Transit Evangelism

Wordpress has a blog with a daily post prompt that I follow, and every so often I flag one of these prompts for future reference or writing fun.

Yesterday, they posted this prompt, and I immediately began to chuckle, knowing just what story it was that I'd tell.  I have quite possibly told it here previously, but can't resist the chance to tell it again!


Topic #78:
What is the strangest thing that’s ever happened to you on a bus?

It was a Monday morning, around 7 am, and I had just boarded a train packed wall to wall with other rush hour commuters.  I had my headphones on, and a hood up around my face, and was preparing to get lost in the daze of the first day after the weekend commute, tired, and definitely not thinking entirely clearly.  There were people touching me on all sides, all also lost in that Monday morning commute daze.  We shared that mutual, "I want to be alone even though I'm being crushed by people" glaze in our eyes.

She was standing just behind and to the side of my right arm, which was reaching up to hold onto a strap overhead - the only way to keep my balance in a very full and moving train.  She was shorter than me (no small feat since I am barely five foot two inches tall), the top of her head near the armpit of my extended arm.  I'd noticed her when she got on the train, simply because she held a large bible in her arms, with ruffled pages, the mark of one that is well-used.

And then it began.

There was a rustling as she whipped something out of the bag she carried.

"You want this?" (her tone was brusque, confronting, interrupting the glazed peace we'd been enjoying.)

I looked to see who she was talking to.

It was me.

Great.

The train was so full that I couldn't even turn to fully face her, but I was her chosen target for the day.

"No thank you."

I returned to my glazed silence.

"Are you a Christian?"

She wasn't catching all of the silent "leave me alone" cues.  She was still waving the object she'd pulled out of her bag, an object that upon closer examination was a sermon CD from a large local church, in one of those white square envelopes.

"Yes, I am."  (Perhaps now this conversation is done?)

"What kind of Christian are you?  Are you evangelical?"  (Her tone remains brusque, insistent, almost attacking.)

"Yes, I'm evangelical."

"You want this?"  She offered me the sermon CD again, and again I politely declined.

"What church you go to?"  English was not her first language, and her tone and words demonstrated this.

Well, now I know I'm in trouble.  I was, at the time, attending a church with one of those non-traditional, post-modern, single word names.  The kind of names that sort of make older members of the faith community suspicious of the church, wondering if it isn't really a cult.

Honesty won out, and I told her the name.  "Epic."

There was a momentary pause as she assimilated this information.

"What kind of name for a church is that?  Should be 'Church of Christ' or 'Church of God in Christ!'"

We lapsed into another momentary awkward silence.  I looked around briefly, catching the eyes of all the other commuters, watching this Monday morning drama play out.  Their eyes said, "I'm so sorry it's you, but I'm sure glad it's not me."  I thought that perhaps this last answer had slaked her curiousity, but I'd underestimated her determination.

She burst out, "You have friends who are Pentecostal?"

"Yes."  (I was smiling, laughing inside, as I pictured a few of the ones with more Pentecostal leanings, including some who'd told me that they thought this sort of "street evangelism" could be effective.)

"You take this," she brandished the omnipresent sermon CD, "and give to them!"

I acquiesced, accepting the CD.  My stop was approaching, and it seemed the easiest way to end this horrifically awkward encounter.

The only thought in my shocked early morning brain was, "That is how NOT to do evangelism."

But that, that is not where this story ends.  There is a laugh yet to share.

After recounting my tale to my dad, he commented that as a pastor, if someone was using his sermon cds in such a fashion he'd want to know about it, so I contacted the church in question, sending an email, describing what had happened, and telling them that I thought that perhaps they'd want to look into this, since it didn't seem to present the best image of either the Christian faith, or of their church.

It was a few weeks before I heard back from the lady at the church that I had been in touch with.

She wrote to tell me of the roundabout way in which they'd discovered who was so brusquely evangelizing while using their materials.

A woman had approached her after services one Sunday, asking for prayer.  The church staffer agreed, asking what it was that she could pray about.  The anonymous woman confided that she'd received a ticket that week, and that she didn't want to tell her husband.

The ticket?  It was for being a public nuisance on the trains!

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 218

Today's Daily 5:

1. Wearing a favorite hoodie
2. A bus that came on time
3. lunch and conversation with my pastor
4. a few hours of uninterrupted time to read, study, and ponder the questions the reading was raising
5. a really helpful natural health treatment
6. treating myself to Macdonalds
7. the best day I've had in several weeks in terms of managing moods and life and coming out feeling peaceful
8. laughing at the way the material for the study I'm leading is hitting home in my own life
9. smiling when I see the palm tree/beach scenes stuck to the wall beside my bed
10. finishing two different books that I had in progress

A Spinning, Discombobulated Post

If yesterday was the first day of spring, well, it made a poor showing here in Calgary, arriving with blustery dampness, and more snow, leaving me sleepy and rambling as I sat on the bus and pondered the fact that I had nothing planned for my blog for today.

I try to write these morning posts ahead of time, taking a chunk of time out of my weekend and sitting down to construct a string of thoughtful ponderings, book reviews and whatever fun things I encounter.

I'm writing this post at nearly midnight on Monday night, only hours before it will go live.  And it's the only post I've managed to schedule for this week thus far.

I feel a bit at a loss for words.

I have one book review I badly want to write, but I'm still working to form words around the way the words of another author are shaping my heart in this season.  I wish I could take each of you out for tea instead, paging through the book, reading favorite bits to you, trying to expound with facial expression and tone what I can't quite find the words for.

I'm reading another book that I'm quite sure will need a post of it's own as well.  It's about as different from the first as possible, polar opposites, really, though both are memoirs of sorts, written by women.  But this book, too, is working on my heart and mind in interesting ways.

This is a week full of school and people.  On the school front, there is the perpetual need to tackle Greek and Latin vocabulary lessons, a project to prepare, and a term paper to research and write, and the never ending assigned readings to accomplish.  On the people front, there is a lunch with my pastor, house church on Thursday evening (which I'm leading these days, so that will require my time as well), and arranged times to have meals or coffee or visits with at least three good friends who I simply don't manage to see regularly.

Life is moving quickly these days, and my internal world seems to spin as well, leaving me discombobulated, at a loss for words, and regularly turning an incredulous countenance to Jesus with the question, "Did you really say what I think you just said?"

The author Susan Isaacs has a line about conversation with God that goes, "Sarcasm is a viable form of communication."  My relationship with God is definitely marked all too regularly with a sarcastic quotation of one of my favorite Grey's Anatomy lines, "Seriously? Seriously?"

(Though I find myself working these days for a tone less marked with sarcasm and more characterized by a peaceful and trusting acquiescence.)

In the midst of the spinning it seems to be a season where I just don't have as many words to share in a public forum, nor the time I'd like to craft the words I do share.  And so, there will be more of these rambling, discombobulated posts as I devote time to school, to friends, and to my spinning internal world.  But hey, at least they reflect the true state of my life!

Daily 5 - Year 2, Day 217

Today's Daily 5:

1. Waking up in a comfy bed (a night on a much less comfy futon does wonders for my gratefulness for a good mattress)
2. Listening to an audio book on the bus
3. Browsing the university bookstore for a few minutes this morning, in the midst of a stop there to pick up more index cards for the ongoing cue card making process.
4. Being the first customer at the Vietnamese noodle place in the student center, and getting a steaming hot batch of rice vermicelli, freshly made, as part of my order (also, eating said noodles and acoutrements with chop sticks.)
5. A grade on a midterm I wrote a few weeks ago that made me grin with glee
6. Hummus and crackers
7. watching some old episodes of Grey's Anatomy
8. New pictures arrived in the mail today for my wall of smiles - they came with a letter and a little gift from some musical friends that I can't wait to load onto my ipod for bus listening pleasure
9. flickering tea lights in beautiful little blue glass holders that look like they were made somewhere exotic, purchased at 10,000 Villages a while back on clearance
10. a quiet evening to work and get a few things done

Monday Morning

I've made it through one class so far.  One of four today.

I'm sitting in the spot I usually camp out for this one hour break - a hallway corner near the classroom for my next class.

I'm about to eat Vietnamese noodles.  Yes, it's only 10 am, but this is the only class break I have between 9 and 4 on Mondays, and I simply can't fit enough food and snacks into my bag to cover those hours.  And so, on Mondays I eat noodles as some sort of meal between breakfast and lunch.

This week is shaping up to be busy - less so on a school front for a change, and more so on a personal front.

I'll get to see some good friends this week, and meet the daughter of a good friend, born almost three months ago now.

I don't have anything particularly enthralling to say this morning.  I'm tired.  It was one of those nights where my good intentions of landing in bed early were a failure, and once I did manage to get to bed, I had trouble falling asleep.

So, this is the sort of day where I just get through it.

Three more classes (including one three hour marathon lecture).

Then back to mom and dad's to pick up my stuff from the weekend.

And then finally back to grandma's.

I'm going to watch some reality television online tonight.

Tackle some homework.

Do a bit of writing.

And then rest before starting the process again tomorrow.