Thursday, August 25, 2005
the Unexpected Guest
On Saturday night InterVarsity hosted a Luau on campus to welcome new students, complete with snow cones, torches, a limbo line, a water balloon toss, and Wes in a grass skirt. I arrived a few minutes early to help set up and join the students who were signed up to pray throughout the event. As new students began to trickle onto the lawn, I noticed a shirtless middle-aged man with a handfull of tattoos reclining alone just a few feet away from the snow cone booth. This guy was definitely not a freshman! Wanting to be a welcoming example for our students, I sat down next to the man, invited him to get some food and struck up a conversation. It wasn't long before I got the sense that Kenny, a local resident whose only goal was to find a job and then "stay out of trouble," didn't have a lot of purpose to his life.
I consider myself gospel-minded, but not necessarily gospel-tongued. While I feel comfortable speaking of Jesus in front of groups, I'm much more hesitant face-to-face. It's even more difficult when I'm not my ministry comfort zone, i.e. international students. However, sensing that Kenny needed to hear the gospel, I explained about InterVarsity being a Christian group and then asked, "So, how do you feel about Jesus?"
"Can't say I have any feelings about him," he answered in the plainest tone. Not what I was expecting! I thought everybody - at least everybody who grows up in the South going to church for a while, as Kenny had, felt one way or another about Jesus. I sat in silence for about a minute, not knowing how to reply to such honest indifference.
Finally, I spoke up and said, "Well, if you don't have much of an opinion about Jesus, do you mind if I share part of my story?" Kenny welcomed me to go ahead, and I pulled out my testimony from the dusty shelf of my Baptist memory, fumbling through my conversion story and a loose paraphrase of the gospel message. "How do you feel about what I just shared?" I asked, hoping for some kind of reaction.
"Look at that guy trying to get under that bar" he answered, staring past me with fascination at the limbo line. I rephrased my question, hoping he just didn't hear me: "Do you ever feel like you need God's forgiveness?"
"Oh yeah. I've done some things. It just takes time." I explained that while it might take time for situations to be made right again, God's forgiveness is as immediately available as our repentant request to receive it.
I had to leave soon after that, but I invited Kenny to church the next day, saying I'd meet him at the same place we were sitting if he wanted to come. The next morning I came out, waited, waited, and finally went to the service, not sure if I'd ever see Kenny again, but knowing that the Lord knew where he was.
Just three days later, I was riding home with someone down Main Street when I saw Kenny sitting on a bench. Responding to the Spirit and the opportunity, I hopped out of the car at a stop light and walked back up the street. Kenny seemed glad to see me. I asked him about his job search - "got an interview on Saturday at Burger King" - and whether he ended up coming to meet me for church. Twenty minutes late, he said.
I don't know if Kenny is for real or not - about getting a job or being interested in going to church. But I know that the Lord's love for him is real, so I'm praying for Kenny to know that. And I'll be waiting again on Sunday morning.
I consider myself gospel-minded, but not necessarily gospel-tongued. While I feel comfortable speaking of Jesus in front of groups, I'm much more hesitant face-to-face. It's even more difficult when I'm not my ministry comfort zone, i.e. international students. However, sensing that Kenny needed to hear the gospel, I explained about InterVarsity being a Christian group and then asked, "So, how do you feel about Jesus?"
"Can't say I have any feelings about him," he answered in the plainest tone. Not what I was expecting! I thought everybody - at least everybody who grows up in the South going to church for a while, as Kenny had, felt one way or another about Jesus. I sat in silence for about a minute, not knowing how to reply to such honest indifference.
Finally, I spoke up and said, "Well, if you don't have much of an opinion about Jesus, do you mind if I share part of my story?" Kenny welcomed me to go ahead, and I pulled out my testimony from the dusty shelf of my Baptist memory, fumbling through my conversion story and a loose paraphrase of the gospel message. "How do you feel about what I just shared?" I asked, hoping for some kind of reaction.
"Look at that guy trying to get under that bar" he answered, staring past me with fascination at the limbo line. I rephrased my question, hoping he just didn't hear me: "Do you ever feel like you need God's forgiveness?"
"Oh yeah. I've done some things. It just takes time." I explained that while it might take time for situations to be made right again, God's forgiveness is as immediately available as our repentant request to receive it.
I had to leave soon after that, but I invited Kenny to church the next day, saying I'd meet him at the same place we were sitting if he wanted to come. The next morning I came out, waited, waited, and finally went to the service, not sure if I'd ever see Kenny again, but knowing that the Lord knew where he was.
Just three days later, I was riding home with someone down Main Street when I saw Kenny sitting on a bench. Responding to the Spirit and the opportunity, I hopped out of the car at a stop light and walked back up the street. Kenny seemed glad to see me. I asked him about his job search - "got an interview on Saturday at Burger King" - and whether he ended up coming to meet me for church. Twenty minutes late, he said.
I don't know if Kenny is for real or not - about getting a job or being interested in going to church. But I know that the Lord's love for him is real, so I'm praying for Kenny to know that. And I'll be waiting again on Sunday morning.
# posted by Anonymous @ 11:45 PM 
