Week 69

Ok, so I kinda forgot my blog existed for a year there...

Anyway, this past school year happened.

Now you're up to speed.


WEEK 69 (I hope my math is right): Preaching the Gospel with a bunch of friends from my church

So this year, I've been doing an internship part-time with my church. It kind of rocks. I submit as evidence: this week, a bunch of full-time interns from Cleveland have come to my hometown of Hanover, PA, with the sole purpose of preaching the Gospel. Here's the story.

DAY 1:
My car was supposed to leave early Monday morning (5/7), but it got stuck in the shop for the weekend, so I had to wait until 9. Then it turned out that a part they needed (a brake sensor) hadn't actually arrived in time for them to work on my car, so I had to wait another hour. Then it turned out the sensor still wasn't working, so I had to wait another hour while they figured it out. Then it turned the sensor wasn't the only problem, and that a wire was cut somewhere, so I waited another hour. The wire was somehow high-tech, so any ordinary wire wouldn't do; ordering a part would take another day, so they basically said, "Let's see if we can make one", and then they somehow did. That's why I love my mechanic. We were out of Cleveland by 3.

So my car got to Hanover too late to do anything but meet up briefly with the whole team (over cake) to talk logistics- and then hit up Corbin Moon (a CIM freshmen and brother, also from Hanover) at his place to crash for the night.

DAY 2:
It was rainy. And gloomy. The locals were mostly unsociable. God is still awesome.

We started the day with some prayer/songs/worship, then headed out to various places where we'd expect large globs of people. So I arbitrarily teamed up with an intern from Ann Arbor named Renee and headed to a grocery store. Fun fact: only old, retired folks do their grocery shopping before noon.
"Excuse me, we're on a fact-finding mission; could we ask you a question?"
"Well, ok."
"In your opinion, who is Jesus Christ?"
"Well he's my savior!"
This was how the first five conversations started. Old people in Hanover are well indoctrinated. Luckily, their responses were also extremely genuine, and their belief was not mere head-knowledge. And they each took time to encourage us and told us to keep at it, so that was nice. But we weren't really doing anything especially fruitful by talking with them, so Renee and I decided to move to another store in hopes of finding some heathens or something.

Well, we found a greater variety of people, but the conversations were kind of lame.
"Excuse me, we're on a fact-finding mission; could we ask you a question?"
"No."
Then when we got conversations started (for which we were actually pretty successful- the above conversation only happened 2 or 3 times), we found that a lot of people ranged from apathetic to cold. Not to rip on the Catholics, but dang, take Christ out of religion and it absolutely kills people. If it wasn't clear, Hanover is the kind of town where everyone is a Christian, and yet seemingly no one is a Christian. The apathy is gut-wrenching. We actually did find a pleasant elderly born again Christian, but her husband was clearly uncomfortable at our presence. I would probably describe his expression as "horrified".

Maybe the best conversation we had all morning was with a Jehovah's Witness, though it wasn't really a conversation at all; to be honest, I was really impressed with his ability to deceptively control a conversation. He seemed like he really wanted to have a discussion, but as soon as the words "What do you think about the verse that says..." came out of my mouth or Renee's, he would remind us again that he really had to get going (though with enough time to quote another one of his verses at us).

All nine of us met up for lunch at Corbin's house. It seemed like Renee and I were not alone in our experiences. Food and prayer was required. We waited out the rain for an hour and headed back out.

Change in tactics.

So for the afternoon, we brought out the big guns: some free umbrellas, a camera, and John 3:16. For the next hour and a half we only had 3 conversations (they were long and awesome), 2 of which are on video (I might publish them later?). For the record, people might not like talking about eternal things, but they love being interviewed. Anyway, the first conversation was with a woman on break outside of a hair salon. We walked her through John 3:16 and got her to explain the verse to us pretty well. But as we were asking her about her spiritual beliefs later on, it became clear that something was off. Namely, she wasn't going to church. She used to go to church, but the fact that she was divorced sent waves of condemnation in her direction, so she stopped. Frankly, I believe her; hypocrisy in the Church is a big problem around these parts. I tried to console her and encouraged her to try church again, but she was not interested anymore. It was saddening.

After the conversation, we felt bad that we couldn't quite communicate the importance of church, so Renee found Matthew 16:16-18 for me. I like the verse because it ties "I will build My Church" very closely to the question "Who do you say that I am?". Renee likes the "gates of hell" part.

Gordan and Gloria talked to us next. The pleasant elderly couple loved God and were kinda awesome. Renee was especially glad that they came by.

Next we stopped by some workers on break outside of the Dollar Store. Renee interviewed one of them, Teresa. Something about this conversation seemed oddly familiar. Teresa explained the verse to us fairly well, but again, something was off.

Exact same problem.
Exact same grievances with the Church.
Different response.

This time, we were armed with the Word of God! Matthew 16:16-18, bam! Teresa thought about it for a little, and then came to the conclusion that she really needed to go back to church. Since her last church was so awful, we offered to help her find one. She was interested, and we got her contact info. Huzzah!


DAY 3: Coming soon...