontline. Once inside, the seating options were about as varied as the people. A combination of thrifting and Craigslist bargain buys filled the sanctuary with old pews, couches, coffee tables, and rows of bright blue plastic chairs (perfect for popping your back). Despite packing the room with seats and packing Sunday with three services, often the only place to sit for late-comers was the floor.
The facility wasn’t ideal for a church building. The concrete and brick storefront was too hot in summer and too cold in winter. The art on the walls was too weird. The worship was always too loud, and sermons were often too long. There were countless reasons for this particular church plant to fail, yet the Spirit of God moved in power and built something wonderful. On the surface, early Frontline seemed novel or new in many ways. But the truth is: God was doing something ancient. What was happening in our church in OKC was a lot like what God did in the church in Philippi in Acts 16. People were being saved.
That season of the church was filled with lines of people, puddles of water, and roars of celebration accompanying baptism after baptism. Different people were being saved from sin and joined together as one family because of the gospel of Jesus Christ. A family with a heart to know Jesus Christ, to know God’s Word, and to be led by God’s Spirit. A heart to live out a mission to love God, love people, and push back darkness.
Our heart to reach people through that mission took shape in some out-of-the-box ways in those early days.
When Frontline was younger, a common question was, “Who is this church for?” At the time, there was a belief within church planting that you should have a very specific person group you were trying to reach. Some avatar of an exact or ideal member you wanted as a part of the church. In response to that idea, Josh Kouri repeatedly answered that question with “The hungry.” Powerfully simple and fiercely biblical. In John 6:35, Jesus says, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Frontline was, and still is, a church for the spiritually hungry.
If you happen to be reading this and you aren’t certain what you believe about Jesus, but you’re certain there is a hunger in your soul for life and truth, Frontline is for you. Stick around. Bring your questions. Allow us to come alongside you and explore who Jesus is and what he has done together.
If you are a Christian, this Sunday as you approach the Lord’s Table and take hold of the bread and wine, remember you will be standing with a 20-year heritage of the family of God gathering as Frontline Church because of our hunger, believing Jesus is the “bread of life,” knowing he satisfies the deep hunger of our souls. In him, we are nourished. In him, we are satisfied. And at the Lord’s Table, celebrate how in Christ we declare our unity with each other because of our common unity in Christ. In all of our differences, the Bread of Life has made us one in him.