IN 1977 three people from the church and I found ourselves on a significant road trip. We had to stop at several restaurants, and we visited some tourist spots, like the Space Needle in Seattle. Whenever we walked into an establishment, everyone stopped talking and stared at us.
First came Blossom, then Tommy, followed by Marge, and finally me. It was Toad and Mole and Rat and Badger all over again, off on some wild adventure in the Willows. Or perhaps like the owl and the pussycat going to sea, in a beautiful pea-green boat.
“What are those people doing together? How in the world to they fit?”
They didn’t have to say it: the question was on the minds of all who watched. It was like any healthy church when it’s working right. One of the things I prayed for in my ministry was a good mix of people, a wide spectrum of different kinds. I hoped and prayed for young and old, intelligent and otherwise, wealthy and poor, good-looking and plain, skinny and fat, Republicans and Democrats.
I was in a discussion group in a conference once when the college student asked the visiting speaker,
“When your church has all one age or type of person in it, what do you have?”
Book Excerpt
From the chapter, BLOSSOM, MARGE, TOMMY AND ME
IN 1977 three people from the church and I found ourselves on a significant road trip. We had to stop at several restaurants, and we visited some tourist spots, like the Space Needle in Seattle. Whenever we walked into an establishment, everyone stopped talking and stared at us.
First came Blossom, then Tommy, followed by Marge, and finally me. It was Toad and Mole and Rat and Badger all over again, off on some wild adventure in the Willows. Or perhaps like the owl and the pussycat going to sea, in a beautiful pea-green boat.
“What are those people doing together? How in the world to they fit?”
They didn’t have to say it: the question was on the minds of all who watched. It was like any healthy church when it’s working right. One of the things I prayed for in my ministry was a good mix of people, a wide spectrum of different kinds. I hoped and prayed for young and old, intelligent and otherwise, wealthy and poor, good-looking and plain, skinny and fat, Republicans and Democrats.
I was in a discussion group in a conference once when the college student asked the visiting speaker,
“When your church has all one age or type of person in it, what do you have?”
And the speaker answered,
“You have a manipulated society.”
Obviously our church was not manipulated….