The TV beckons. The kids call for mom or dad. So The Secret Place provides a refuge. I can't tell you how it made me feel when I walked out of the church at 11 one night, and I saw this big Harley parked by The Secret Place, and there's a guy in there praying, and he tells me he comes all the way from Rockwall. Higher Ground's congregation has tried to make The Secret Place as welcoming as possible to these unexpected visitors.
Praise music drifts across the parking lot.
In the chapel, a wall mural painted by the church's praise minister, Curtis Butler, shows Jesus in prayer in the Garden of Gethsemane. A primitive cross, draped with flowers and a length of white cloth, stands nearby. When visitors leave, they pass beneath a pair of angels painted above the door, wings outstretched. A lot of people need them, Green said. But those women didn't even go to church here.