Church Plant Visits

Tonight was an evening of visiting. We went out to a bunch of houses with loaves of bread to introduce Rosario’s new church plant. Everything about the visiting was instructive. First, the bread was baked or provided by many people at The Rock. Then, some people who are key to the church plant (Dro White and Jason and Tawndee Dillard) were out visiting with us. Then there was Jessie, the boys, me, Jenna and Jody, part of the Rock. Antonio is a guy who has been coming for a few Sundays to the Rock, and heard a call to ministry in the community. Then there’s Robert. He doesn’t go to church at all; Roz met him in the gym, and when he heard what Roz was up to, decided he wanted to help.

What saddened me, though, was that so few people from the Rock came to help. I wonder what’s up there? I mean, here we have this precious Gospel, this precious salvation, and we keep it to ourselves.

Two visits stick out to me tonight. The first is a fellow who I can only describe as a puzzled intellectual. He did not want to take our bread. He told us that he is an atheist, that he had thought about it for a long time. You can think about something, no matter how long, and still be wrong. I was ready to just walk away, because knowing these kinds of guys (I was once one), I knew there was not a lot to be gained in such a short time, with no real relationship. But Jessie asked him a little bit about why he was attracted to Buddhism. He babbled on a bit about it not being a religion, being an open, peaceful thing, the Dalai Lama is not dogmatic, and is willing to change his mind if something in his faith is not reasonable, etc. I asked him if he thought that Christians don’t do that. He said Christians are arrogant about what they believe. I asked him how it was possible for him to criticize us for arrogance for being certain about what we believe when he was certain that he would never have faith (as he said earlier in the conversation). I mentioned that I, too, had spent years thinking about it and had come to the opposite conclusion. One of us is right and one of us is wrong. I’ll admit that up front.

One of our first conversations was with a woman I’ll call Agnes. She was so happy to get a loaf of bread free, to have someone talk to her about faith (Joe was the one to hand her the bread and say, “My friend Rosario is planting a church) that she not only had prayer with us, she actually gave us an offering for the work. Wow, someone who does not go to church cares enough, was touched enough to give to the new church that doesn’t really exist yet.