Interesting Conversation (Truly Humbled)

This morning began in quite an interesting way as my dad (up for a visit from Milwaukee with my mom) ran some errands with me. We stopped off at the floral shop and went to drop the purchase off at the church. THIS IS WHERE IT GETS INTERESTING.

As I pull into the church parking lot I see a nice black Buick Terrain pulling out of our empty parking lot. After I pull into the parking lot this black SUV comes in right after me. Up pulls a very nice lady and rolls down her window to talk to me. I said, “May I help you?” She proceeded to tell me “so tell me what your church demographic is like. Would someone in their 60’s (pointing to self) fit in at Radiant Fellowship?” I responded “absolutely”. I proceeded to tell her about the age demographic of the church and the style we are. At this point we were having really conversation and I asked her “I am so glad you stopped by to chat with me.” She told me, “I am here right now because I knew you were going to be here.” WHAT? WAIT! I stumbled a little bit on my words and she said, “God told and therefore I knew you were going to be here when I got here so I could chat. I am so tired of “THE CHURCH” that I want to quit all together. My husband wants to find a mega-church so he can just get lost in a crowd. I have just left a church and the pastor said ‘We miss your money….I mean we miss you honey!’ And I just about lost it. This kind of garbage has happened over and over again in my life.” She proceeded to tell me all about her life in church and the politics of places. She is convinced a smaller church is for her and wants to check out Radiant Fellowship. A church in her words "that is clearly more focused on ministry than on money."

After awhile longer I told her about the church a little more as she was asking my take on different topics regarding what we believe. I told her “I realize it may sound like I am just giving you answers you want to hear but people like you are near and dear to my heart.” The conversation went into my ministerial background and the garbage I went through. I told her about “That’s Not My God” and all that ministry is doing. She was excited and pleased to hear it. I did tell her “I realize you don’t know me from, Adam so I would encourage you to check us out for a few weeks and really get to know us. You will enjoy the fellowship here.”

As we wrapped up the conversation she said “it was great to talk to you and I am going to go home now to ponder it all. Your service starts at 10am in the morning? I think I just might come because of our conversation and your heart. It is great your wife is a nurse and all that you do for this church…I know because I read your website.” As I got back into the car I told my dad, “I think that was a God thing.” He was just listening the whole time and said…”uh yeah!”.

This messed me up because as I told my dad, “now that was a divine appointment…her knowing I was going to be there when I pulled up? Yeah…definitely a God thing.” I am humbled that God would send such a hurting disenfranchised person to Radiant Fellowship in order to find rest. WOW.