The Jeremiah Steepek pastor story has some legs on it. It is actually a compliation of other stories , experiements if you like, concerning human psychology.
Snopes
And yet that is sobering at any time, isn't it? Not just the Jeremiah Steepek anecdote itself but the encompassing message something like that occurring does send about the church. A church. Any church where people would be indifferent to the suffering on their doorstep.
It's church! How would we dare not show God's love to the less fortunate who find their way to the church? But some did. Again.
Different town, different church, different homeless guy. Same indifference.
What a testimony. And this was real.