picking up from yesterday…

I HONESTLY HAD NO ANSWER.  I WAS COMPLETELY SPEECHLESS.  But my partner began to speak to the man saying to the effect, “We live in a sinful world and God is holy.  He sent his Son Jesus into the world that we can know him and live with him for all eternity.”

The guy then said, “Yeah, I know the facts – I went to Catholic school for twelve years.  I am curious to know what at your very core drives you to share your faith?  Beyond the facts, why do what you do?”

I am thankful that our lack of answers didn’t cause the conversation to come to a standstill.  In fact we ended up talking for an hour and a half.

Tomorrow I’ll share what I think my answer would be now based upon this conversation.  But right now let me say this again…just about every week I go into Chicago someone will inevitably say, “I used to be Catholic BUT…” 

What is the Church DOING? (and this certainly doesn’t exclude Protestants)  It seems like our presence in the world is hurting people and not helping them!  Besides the question of, why do we do what we do as Christians?  We need to also ask ourselves, if someone only had my life to see and know Christ- would Christ be shamed or glorified?  I heard one pastor say,

Most of the time, before people follow Christ they are going to follow us.

grace and peace

If you’ve followed this blog for a little while you know that just about every Friday night I go into Chicago, directly in front of Wrigley Field, to share the Gospel.

This past Friday, so it’s still burned into my mind, my partner and I were walking, and walking, and walking looking for someone to talk to.  Eventually we came upon a street where I knew that no one would be.  So I said this is our moment of decision – we can either start talking to people right here on the street or we can go back to the street we started on.

We decided  to go back.

As we were heading back, there was a man sitting on his stoop smoking a cigarette and drinking a beer.  We decided to cross the street and talk to him.   We introduced ourselves and explained why we were out.  We asked if we could pray for him.  He neither needer nor wanted prayer.  But then asked if he could ask US something.  We said sure and then he asked

WHY ARE YOU OUT HERE?  What makes you want to spend your Friday nights going around praying and talking to people?  From the core of your being what drives your desire for sharing your faith?

I believe that many Christian people should question why they do what they do in the name of Jesus Christ. 

I’ll see you tomorrow for the continuation of this story!