Who I Am is Not Who I’m Not (1 of 5)
Gonna do a series in the AM of this week to re-introduce myself and my blog to new readers. Something new in the afternoon each day…
It strikes me that perhaps someone might actually be reading these blogs. And that the person reading this may well have no idea who I am. As far as you know I may be nine year old Norwegian boy on Ritalin. Or someone who, until three months ago was a discontented woman named Tina, but post-surgery is now a happy guy named Vince.
So here’s the deal – the sole purpose of this blog is to start a dialogue and share ideas about evangelism and outreach, especially in new churches. This blog is not about me as husband, father, Dodgers fanatic, bad driver, aspiring comedian, Snow Patrol lover, Raiders fan, sufferer of attention deficit disorder, enthusiast of almost all things Italian, pop culture expert, Cameron Crowe groupie, or U. of Illinois Fighin’ Illini devotee. So, I will never speak of my family or any of those other things again – unless they somehow relate to evangelism and outreach – which I do not expect. If you want to hear of or talk to me about any of those other topics, you’ll have to drive to Virginia Beach and take me out to lunch.
But still, I think you should know something about me, as far as it relates to my starting a dialogue and sharing ideas about evangelism and outreach. So I’ll take a few posts to let you know where I’m coming from … and then we’ll start getting real practical.
So here’s me …
I didn’t grow up in a Christian home. In fact, my mother is Jewish, and my father was a “professional” gambler (mostly poker), so you might guess that they didn’t take me to church much. You’d be right. They never took me to church. I never went to church and I knew nothing about God, Jesus, or Christianity. And I never had a single person approach me or talk to me about Christianity, or invite me to church. Never.
So when I was 20 years old, Easter morning of my sophomore year of college I was waiting for my girlfriend to go out to lunch. She was late so I turned on the T.V. We didn’t have cable, and every one of our three channels had on what I considered to be a stupid religious show. I left one on for a minute because it looked funny. It was an old guy was sitting in this big, red leather, overstuffed chair. I’ll never forget what he said: “We’ve been studying the last week of Jesus’ life. And today we’re going to talk about . . .” He named something I had never heard of. Then he said, “Now most scholars believe this event happened on a Tuesday. But today I will prove through the evidence that it actually occurred on Wednesday of Jesus’ last week.” And I thought, “Hmmmm. Yeah … that’s the dumbest thing I’ve ever heard!” What was this guy talking about evidence? I admit I don’t know anything about Jesus, but I know He lived a couple thousand years ago, so how could you say Tuesday or Wednesday? So I turned off the T.V. in disgust. Then there was a knock on my door. It was my girlfriend.
That day was the beginning of everything changing for me. Want to know what happened next? Then you’ll have to come back next time.
Until then … eat your vegetables.
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