God used a stranger to speak to me today
Today I had the honor of enjoying lunch with Mike, the student pastor at Atlee Community Church. I was struck and refreshed by his passion for student ministry, and he gave me a lot of insight that will help my own ministry at Gethsemane.
The reason I am writing is because we had a real interesting experience. It’s amazing how God sometimes works! We got to really talking about our shared passion for student ministry, and as we’re in the heat of conversation, the guy at the table next to us is getting up to by the bill, but makes it a point to interupt us first. It was one of those, “I couldn’t help but hear your conversation…”
He preceded to explain that he had just been to a funeral, and that he wanted to let us know that if we ever did funerals to remember that there’s more to someone’s life than their involvement at church. He then said, “Isn’t a funeral suppose to be a celebration of life?”
Believe it or not, Mike was about to perform his first funeral in a few days, and actually had had an appointment the day before with the family he was doing the funeral for; the guy who interupted us would have had no idea about that. Who’s to say that this guy was even a Christian, I didn’t know the man or what his theological stance was, but I believe God used him to speak to us.
Mike and I both thanked the man for insight, and told the man that his little interuption was welcome.
Because of how the man spoke, like I said, I don’t know him, but I think it’s likely that he wasn’t a Christian. I always find insightful to hear insight from someone who is not a Christian. After all, as ministers, those are the people we’re called to reach! This man had noticed a falicy I almost wanted to apologize for on the behalf of all ministers. The falicy is that sometimes we ministers use the wrong opportunities as platforms.
Yes, I believe every chance you have to speak to group of people is a chance to share the gospel, but how we choose to portray the gospel will effect whether people will listen to what we have to say. It’s like the street preacher at the concert, assuming everyone walking by is not a Christian, and shouting at them telling them they’ll go to Hell if they don’t repent. The content is great, and for the non-believer, 100% true, but will people hear the message in that format?
At a funeral, the best way to share to gospel is to emphasize that our God is a God of comfort as Paul explains in his second letter to the Corinthians. It’s important to share God’s promises, and how we can lean on them and find a peace that surpasses all understanding. And most of all, it’s important to celebrate the passed persons life, for this was a precious soul made in the image of God. Whether he had accepted God’s truth or not is besides the point. We definitely shouldn’t lie to the family, saying that someone is in heaven if it was never evident that they had made a decision to follow Christ, but we can comfort them by reminding them that we are not the almighty judge of man, only God is. And fortunate for us, our ultimate judge has freely offered us ultimate grace.
I guess what I’m saying is we need to be sensitive. Jesus said that the greatest commandment is to love God and love people. Paul wrote that it’s the kindness of God that leads to repentence. If we really want people to be open to responding to the gospel, they must be assured they’re loved by us first. Afterall, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
Let’s use our platforms wisely. Every time we have the chance to speak, may we seek God’s guidence and wisdom as far as the best way to portray the message of the cross to our hearers.
