sharing

i learned something the past couple days that will end up being extremely beneficial to me.

so after the message i gave sunday i became pumped up about god haha.  getting into scripture the week leading up to and so far this week has excited me about god and my faith in him.  so i thought it only necessary to begin share the good news of grace with my co-workers at disney.  i quickly learned that a large majority of them believe that if you’re a good person you go to heaven.  some were believers in reincarnation and jokingly stated that i was more spiritualy advanced then they were in this life.  others who claimed to believe in jesus’ sacrifice on the cross demanded that you also had to do good deeds in order to reach heaven.  one other person told me how they read a book of a man who had seen heaven and came back and was telling me about what heaven is like.

i approached the conversation with the goal of getting them to understand that god wants to be in right or reconciled relationship with them, and that god’s desire for that allows us to bypass any “work” we must do to reach him.  words like salvation, grace, redemption, etc. began to spew from my mouth.  looks of confusion and bewilderment came over their faces.  they didn’t not understand these “church-y” words.  i began to almost fumble words to better get across their meaning.  it took quite a bit of effort in order to get them to understand what i was saying.

i was raised in the church.  my entire life has been spent in church, christian schools, and a christian home.  even non-believers in those settings understand “church-y” words.  i better understood what paul meant when he said “to the jews i became like a jew…to those not having the law i became like one not having the law…to the weak i became weak…i have become all things to all men so that by all possible means i might save some,” (I corinthians 9:19-22).  i must enter into the vocabularly and world of my co-workers in order to share the gospel message with them.  otherwise they could be left confused and miss it entirely. 

old man dennis

so if you guys don’t know, i work at one of disney’s hotels as a valet.  spectacular job for any college students by the way.  it’s quick, easy, good money.  that’s beside the point though.  most of the people i work with aren’t christians/jesus followers.  so i like to engage them in conversation about life, religion, or anything that could give me the opportunity to “witness.”  so i was talking to this older gentleman; his name is dennis.  dennis is probably in his mid-50’s or so.  that’s over double my age, so that seems old.  but when i really think about it, dennis could live another 40 years.  so he’s just over halfway done with his life.  guess 50 isn’t too old.  anyway, so we were talking about church and what not.  i invited him to our easter service at parkcrest.  he declined because he lives in anaheim hills.  so i was trying to manipulate him into coming down to long beach for a service some weekend (always an excellent way to get people to church haha).  he declined, declined, and declined my invitations.  so i started thinking about some churches closer to his home.  he still declined.

he then asked me if i ever spoke in church, if i ever gave a sermon.  i told him i had a few times, still something i’m learning about.  he told me the only way he’d go to church is if it was to “rhaz” (or tease) me while i spoke.  i immediately accepted his offer.  i told him i could always use some honest, raw, objective thoughts to better the art of public speaking.  he then told me that he really didn’t want to come to church, but he left the door open for an opportunity to witness to him.  he told me that he would like me to record any sermon i give, burn it on a cd, and give it to him to listen to and criticize. 

at first this idea terrified me.  i’m not the greatest speaker in the world.  in fact, i’m so limited in experience i’m not to good at all.  i never took a preaching class.  it’s not one of my strongeset gifts.  and now this guy, who’s not a christian, wants me to burn those talks onto a disc for him to give me pointers on.  freaky!

then this second thought came through my mind.  can i really ruin the message of jesus christ?  some of you are probably nodding your heads right now, thinking “yes, yes you can.”  but really, if the only way to get dennis’ attention on jesus at some time during his week, month, or even life is by recording some of my silly talks, then so be it.  i told dennis i would just sit down and record stuff for him to listen to even if it wasn’t a live sermon.  he said he’d listen to it.  i told him i would burn sermons from other people onto a cd for him.  he said he wouldn’t listen to it.  so i’m thinking i’m going to take dennis up on his offer and record myself sometime, burn it on a disc, and hand it to him.  who knows, maybe i’ll just type out a sermon done by francis chan and then reading it onto a cd and giving it to dennis to play off as my own.

all that to say this, i’m not going to spend my life not witnessing to the world in fear of someone’s critcism about my speaking or writing ability.  i’m going to take old man dennis up on his offer.  i hope he’s ready for anything the holy spirit wants to do in his life.