Some Butter

I went to an event on Sunday night that was brilliant in it's simple, attractive method of evangelism.  As you may know, in the past year, I've been trying to push myself and the people around me to tell stories of how Jesus has shown up in our lives within the recent past.  So on Sunday mornings before our worship services, our little pre-game meetings I ask, "Does anyone have a Jesus story"

When these meetings started, it was like pulling teeth to get people to talk.  I know I thought to myself, a lot, "was that really Jesus, or just nice."  But as we kept meeting we started seeing Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the power of God at work in our lives, in big ways, but also in the small, minute details.  As a result, our meetings are easy now, and we sometimes have to cut people off, so we can start the worship services on time.

The whole purpose of these meetings was to get people to recognize the work of God in their lives, and to start talking about Jesus.  If we talk to each other about Jesus, and make it a regular part of our language with fellow believers, maybe it would become habitual. Maybe it would become part of our everyday, every minute language, so that, maybe, possibly, God would open the ears of someone outside of that fellowship and reveal Himself to someone who doesn't know him, and we could have a great big story to tell some Sunday morning about how God moved in a powerful way in the life of one of our friends, and now we have a new believer.

So back to this event on Sunday night.  PRISM, a ministry in Oakland, where Pitt, CMU and Carlow University are, universities that draw many international students, has an open house every Sunday night, where they serve a $1 dinner and invite foreign students to come and practice speaking English around a table.  This week's dinner was prepared by people from my local church and I was asked to go and eat and talk to someone who speak some very little good English. (see what I did there?)  That's it.  That's all that is expected. 

I remember taking German in high school and realizing the only phrase I could speak pretty well was, "wurtest du das licht an machen." (would you turn on the light)  It reminded me of the Wonder Years when Kevin was daydreaming about Madeline: (the clip is in Spanish, to make things more confusing)

MADELINE: J'ai attendu toute ma vie pour toi.
[Subtitle: I've waited for you all my life.]
KEVIN: Voulez-vous de beurre?
[Subtitle: Do you want some butter?]
MADELINE: A l'instant je t'ai vu, je n'ai su qu'il etait personne d'autre.
[Subtitle: The moment I saw you I knew there was no one else.]
KEVIN: Voulez-vous de beurre?
[Subtitle: Do you want some butter?]
MADELINE: Mon coeur est toute pleine de toi.
[Subtitle: You fill my heart.] [MADELINE fingers her heart necklace.]
MADELINE: J'ai en pensé à toi. (Very unclear pronunciation)
[Subtitle: .. You haunt my mind.]
KEVIN: Voulez-vous de beurre?
[Subtitle: Do you want some butter?]

PRISM gave us 5 questions to talk about.  Our subject matter was "worry." So we discussed what worry is, what you worry about and things like that, so that the student would just be asking if I'd like some butter.

The last question was about the Sunday before, there was no dinner because it was Easter, so we were to talk about what we did for Easter.  I was paired up with a Chinese student who spoke great English, is not a believer in Christ, and asked great questions.  "What's with the eggs?" "What is the traditional meal?" and the swing the door wide open so that the Gospel and its influence in my life can be presented, "If Easter is about Jesus dying, where does the Easter Bunny come in?" 

Fifteen minutes later, he still doesn't believe in Jesus, but he challenged me on what we practice as American Christians, and what it looks like to an outsider.  In those fifteen minutes he learned a little more about the story of salvation through Christ, and that the Hendrickson children know that the Easter Bunny is a fun game, but Jesus' death, and resurrection are real.

Jesus stories.  Look for Him.  Share those stories with the people you know, so that it becomes habit, and you can't help but let the work of the Holy Spirit come flying out of you.