I have a confession to make. I let someone merge onto the freeway the other day. I know it’s crazy to do considering I commute in Southern California, but the lady was in the wrong lane and had her blinker on for the longest time. The proper thing to do when someone puts their blinker on is to close the gap as quickly as possible to prevent them getting in front of you, but maybe God’s been working in my life because I had a moment of benevolence. It reminded me about how the little things make a difference in a person’s day. Before we start nominating me for sainthood or anything, I will say that it’s a sharp contrast from the time that I gave a nice little “California salute” to a guy who cut me off and then spent a tense fifteen minutes being followed and harrassed by him. I’m not exactly the picture of Christian consistency.
This is a reposting of a comment made on an earlier post titled, The”Just Say Hi” Church Growth Seminar” (post by Pam Hogeweide, comment by Pam Newberry). I thought it was a great example of how simple it is to connect with people inside your church. Since evangelism these days seems to be primarily (at least initially) about inviting your friends to your church, we’re thinking we should get better at making them feel like they belong there if and when they do show up.
Six years ago I visited a local church that was a completely different denomination from the church I had grown up in… grew up Methodist and was visiting a Church of God. My son was involved with their youth program and really encouraged my husband and I to attend. For about five weeks, we sat on the back pew with the closest quickest exit out. We didn’t know what they were about and felt sure that if a basket of snakes was passed around, we would hit the door!
However, we had such the opposite experience. One Sunday, the pastor made an announcement about a Women’s Ministry event and the woman sitting next to me asked if I planned to attend. I looked at her like she had three heads and told her I was “just visiting”. Read the rest of this entry »
