A whole lot of people seemed to connect to my last post about a recent conversation with my plumber. So here’s another.

Today it was with a dude who was out in his front yard when I walked up to hang a church invitation and gospel tract on his doorknob. Funny how we have our pre-judging first impressions. This guy struck me at first glance as one who’d be a crusty, hard-boiled, not-born-yesterday, sic-his-pit bull-on-me white guy who’d make me feel about as welcome as teeming fire-ants at a picnic.

But before I knew it we were in a ten-minute conversation initiated mostly by him, in which I found out that though he has no church connection now, he wanted to talk, and has some gospel-awareness. His mom is a devout believer, but he has lost his way.

There’s a lot more that I wish I had said in the moment; but it didn’t click for me right then. Still, I was able to point the arrow in the right direction. Not sure whether he’ll follow the arrow, but at least he saw it.

Doing outreach is so that we can do in-reach; a gospel-invasion into hearts that have either never known Jesus, or have long-forgotten who he is and what he has offered us all through the Cross.

And engaging with people in this way also increases self-awareness. Speaking for myself, it reveals my biases, assumptions, and sinful pre-judgings.

I don’t like what I see about myself in the process. But then I am reminded that Jesus died for the arrogant mess that I am; and for the all different kinds of messes that I meet—even if they do sic their pits on me!

Still growing!!