It’s been 3 months since I left my “church” job to take a “secular” job.  I’ve developed a nice friendship with one of my coworkers, Joey (age 27). Joey and I have been sharing stories about our lives and past as we work side by side. I have lots of colorful stories since I am 25 years older than him.  We laugh a lot.  He cusses a lot. He is pretty honest with me about stuff.

The other day, another gal at work told him that I was a minister. You should have seen his face when he heard. He looked at me and said, “Are you sh****** me? How could you be a minister?  You are so NORMAL!” Then he had that look on his face. I could tell he was trying to remember everything he ever said to me.  He said, “How?  We talked sh**!  I don’t know if I can ever talk to you again. I mean like I see you in an entirely different light. Are you going to try to convince me to go to church now?” I felt bad and tried to convince him that I really am normal, and the image he had of ministers is not who I am.

He didn’t talk to me for the rest of the day, but I knew he had to work things out in his head.  The next day I was working next to him and he says, “I told my dad about you last night.” “What did you tell him?” I asked.  “I told him about all the lies and deception” Joey replied. I asked, “What lies and deception?”  He said, “I told him how you act all cool and normal, but really you are a minister,”  I laughed, but I really knew that in the past Joey had probably experienced the super holy, judgmental Christians (and clergy) who feel the need to accomplish their goals rather than listen to the heart of God and love people.

The story gets better.  Two days later, Joey came to me first thing in the morning and told me that he “got saved last night.”  I thought someone put him up to it….you know….tell me this so that he can have a laugh on me.  Well, it was true.  Joey said that a preacher showed up on his doorstep and told him about what Jesus
did for him.  Joey said, “I listened to him because I kept picturing your face and thinking that this must be what you do and what you tell people. I listened to him and then he made me pray.”  “He MADE you pray?”, I asked? “Well, he didn’t make me pray, I wanted to.

I could hardly believe that Joey was telling me this story. I thought for sure that he was shi***** ME! I asked him if I could take my break with him and spend a few minutes summing up what the preacher said to him last night.  Joey and I went to break together and I got to explain the love of God to him.

I believe that my friendship with Joey and me being my normal self at work, somehow helped Joey to open his heart to the words of the preacher and the love and forgiveness of God.

I love being in on what God is doing in peoples’ lives.  I was created for this.

-Margaret

Darrin Munson is a veteran OA guy. He’s on the local Doable Evangelism (DE) team with me, has taught hundreds of high school kids the principles of ordinary attempts, and is now leading his own faith community through a short course on practicing ordinary attempts. After his first session, he wrote an email to his group with some instructions and a short confession…from himself.

I went to Costco yesterday. I hate going to Costco. Aside from the fact that there are way too many people all walking around not looking at where they are going (like Disneyland), I’ve found that it is impossible to get out of there without spending at least a $100. It’s like the Costco tax.

All that to say, I wasn’t looking forward to the experience. I quickly got the things I needed (and some I didn’t) and made my way over to grab some samples in an attempt to redeem the trip. No samples. Now I’m spent. Too many people, and no free samples. So I wait my required 15 minutes in the checkout line and finally get up to the cashier. She spends the next 5 minutes lazily checking me out while talking to the woman who I assume is supposed to be boxing up my purchases, but is apparently getting paid to distract my cashier. I wasn’t happy. In fact I was now even more irritated.

I gradually made my way out of the building maneuvering between carts, children, and other equally frustrated people, and began to load my car. It wasn’t until then that I noticed what an ass I was. For 5 minutes those two women were standing in front of me and I couldn’t even tell you their hair color, yet alone their names. I was so absorbed in myself, and my needs that I didn’t even “see” them.

That’s the thing about “ordinary attempts”. They seems so simple that we wonder why people even have to be taught this stuff, and yet only 2 days after discussing it, I’m already so self-absorbed I’m missing it. Unless this becomes something we talk about regularly, celebrate, and share with each other, I know I will just not do it on a regular basis. We all believe that God is working in others around us all the time, but for me at least, I’m so focused on myself so much of the time, I miss a lot of the adventure He’s calling me to.

You may have seen this in the past, but here’s the 2008 version…and this is ALREADY outdated!  Facebook is now larger than MySpace!