It was one of the loudest parties I have ever attended in my whole life . . . and that covers quite a few parties. This party was one of those, lean close to the ear and yell as loud as you possible can, to even be heard kind of parties. Insult to injury was that all the music was from the late 70’s. ☹
It was a surprise birthday party for an international businessman that happens to attend the International Church that I lead. He certainly was surprised, that, I can vouch for, especially when the belly dancer arrived! But I may tell you about that in another blog.
Yet it is in such contexts that some of the very best pre-evangelism happens. Out of the 100 guests there last night, 7 of us were core people from the International Church. So we spent the entire night spreading Salt.
It must be my age, but my capacity for ear-folicle-destroyingly-loud music has declined, and so after 40 minutes of suffering near permanent brain-damage from the quest to be nice and thoughtful and hospitable . . . I snuck out to the stairwell landing at the coat rack and served in the capacity of greeter and coat hanger/arranger. Soon I was joined by another fellow from the church and we proceeded to sow Seeds . . . for the rest of the evening. Some of them appear to fall onto fruitful ground. It was great fun!
One example, George (a local boy, not ex-pat) kept circling back to me throughout the evening. He was intrigued because everyone from the church was calling me “Pastor” and introducing me as their pastor. In Macedonian language that can only be translated as pope or Father. George said, “there is no way that you are a pope!” And of course I certainly do not remotely fit the Orthodox understanding of that role (nor the Western one either for that matter), which has lots to do with position, power and costumes (OK uniforms if you must). I am not sure what threw him the most, my jeans, my earrings, or my long hair, but he steadfastly refused to believe that I was a pastor. I took that as a great compliment.
As the evening was drawing to a close, George had circled back to me yet again and we were having a ball arguing about women and health and the final destinies of our souls, when the birthday boy join in our conversation. George and I switched back into English, and I proposed a toast, literally to birthday boy’s health. George immediately said, “but I thought you said that ultimately our health was not important, and here you are toasting his health!” And I said to him, “George, I was toasting his Spiritual health.” And in an amazing moment, I looked up and in a semi-circle around George were all 7 of us from the church. I said to George, “you are surrounded by spiritual people, as all 7 of us attend the International Church.” George said incredulously “you are a pope!” To which we all howled ☺
Then it was time to go home, because I needed to call my daughter back in the States, and I grabbed my leather jacket, as George came up to me once again, and said, “maybe I will see you Sunday morning.” And maybe we will indeed. Please bring George to yourself Lord Jesus.
I almost lost my voice from yelling, but it felt good to see God drawing people to Himself and His children. I am a pastor, among other things, yet I am a lousy coat man, because this morning I realized that I came home with someone else’s leather coat.
It was a surprise birthday party for an international businessman that happens to attend the International Church that I lead. He certainly was surprised, that, I can vouch for, especially when the belly dancer arrived! But I may tell you about that in another blog.
Yet it is in such contexts that some of the very best pre-evangelism happens. Out of the 100 guests there last night, 7 of us were core people from the International Church. So we spent the entire night spreading Salt.
It must be my age, but my capacity for ear-folicle-destroyingly-loud music has declined, and so after 40 minutes of suffering near permanent brain-damage from the quest to be nice and thoughtful and hospitable . . . I snuck out to the stairwell landing at the coat rack and served in the capacity of greeter and coat hanger/arranger. Soon I was joined by another fellow from the church and we proceeded to sow Seeds . . . for the rest of the evening. Some of them appear to fall onto fruitful ground. It was great fun!
One example, George (a local boy, not ex-pat) kept circling back to me throughout the evening. He was intrigued because everyone from the church was calling me “Pastor” and introducing me as their pastor. In Macedonian language that can only be translated as pope or Father. George said, “there is no way that you are a pope!” And of course I certainly do not remotely fit the Orthodox understanding of that role (nor the Western one either for that matter), which has lots to do with position, power and costumes (OK uniforms if you must). I am not sure what threw him the most, my jeans, my earrings, or my long hair, but he steadfastly refused to believe that I was a pastor. I took that as a great compliment.
As the evening was drawing to a close, George had circled back to me yet again and we were having a ball arguing about women and health and the final destinies of our souls, when the birthday boy join in our conversation. George and I switched back into English, and I proposed a toast, literally to birthday boy’s health. George immediately said, “but I thought you said that ultimately our health was not important, and here you are toasting his health!” And I said to him, “George, I was toasting his Spiritual health.” And in an amazing moment, I looked up and in a semi-circle around George were all 7 of us from the church. I said to George, “you are surrounded by spiritual people, as all 7 of us attend the International Church.” George said incredulously “you are a pope!” To which we all howled ☺
Then it was time to go home, because I needed to call my daughter back in the States, and I grabbed my leather jacket, as George came up to me once again, and said, “maybe I will see you Sunday morning.” And maybe we will indeed. Please bring George to yourself Lord Jesus.
I almost lost my voice from yelling, but it felt good to see God drawing people to Himself and His children. I am a pastor, among other things, yet I am a lousy coat man, because this morning I realized that I came home with someone else’s leather coat.
2 comments:
Gee, David, it almost sounds like you're having fun doing this pastor thing! And you sure are good at it.
:-)
There are days it is almost fun. About how good I am at it, is in great debate. Mostly I just tell a good story :-) D
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