We call our church “Scum of the Earth.” That’s really our name.
Why would we use this name for our church? I always tell people, “It’s not that we’re doing church differently—we’re just doing church with different people.” And the members of our church thought this name would help us do that. Let me explain.
People ask me all the time why I would allow a church to be called Scum of the Earth. They assume that, like most young churches, we just tried to make our name as cool as possible. But Scum of the Earth is a name that is humble.
It’s also biblical. When the apostle Paul was describing the way the world treated him and the other apostles who were doing their best to follow Christ, he used the name of our church: “we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world” (1 Cor 4:9-13).
Scum is an appropriate name for a church trying to connect with people who have been outcast by the rest of society or by churches. Many can identify with the name Scum because they’ve endured this type of treatment before. The name also serves as a reminder of our need for God and redemption. In addition, it’s just plain funny.
I was not in favor of the name at first. But I have come to believe that it was one of the best things that could have happened to us. Amazing things began happening right away as the Lord brought people around our fledgling church.
Reaching Friday
One of the first women to come to Scum of the Earth went by the name Friday because she looked like Wednesday from The Addams Family. Normally she wore black nail polish, black clothes, whitish make-up and dyed-black hair with purple bangs. She was a waitress at an all-night restaurant our group would go to after Bible study on Monday nights. She didn’t grow up with any religious background, but the way people at Scum loved her drew her relentlessly to Jesus.
One night, after watching a movie with a few others, she got a call at home from one of the girls from the church. Melanie was crying for Friday; she felt deeply that God wanted to touch her life. Friday thought Melanie was “being an emotional girl,” but it got her thinking about the new friends she had made and their faith in Jesus.
A few days later, after thinking about it for some time, Friday decided to ask God to make Himself real to her, too. She didn’t know whether to “wish it, or say it, or pray it,” since she had never done anything like that before.
God was at work in our small, humble community, and I had the pleasure of watching.
What Do You Really Want to Do?
God is at work today, same as He has always been, preparing the hearts and minds of young people all over the world for the ride of their lives—if they will only give themselves to Jesus. Nothing could be more inspiring, invigorating and fulfilling. It is my hope that this article (taken from my book) not only encourages people to dive in but also prompts others to take care of those who have.
When my wife and I arrived in Colorado and I was enrolled in seminary, I began looking for a part-time job in a church. I landed a position as a singles ministry director in a traditional Presbyterian church in the Capitol Hill District called Corona.
During the first year of my tenure it became painfully obvious that in order to have an effective singles ministry, we would have to divide the group by age. This is not unusual, so we had a 40-something group and a 30-something group.
But then an odd thing happened: younger singles started coming to church. It began innocently enough with a few 20-year-olds checking out a neighborhood church. I introduced myself one Sunday and found out they were involved with a fledgling ska band called Five Iron Frenzy.
They began a Bible study to which they would invite people who attended their concerts. As the band’s fan base grew, it became apparent that the Bible study needed to move out of an apartment and into a church building. I volunteered the basement of the church, and suddenly I was responsible for a burgeoning 20-something ministry. I became the host pastor while Reese Roper, Five Iron Frenzy’s lyricist and lead singer, led the study.
As time went by, people from the Bible study became interested in attending our Presbyterian church service. They had two choices: a contemporary service at 8:30 a.m. (aimed at people their parents’ age) or a traditional service at 11 a.m. with full liturgy, geared toward their grandparents. The extra two-and-a half hours of sleep was sufficient motivation to bring most of them to the later service. So come Sunday morning, a number of young adults with tattoos, various body piercings and neon-dyed hair found their seats in the back of the church, while senior citizens with costume jewelry and lavender rinses in their gray hair sat up in the front, in their time-honored seats.
It was beautiful. This is what churches should look like, I thought. But in time, we decided to start an alternate service for 20-somethings.
We did, however, have a trial run. We invited everyone who had ever come to the Bible study and made a general announcement to the young adults at church. About 25 people showed up. I was amazed. I couldn’t believe what God was doing right before our eyes. This was just a trial run, and our plan was to begin in earnest after the holidays. But things for me were about to change drastically.
The church where I had been on staff for five years had hired a new senior pastor a year before. In October, the new pastor asked me to resign my position with Corona. I had no idea where I was going to find work to support my family. I was not finished with seminary, and my mortgage payment loomed large.
Then I went on a prayer retreat with a good friend who asked me, “If someone gave you the money to do anything, what would you do?” I knew immediately. I would continue the vision of creating a church service for those who did not fit in—a church for the left-out.
Soon, two people told me they would help support me financially if I would continue pursuing the vision God had given me for reaching the left-out. Suddenly,
I had a part-time salary with no employer and a job that existed only in my head.
We invited everybody from the Bible study to a brainstorming session. About a dozen people showed up. We now think of it as the birthday of Scum of the Earth
Church: 02.02.2000.
At the beginning of the meeting, I asked a simple but important question: If you were to create a church that would be the kind of place in which you could be yourself, to which you could invite friends and they’d feel comfortable, what would it look like? We discussed dozens of good ideas.
Landing on “Scum”
At one of those meetings, the issue finally came up of what to name our “church for left-out.”
I had some names in mind ever since my retreat, where I had been calling this ministry Chi-Ro Nights (from the first two Greek letters of the word for Christ, Cristos.) Other names emerged from the people gathered there in my living room: The Cave, The Dregs, Haven, The Iconoclasts, J2K, B.O.B (Bunch of Believers). Then Reese spoke up. He had thought for a few years that Scum of the Earth would be a great name for a group such as this. And he was sure it was in the Bible…somewhere…he didn’t know just where.
Standing up front by the flip-chart, marker in my hand, having just written down all the other ideas for a name, I watched this latest entry flicker in the minds of the group. Then I could see it burn even more brightly in their eyes. A few didn’t like it, but most did.
As the official moderator of the meeting, I tried everything in my power to sway the group in another direction. I told Reese he would have to find the phrase in the Bible—even though I had a pretty good idea about where it was! It comes from
“For it seems to me that God has put us apostles on display at the end of the procession, like men condemned to die in the arena. We have been made a spectacle to the whole universe, to angels as well as to men. We are fools for Christ, but you are so wise in Christ! We are weak, but you are strong! You are honored, we are dishonored! To this very hour we go hungry and thirsty, we are in rags, we are brutally treated, we are homeless. We work hard with our own hands. When we are cursed, we bless; when we are persecuted, we endure it; when we are slandered, we answer kindly. Up to this moment we have become the scum of the earth, the refuse of the world” (
Still, I was not in favor of the name. Perhaps I was afraid of it. Maybe I was too insecure to lead a church with a name like that. What would my family and friends think? So I used an old Christian tactic to buy myself some time: I had everyone pray about it for a week before making the final decision. (Yes, I can be that big of a poser, I am ashamed to admit.) In the meantime, I called my mentor and friend Rich Hurst, whose book Getting Real was the blueprint for starting this ministry.
“Rich, they want to name the church Scum of the Earth!”
“Mike,” he replied, “don’t let them do it!”
The next week we met, and it was a done deal. “Scum of the Earth” became the name for our attempt at doing church. It was the best decision I never made.
Adapted from Pure Scum: The Left-Out, the Right-Brained and the Grace of God by Mike Sares. Copyright(c) 2010 by Mike Sares. Used by permission of InterVarsity Press P.O. Box 1400, Downers Grove, IL 60515.
