A MacBook’s Spotify playlist played electronic pop music through the room’s speakers in the Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center Marquee as hundreds of church-goers flooded the rows of golden chairs in front of the Auburn Community Church stage on the Sunday before Hurricane Irma came to Auburn.
The church, now around three years old, used to hold services in Ace Hardware with only a few groups of people in the beginning but now spreads the Christian faith to approximately 1,500 in the Auburn-Opelika area.
Allie Stanley, senior in communications, found ACC during her freshman year at Auburn and has since joined their staff as the student coordinator.
“When I stepped into ACC for the first time I felt the presence of the Lord, and I just kept coming back,” Stanley said. “’The Church Without Walls’ is kind of a joke because we literally don’t have a building. … But it’s less about a building and more about a body of people who are actually going and doing what Jesus intended for the church to be.”
The vast majority of the audience were college-aged and casually dressed, though a few older audience members were also in attendance.
Projected onto screens on either side of the stage were graphics that encouraged the church to make donations via text, follow the church on multiple social media platforms and join a community group and service team online.
Tyler Miller, senior in communications, also found ACC his freshman year and plans to go into ministry after he graduates.
“I was looking for churches when I got here, and I had a friend who I was in a Camp War Eagle group with, and she had come here one time and was like, ‘You’ve gotta check it out,’” Miller said. “I think this is the most Christ-centered church I’ve ever come to. … It’s authentic; it’s relatable, and I think that’s how faith in Christ is meant to be lived.”
By the time the church’s band had arrived on stage, the seats had been completely filled to the point that volunteers had to bring more chairs in while the seatless patiently stood by.
The teal cloth ceiling billowed from the blustering winds from oncoming Irma while the rows of attendees swayed with opened hands to the band onstage and sung along to lyrics projected on the large screens.
After a few songs, ACC Lead Pastor Miles Fidell came to the stage and delivered a sermon titled “Rock Bottom,” which drew from biblical stories such as the parable of the prodigal son and Jesus’ sermon on the mount while tying in present day examples of God working in people’s lives such as his brother’s recovery from substance abuse and the material possessions lost by victims of Irma.
“Some of you who have evacuated from Florida need to hear this right now: you bear the storm by holding on to your Father, not your finances, not your stuff. That stuff comes and goes anyway,” Fidell said during the closing of his sermon. “All storms end, and when this is over I will still be standing because He is constant, He is still standing and if I build my life on Him, I will not hit rock bottom.”
After the service had ended and the crowd had filtered out of the marquee, Fidell and the small group of staff members huddled around the stage to vote on whether they would hold a five o’clock service that evening despite the oncoming storm.
“What I understand is that the winds will be about the way they are right now, and it’s not going to start raining until tonight,” Fidell said. “Cast your vote on the duality of the safety of people and the Kingdom of God, thumbs-up or thumbs-down.”
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The majority of staff voted to hold a service that night, and as Irma came to Auburn the rain came down, the streams rose and the winds blew and beat against that marquee; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the asphalt parking lot of the Auburn University Hotel and Conference Center.
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