I had a council meeting last night that went late, and then afterwards my good friend Aaron and I met at the Waffle House for a “midnight snack”. Part of the purpose was to discuss the details of the New Year’s Eve Party. His band is going to be playing one of the sets.
As we’re talking about music, a guy sitting at the counter says, “So what kind of music are you playing?” This led to a very nice conversation with a guy named Shawn who recently got out of the military and has just started a new job in Hagerstown. The reason Shawn had asked is he plays bass guitar in a band. Music was what got the conversation started, but then because of Aaron and I both working in churches, the conversation turned to spiritual things. Aaron has a high tech phone and was able to show Shawn one of the GodPod videos of me dancing around like an idiot. Like most people, Shawn thought I was a terrible dancer, but even more importantly he said, “I didn’t know you could do that in a church.” By the time we left at a little after 1am, Shawn had asked for info for both of our churches.
The moral of the story is this:
1. Everyone listens to music and so talking about it with your friends or
neighbors, or this case in front of a complete stranger will often open
up an opportunity to talk about how awesome our band is at United
and let people know that church can be fun, relevant and most
importantly…life-changing.
2. Talking about your faith doesn’t have to be scary. In this case, we just
answered some questions he had in the simplest terms we knew how.
No need for big fancy words, it was just 3 guys sitting around having a
regular old conversation.
3. The conversation had no agenda. People can see through that right
away, so don’t even try it. In other words, I didn’t think as soon as he
started talking with us, “Oh great I’m going to share the Gospel” or “Ok,
my goal is to get this guy to come to church.” No, we just sat there,
listened to his questions, took a genuine interest in him and his life and
allowed the Holy Spirit to prompt us in what to say and or do.
4. Other churches are not our competition. Aaron and I could have easily
gotten into a “my church is better than your church competition” thus
making the conversation all about us. Instead it was Aaron who said,
“Oh check out this video that Gilbert’s church did” (yeah I know it’s a
little creepy that he carries videos of me everywhere he goes!). And
then I was the one who asked where he was living and when I found
out it was Hagerstown, suggested that he check out Crossroads. My
former boss at Purpose Driven, Rick Warren, always said it this way, “It
takes all kinds of churches to reach all kinds of people.” United is not
the only way or the right way to do church…it’s just one way. We
should celebrate the diversity found not only in our community, but
also in our own church.
Wow that was a long post…sorry about that…hope you got something out of it and Shawn if you’re reading this, it was great meeting you and I hope you’ll comment on what your take was running into 2 pastors, in the middle of the night, at a Waffle House. Hope to see you again sometime.
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