Story Saturday

a series of posts in which I try to write a humorous account of my harrowing life

It was Voloday who invited me to the evangelism conference.  I like evangelism.  I life conferences.  I like meeting other Christians.  But the idea of listening to people prattle on in Ukrainian for several hours wasn't so appealing.  But, I couldn't think of anything better to do with my weekend than be judged by Baptists who might have seen me drink wine at a restaurant - so, of course I said, "Yes!"

The opening worship brought me to every poorly planned chapel at my Christian college.  There was off-kilter dancing, out of rhythm clapping, the theme song from Rocky, and older men trying to look like teenagers while using out-dated black slang.  It was delightful.

It was during the first session that we broke into groups to discuss the topic of barriers to evangelism.  When I was pressed to answer, I honestly stated that my biggest barrier was that I simply didn't have a lot of non-Christian friends.  I work at a church and I'm surrounded by Christians all day.

The entire group stared blankly at me.  I went through my answer in my mind and checked my cases.  I had used the proper endings all around.  Their blank stares began searching to find each other.  Reinforced by herd mentality, they all resumed the stare down.  Their stares spoke volumes, presciently, "Why would you have non-Christian friends?"  Mercifully, someone else in the group spoke up with a more agreeable opinion and everyone enthusiastically agreed.

From time to time, someone in the group would look back at me.  Our eyes would meet - and their faces would flash recognition.  Clearly I was a socialist.  Clearly I was a backslider.  Clearly I hadn't read my Bible.

And maybe all of those things are true, at least on different days.  I called my mother later in the day to complain about this.  She had about as much sympathy as Scrooge might.  "Well, that's what you get for being a liberal."  I told her that I was joking about bringing my flask and taking a swig during the session, but she was clearly not convinced.