Why I Am The Worst Evangelist Ever

Get in the trailer!

May has been the first month of Oakland City Church Summer Tour, where we squat at various community spaces for a month at a time, and then bust out a works project that leaves the space better than we found it.  We are wrapping up our stay at Laurel Elementary, where I've been proudly manning the welcome booth with a toothy grin and a stack of bulletins.  In addition to curious grownups, kids from the neighborhood drift in to see what's going on and maybe help themselves to tea and sugar packets, and sometimes we even manage to herd them to the Godly Play trailer and lay some gospel on 'em. (Gotcha, kid!)

Last week, a scraggly little guy in a green shirt and a hairdo I'd characterize as a Puerto Rican mohawk sauntered up to my booth and asked if he could have a T-shirt.  I thought about it for a minute, then said: "You know, the shirts are for the kids who are coming to church.  You want to come in?"

He said "I'll come back" and dismissed me with a wave.  About 15 minutes later, I was listening to the sermon from a folding chair when I saw my little buddy (who introduced himself as Lorenzo) hovering intently at the door.  I leaped up and went to herd him off to Godly Play.  The teachers there, already overwhelmed with kids, weren't totally thrilled about being interrupted 30 minutes into the lesson.  I saw Lorenzo quit the trailer not long after, and he and his buddies left.  I don't know whether or not they took a shirt.

"What was going on with that little kid?" S. asked me after the service.  "He was drowning in that old green shirt he was wearing.  He must be very poor.  Probably doesn't have many clothes."

"He, um...he wanted a T-shirt," I said.

"You gave him one, right?"

Um.

Oh.  What, you mean like what Jesus said to do? 

Well, no, actually. 

I didn't.

Instead, I made grace conditional, something that had to be earned; do this, Lorenzo, and then you can have a T-shirt.

Pretty much the exact opposite of what God has done for me, giving me a big old T-shirt not because I went to the Godly Play trailer, not because anything I might do in a trailer or anywhere else could ever make me worthy of it, but just because, you know, he so loved the world.

Next month, we're moving to a new space, and a new welcome team will take over.  I'm glad.  They will be better Jesus followers than me.  When Lorenzos come, they will BE the gospel for them, unlike Pharisaic old me. 

There's one Sunday left at Laurel.

I hope Lorenzo comes back, so I can give him a T-shirt.