Trying Something New

A few months ago, a woman at Discovery told me about a friend of hers who asked her some questions about the Bible and God. He knew she was active in a church and thought she might be able to answer his questions. She called me and said, “I didn’t know what to tell him, Julie. I didn’t want to tell him the wrong thing.” I told her to invite him to worship or Wednesday night small groups so I could meet him. “He won’t come to church. He said he would burn up if he walked in the doors of a church.” I said, “Tell him we have air conditioning, so he’ll be fine.” She reported back that her friend liked my sense of humor, but that he still wouldn’t agree to come to the church building.


I have been thinking about this guy a lot. Although I know that we have to go outside the church to reach people, he made me see this truth in a new way. So I have been praying and trying to figure out how I can create an opportunity to meet and talk with people like him, people who have questions about Christianity, but won’t step foot inside a church building—not even for Alpha and other such programs.

Pastor Chick-Chat is what I came up with. I have published post-card size flyers and will be posting information in our church’s announcements about an opportunity for people like this man to come to a neutral site and ask their questions. Beginning this June, I will be at local restaurants (Cantina! in Patton Creek this month) two nights each month (June 9th and June 30th starting at 5:30pm). Anyone who wants to come eat or have a drink and hang out is welcome to come. My hope is that this setting will allow people to feel comfortable being themselves and have honest conversations about Christianity and whatever else is on their minds. I don’t know for sure that this will be an effective way to share God’s love with people, but it certainly gets me closer to it than waiting for people to come to the church building.

Celebrating Death?

I watched last night as the media shifted focus from saddened, devastated communities in a country grieving the loss of hundreds of lives in the wake of monstrous tornadoes to people in the same country breaking out into mass celebrations and holding loud street parties to celebrate the death/killing of one man. The contrast between these scenes struck me.


We moved so quickly from a “one for all” focus to a divided “us vs. them” mentality. But the dividing lines between ‘them’ and ‘us’ don’t appear as clear as we might expect them to be—especially with the déjà vu reflections of Middle Eastern street parties over the killing of Americans years ago now mimicked in the shouts, noise makers, and choruses of ‘God Bless America’ that rang out in Washington D.C. and New York, among other places through the night and into the next day.

It isn’t that I am sad to hear of the death of Osama bin Laden, but I am certainly not going to pull out the grill and invite the neighbors over to celebrate. I just question what lies within us that moves us to such behavior. Just yesterday I was part of a Sunday school class in which the leader focused on the example of Jesus in turning the other cheek and not seeking vengeance. So the irony of a ‘Christian nation’ bursting into impromptu parties to celebrate the killing of a man—even a murderous menace—is striking. Where were the party hats and noise makers last Sunday when we held celebrations of life?