The other day, I was sitting in Starbucks, working on some stuff for the Nintendo blog. A group of people were sitting beside me, and I thought I overheard them talking about church or ministry. This alone is rather uncommon to hear in New England, so I assumed I had just heard incorrectly. Finally, the group got up and began to leave. Just then, one of the ladies turned to me and said, “I think there is a website you should check out.” She proceeded to tell me about the Jehovah’s Witness website, saying that it had some great stuff to say about faith and why bad things happen in the world. She mentioned that she doesn’t know what I believe about all that stuff, and that is when I interrupted her and told her that I was a youth pastor. I believe she was surprised to hear it. However, she seemed to regroup quickly and told me a little bit about her group, where they plan to soon have a building, and asked about my church.
Now honestly, I could spend time in this blog post analyzing the differences between Jehovah’s Witnesses and the Christian Church, but that is not what I want to talk about. Instead, I would like to talk about what inspired me. To be honest, we do not hear about Christians doing this sort of thing very often. Or when it does happen, it is not a good way. This lady genuinely wanted to share something with me that she thought would benefit my life. She didn’t beat it over my head, shout it in my face, or force me to even listen. She just said that she knows of a website that she thinks I should check out. I think we, as Christians, need to learn from the Jehovah’s Witness example. We do not need to stand on street corners with blow horns, nor do we need to sit back and never mention Jesus’ name in public. There is a happy medium of genuinely loving our neighbors enough to tell them about the saving grace of Jesus, but not force it on them, and also not sitting and ignoring them. We have the best news of all time, but so often, we do not have the boldness to step out and actually share it with people who will truly benefit from it.
While this lady did not convince me to be a Jehovah’s Witness that day, she did set a good example for what her religion and faith stand for. I only wish that I could say the same thing about Christians I meet. Sure, it takes us stepping out of our comfort zones many times, but if that means that one more person knows about the saving grace of Jesus, isn’t it worth it? I mean, why was this lady the one who got up to speak to me, instead of me getting up to speak to her? I sit here as an example of someone who should be doing more, and my guess is that you, reader, are also in a similar situation. So, what are we going to do about it?
Steve Cullum 