Dallas International Street Church (DISC)

Friday last, our group went to serve at DISC. DISC is a ministry to the homeless which is located in a couple of run down buildings on 2nd street close to the Cotton Bowl and Texas State Fair Grounds. Several congregations sponsor meals there during the month. My new Dallas congregation takes one Friday night per month to bring in food and assist in ministry to the homeless.

We arrived a little before 7pm with some large cans of veggies, met the cook (who had already spent much of the day preparing fried chicken and baked Idaho and sweet potatoes. He did all of this on a regular kitchen stove. One of the things I noticed was that the kitchen was woefully under equipped for the task of prepping food for some 100 homeless every night. But he gets it done. Needed: at least one commercial grade stove and oven.
The menu consist in whatever has been donated for the evening. Some evenings, I am told, the menu is pretty sparse. Needed: regular donations of nutritious foods. We saw that from some bakery, about 6 large sheet cakes had been donated for dessert. Our congregation had been able to add canned corn, roles, and a large noodle and veggie casserole which had been prepared by a professional chef of a local corporation. The plastic plates were full this night, but still there was barely enough to feed the many homeless who showed up.

So much for feeding the belly, to feed the spirit, Pastor Allen Groff preached from a heart of 85 years of living a Christian life, and several congregants responded to the altar with various prayer needs and requests. One very young man (a professed Christian) whom I prayed for, needed housing for the night. I was able to witness that prayer being answered through DISC founder Karen Dudley authorizing him to stay in the DISC facilities over night.

One of the highlights was meeting DISC founder Karen Dudley. She founded the ministry some 14 years ago and has built it on a vision from the Lord and a lot of faith.