If I haven't said it before, it bears repeating. Gospel preaching is one of the most internally painful things to begin, and also one of the most internally awesome things once you're into it. It's a bad combination for the slacker and procrastinator that I am, but great for Christ who lives in me.
That being said, I still haven't finished my last blog post. Figures.
So Shulamite called me Monday afternoon, wandering if I wanted to go preach the Gospel with her.
"Heck no!" I thought.
"Sure!" I said. "But can I get a nap first?"
I'm still not sure whether this was a stall tactic or if I was legitimately concerned with having coherent conversations. Either way I went to sleep, having not set my alarm, figuring I would just wake up in an hour.
Six hours later, I awoke, confused by the hue outside my window.
WEEK 73: Preaching the Gospel with Sarah, Shulamite, and Ian
The light was fading, but that's perfect for Coventry, the local late-night hangout. We split up into two-man teams- Ian and Shulamite went off in one direction; Sarah and I wandered around in no direction. Then she asked me if I was stalling (which I wasn't; I was just still in a daze), and we actually started talking to people.
These two girls in their late teens were willing to be "interviewed", and they were quite open. We used the John 3:16 method again (see the previous post, or the video I posted a year ago), which was a nice starting place, but the real quality was after. Emily and Brie both grew up Catholic, but stopped going to church a number of years ago. They didn't see the value in it, and they were unhappy with the Catholic position on gay marriage. When I asked them what their relationship with Jesus was like, I'm not sure that they had a clear answer. Emily occasionally prays at night, to the effect of "If anybody's listening, I could use some help down here," which is an awesome prayer if you ask me. In retrospect it's quite a thought to think that God might have used us to answer that prayer. Yet for the time being, they were drifting further away from Jesus.
I must be getting better at Gospel preaching, because instead of floundering in my words in an attempt to show why a life with Jesus is better than a life without, I just kept asking them about the Bible.
"Could we look at another verse?"
No fancy flash cards this time. I took out my pocket-Bible and had them read the beginning of 1 John.
"That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life— the life was manifested, and we have seen, and bear witness, and declare to you that eternal life which was with the Father and was manifested to us— that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. And these things we write to you that your joy may be full." (1 John 1:1-4 NKJV, italics added for emphasis)
"How would you describe John's relationship with Jesus?"
Ok, ok. I know John knew Jesus in the flesh (she almost called it on me too), but I'm of the position that this also apply to our lives today. I mean, it's the same life that is manifested to both of us. There's something about interacting with Jesus-- hearing Him, looking at Him, examining Him, handling Him-- that leads to life being manifested.
The slightly abridged conversation thereafter (15 minutes condensed into a dozen lines):
"Does John's relationship with Jesus match your own experience?"
"No."
"Why is John 'declaring' this to you?"
"That we 'may have fellowship.'"
"And why is John writing about this fellowship?"
(At this point I realized that I accidentally stopped at verse 3 before, so I had them read another verse.)
"So that 'your joy may be full.'"
"Do you want this kind of joy?"
"Yeah."
"How do you get this joy?"
After summarizing the verses and connecting it back to John 3:16, I still felt like something might have been missing, so I brought out the home-run bat, 2 Corinthians 3:18.
"There's a similar verse in 2 Corinthians-- I think it's 3:18...." (Nailed it!) "'But we all, with unveiled face, beholding... the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory....' You know what? If you're a gay Christian..." (it had to come back some time, right?), "...you have two ways of looking at your sin. One, you can try to stop living a gay lifestyle. That's very hard to do. Not many people can do it. But the other way is this: you behold the Lord, and you are just... transformed. You don't focus too much on your sin; you just behold the Lord. And there's glory there."
I had to explain the "glory to glory" bit when Brie asked, "So gay Christians just turn straight?", but otherwise, I think they got it.
"I've never heard it explained to me like that before!"
That felt good.
"Where do you go to church? I might check it out."
That also felt good. Seriously, why is it so hard to get myself to go out and preach the Gospel!?
We prayed with them while we were there, but keep praying for them anyway. I didn't have a flier on me, but my church comes up first on Google. I don't know if that's enough. This is a critical time, when it's very easy for those seeds to be snatched away. Pray, pray, pray.
It was Sarah's turn next. I held the camera phone, which I found out was completely for appearances, since my phone doesn't save videos longer than 5 or 6 minutes. Whatever. It makes people comfortable. So we found this middle-aged guy (we didn't get a name) who was in a hurry to get somewhere, so we were only able to talk for 5 minutes. I think we made it through John 3:16 though. I wish I could remember more details.
Since Sarah didn't get a real turn, she initiated the next conversation too. Before talking to the middle-aged man, we were passed from behind by a dude on a skateboard with some sweet tats and a friendly disposition. He was talking with some fellow skater kids down the street, so we hit him up on our way by.
Xander was something of a pluralist, or a vague spiritualist, or whatever you want to call that line of postmodern thought. He said he believes in Jesus, but that he likes to take things from many religions to enrich his own life. So we asked him what he thought of John 3:16.
"I like it. I like the thought of believing in something above yourself."
Good start.
"Do you think it matters whether or not this verse is absolutely true or not?"
"Not really. The basic principles are there."
"Does it bother you what this verse says about people who don't believe in Jesus?"
"Not really. I mean, Muslims believe in God, and other religions believe in God. As long as you believe in a higher power, right?"
"What does this verse say you have to believe in to receive this eternal life?"
"Oh, yeah. I guess that's Jesus."
"Does that change the way you look at other religions?"
"Actually, yeah, I would say so."
As he was showing us his tattoos, his friend, kind of a black hipster, came over. We were close to a good stopping point with Xander, so we prayed for him, his family, and for people in prisons. That's what was on his mind. Out of nowhere Andre (Xander's friend) asked if he could pray for us.
I'm never really sure how to respond to that, so I asked, "Who... do you... pray to?"
He said something convoluted, but it sounded like "Jesus", so I told him to go ahead.
His prayer was awesome! I don't remember what he said, but there was life there! Xander even commented afterward, "Wow, I really felt that." And as it turns out, Andre is a youth pastor.
All right! We have an ally!
I know where he works, so hopefully I can visit him later this week. Cool guy.
An hour had suddenly passed, so we found Ian and Shulamite to see if they were ready to head out. They were not. They saw a mutual friend of ours in Jimmy John's, so they wanted to see how he was doing.
Bonus round!
We found this big 'ol black lady with her hands full of Chipotle, walking around near the restaurant and apparently up for a conversation, so we talked with her for a bit. She was in a hurry, and we only got halfway through the verse, but she seemed to love Jesus, so that's cool.
A few yards away were Shayla and Hanna. If memory serves, Shayla called herself a Christian, or maybe "kind of" a Christian. Hanna just liked to talk. A lot. Circularly. We were there for almost an hour, and I'm not sure we talked about anything you couldn't fit in a five minute conversation. Hanna was pretty committed to the position that you can't take the Bible literally, which she explained to us any time she needed to change the subject to avoid a difficult question. The discourse was fun and everything, but I can't help but think at some point I should have just cut her off and started straight-up preaching at her (in love, not anger). It hadn't been a real conversation for a while anyway, only an opportunity for her to preach at us. I'll try to see what I can get away with next time.
Shulamite was hungry, so we got pizza and swapped Gospel stories. Good times.
