June 6, 2010

 

 

Dear Friends,

 

Garrison Keillor, the noted author of Lake Woebegone Days, and host of the National Public Radio “Prairie Home Companion” series tells of being brought up in a fringe group of the Plymouth Brethren Church. Keillor goes on and on telling about the excessive legalism and dullness of the church as he experienced it early on. He stopped going to church. From then on people would ask him, “Do you go to church?” And he would say “No.” Then they would say, “Why don’t you go to church?” And he would tell them.

 

That ritual exchange served him well for years and years until, not long ago, someone engaged him in the two stock questions “Do you go to church?” “Why don’t you go to church?” But then this person surprised him with a third question: “Why don’t you come with us?” Never having been asked that before, Keillor did not have a stock answer. And before he knew it, he found himself saying yes.

 

Some time ago, the fifty year old interfaith advertising council “Religion in American Life” transformed its media campaigns from trying to get people to go to church to urging people to invite friends to go with them to church. Three cheers for a good idea!

 

There are many ways to share the good news of Jesus. Oh, of course, every now and then we may be called upon to stand up in a public place and give account for our faith, but nine times out of ten our evangelism will be the quiet kind: reading psalms to a sick friend, telling the truth to someone who has asked for it, ending a quarrel with words of forgiveness, writing a note that restores hope, laughing at a young boy’s joke, inviting the stranger to join you at table. These are all proclamations of the good news...and if we ever get stuck for ideas we can remember all the good ways the good news has come to us — and then return the favor.

During these hot days of summer...consider returning the favor. Who can you ask to come with you to church this Sunday? I’ll be looking for you.

Cliff