Just the other day I heard a commercial advertising a major concert with the Village People and Cool and the Gang. Although I lost interest in pop music years ago, I found myself releasing the steering wheel to my truck and begin forming the letters as the commercial played the 70s tune Y-M-C-A.

Before I knew it, the words “Celebrate good times, Come on!” came from my mouth as well. Fortunately, my spiritual senses kicked in and I switched channels on the dial before I pulled over and began to disco in the grocery store parking lot!

These two groups were advertised as part of a “retro concert” at the local amphitheater. Retro is a buzzword in our day, an integral part of pop culture. Have you ever seen such a collection of tie-dyed shirts, stacked heel shoes, or bellbottom jeans? All these were staples of my teenaged years. Thankfully, leisure suits haven’t made the cut so far, although I did see a guy sporting a shag hairdo the other day – pretty scary!

What if there is more to this retro phenomenon than your typical youthful interest in the culture of the previous generation? I mean, in my high school days we observed a “fifties days” each year, complete with bobbie socks and the jitterbug. But wait a minute – this is not a once a year deal where teenagers dust off their parents’ Sly and the Family Stone records and do the Hustle. No, the youth culture is transfixed to no small degree with the 70s, and society has followed suit, with everything from songs from the 70s becoming common jingles on commercials to shows such as That Seventies Show, to a resurgence of such 70s television programs as The Brady Bunch.

This is an unusual day, and the retro movement hearkens back to an unusual era. The 60s and 70s were a momentous turning point in our nation’s history. Admittedly, a lot of the changes were not popular – such as politics. We struggled through controversy surrounding the Vietnam War and Watergate. Socially, the Civil Rights movement awakened America to our entrenched racism. Nuclear protests were common, and the sexual revolution forever changed American morality. Change became the norm rather than the exception, helped in no small part through the rise of the one-eyed monster, television. And, this era marked the coming of age of rock and roll music.

But everything in that time period did not bring bad news. In the 70s, not all teenagers plunged headlong into the drug culture. Not all opposed the Vietnam War. Some had other things to do than stage a sit-in. A youth movement, a spiritual awakening of sorts, was sweeping across the evangelical world, touching the hippie culture as well. I am referring to the Jesus Movement, which touched thousands of youth in and out of churches in the late 60s and early 70s.

Now, the Jesus Movement was nothing like the first Great Awakening with the thundering preaching of George Whitefield, Jonathan Edwards, and others. It had its problems, including a lot more emotional heat than theological light. But do you remember the index finger pointing upward, accompanied by the cry “One Way through Jesus!” Or, can you recall the coffeehouses, youth musicals like Good News, and songs like I Wish We’d All Been Ready?

Think about the positive features. To name a few (you may actually have participated in some of these):

Hundreds, even thousands, of youth choir tours on mission across America singing Good News, Celebrate Life, or a similar score;

Drug-laced teens in California and elsewhere taking the eternal trip offered in the gospel, including mass baptisms in the Pacific Ocean;

SBC baptisms surpassing 400,000 for five years in a row, the only time this has ever happened (and the largest percentage of youth baptisms ever);

A generation of believers touched by the Spirit of God, many of whom now are leading the cry for revival in our time;

The rise of contemporary Christian music, and the development of praise and worship music in churches;

An explosion of megachurches, many of which can be traced to the Jesus Movement;

Perhaps most significant, a zealous commitment by multitudes of youth to share Christ one on one.

Why do I mention this? Richard Ross of LifeWay Christian Resources, and the catalyst behind the True Love Waits campaign, recently said there seems to be a different spirit in the youth of our day, in particular those age 16 and under. I have observed a similar phenomenon. The same idealism seen in the Jesus Movement seems to be growing. The millennials, or bridger generation (those born after about 1980), may bring the greatest hope for a fresh touch of the Spirit of God in many decades. The reality of our nearing the millennium resounds with apocalyptic fervor not unlike the focus on the return of Christ, which swept evangelicalism in the early 70s. More and more I meet youth pastors and other leaders who comment on their youth who really believe they can change their world.

What if the retro movement in culture, with its fascination of the 70s, was matched by a passion for Jesus as seen in the Jesus Movement? What if churches, which tended to ignore or avoid the longhaired converts in the last movement, this time welcomed youth who sought to follow Christ, looking past their piercings and baggy clothes to their heart? What if the retro movement in culture became paralleled with a revival movement in the hearts of God’s people?

One thing is clear: we as a denomination have failed to influence the youth culture significantly over the past twenty-five years. At the very least, the retro phase should give those of us who lived in that period a great means to interact with young people in order to share Christ.

In 2006, the largest number of youth in American history will be all around us. What will the church do differently between now and then to reach them? About a year ago I picked up a cassette which featured a collection of songs which debuted in the Jesus Movement. This collection of tunes composed by Larry Norman, called by some the “Poet Laureate of the Jesus Movement,” took me back to the early 70s. Only this time, I thought less of disco, rock festivals, and psychedelic drugs, and more of a youth group who radically loved Jesus.

Maybe the retro phase can lead us to encourage youth to seek revival fire in our day. Maybe we can take them to a further, more distant retro movement, the original Jesus Movement, where a gaggle of Galileans followed the Man we know now to be the Son of God. Young people will rise to the level we set for them. Historically, students have played a critical role in genuine revival. Perhaps, at the dawn of this new millennium, God would use youth in a mighty way again. It could happen – what if it did?

Reproduced with permission

Why This Year is the Greatest to Share Christ in 20 CenturiesJourney back with me two centuries to the beginning of the nineteenth century. If the networks reported on events in that first decade, the evening news broadcasts would have concentrated not on Britain or the fledgling United States, but on Austria. By 1809, the attention of the world would be fixed on Napoleon’s army. His troops swept across Europe, dominating the headlines and the populace.

And yet, missed in the midst of his campaign were several significant births in England and America. The new century would see the coming of men who would change the worlds of politics, science, and the arts. But no one recognized the little tykes; no one had a clue as to their significance. What could matter more in 1809 than the fall of Austria?

But those infants would significantly shape the following centuries up until our day. These drew their first breath in 1809:

William Gladstone in Liverpool.

Alfred Tennyson in Lincolnshire.

Oliver Wendell Holmes in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Edgar Alan Poe, a few miles away in Boston.

A physician and his wife named their infant son Charles Robert. Their last name? Darwin.

In a log cabin in Kentucky, a newborn boy named Abraham Lincoln cried out with the same lungs that would issue the Gettysburg Address decades later.

These and others were born in 1809. Few of us could cite even one Austrian campaign – but these lives are familiar to us. Our world is different because of their lives.1

In a few months we will be only the second generation to see a new millennium since Jesus Christ, God incarnate, walked on the earth. Of course, some will remind us that the millennium REALLY begins January 1, 2001, but who cares? As the day draws nearer, increasing anticipation will resound throughout the nation and world. For some, anticipation will give way to anxiety. Will the Y2K bug create international bedlam? Will the Lord return? Will God pour out His Spirit in a mighty awakening? Will Times Square ever be the same?

Regardless of where you will be in the wee hours of the morning on January 1, 2000, I am convinced that this year is the best year to share Christ in the history of the church. In fact, the years 1999-2001 may be one of the greatest windows for the gospel in history. Why do I say this? Think about it

• Apocalypticism is certain. In the modern era, interest in the return of Christ and the end of the world always increases at the end of each century. This will only multiply with a millennial change. Such concern and interest has already created a bevy of apocalyptic cults – the church should seize the opportunity to tell people of our blessed hope.

• The calendar date has Christian moorings. In fact, we will witness the new millennium because of His life, for our calendars are dependent upon Him. The North American Mission Board (NAMB) of the Southern Baptist Convention has produced an attractive gospel booklet which shares the gospel from the perspective of the splitting of time. NAMB also has a website which discusses the Y2K bug with a view toward presenting Christ.

• Speaking of the calendar, history in the modern era also encourages us. At the turn of the century God has powerfully moved in awakening in some areas. The Second Great Awakening at the beginning of the nineteenth century and the Welsh Revival of 1904-05 are two examples. We cannot put God in a box, but we can pray from the perspective of the past … what if God DID send mighty revival?

• Christians are united as never before to see the Great Commission fulfilled.

• Bold Mission Thrust, AD 2000, and other initiatives, along with an explosion of missionary expansion overseas, can unite the Church to touch the world.

• A movement of prayer has been building for years, coupled in recent years with a focus on fasting as well. God appears to be awakening many in the Body of Christ.

• The gospel still has the power to save, and the Holy Spirit is powerful to save. This fact alone is reason enough to seize the day!

Consider the dawn of the first millennium AD. Rome stood unchallenged as the dominant world power. From the Euphrates on the east to the Atlantic Ocean on the west, and from the Sahara to the Danube, the Roman Empire epitomized the word dynasty.

To the east, Palestine comprised only a tiny portion of those regions bound together by the fist of Rome. Augustus, the cynical Caesar, the one who demanded a census so as to determine a measurement to enlarge taxes, was declared a god following his death. In his day no one was more significant. Who could have noticed a couple making an eighty-mile trip south from Nazareth? What difference could a carpenter, a common working man, betrothed to a teenaged girl, make compared to Caesar’s decisions in Rome?

Who cared about this Jewish baby born in Bethlehem? Could history be affected by such a modest couple?

History would care indeed. In ignorance, mighty Augustus served as an errand boy for the prophet Micah. Compared to the baby about to be born in lowly Bethlehem, the emperor was a piece of lint on the pages of prophecy. While Rome was busy making history, the One Whose life split time, by which we date our calendars, arrived. History had seen Alexander the Great, Herod the Great, and the great Augustus, but the world overlooked the arrival of the One who flung the stars into the heavens. History missed the coming of its Creator, but it was forever changed by His death, burial, and resurrection.

This month, we celebrate these on the last Easter of the 20th century. But will the church at the dawn of the new millennium miss the opportunity God has put before us? Or will we, equipped with the Word of God and indwelled with the Spirit of God, boldly proclaim the great gospel of our God? May history not look back on our generation and write of our missed opportunity. Rather, may history mark the dramatic impact of the church at the dawn of the new millennium.

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1. Adapted from Swindoll, Growing Strong in the Seasons of Life, (Portland: Multnomah, 1984), pp. 34-35.

Reproduced with permission

The summer of 1996 I took avow never to serve again as pastor at a week-long youth camp. Not because I hate teenagers or camps – on the contrary, I love them. But at this particular camp, I ignored my age and physical shape (I should say lack of shape), and entered the mud volleyball tournament. My team – the counselors – beat the best youth team. I apparently talked too much trash, unfortunately, because after the game, I got creamed by about two hundred (okay, maybe six or seven) boys. When they got off me, I could hardly walk, but I was too proud to admit I was hurt. I think I said something like, “I have a rock in my shoe,” to hide my pain. For the next three months, I hobbled around until I discovered I had a broken hip. Soon I was facing two realities. First, a major hip operation was in my near future (which will ruin your whole day!). Second, I faced the fact that youth camps are hazardous to my health.

Unfortunately, it seems that most churches have abandoned the opportunity of reaching young people with the same zeal I have toward avoiding youth camps. In the SBC, we are simply not reaching young people effectively. With only slight and rare exceptions, youth baptisms have declined steadily since the early 1970s. But the opportunities before us are too good to miss.

In his recent book, The Bridger Generation, Thom Rainer reminds us 80 percent of people who are saved come to Christ before age 20.1 Could it be that a major reason we have lost ground in evangelism in America is because we are always playing catch up? Could it be that we work too hard to gear worship services for adults, provide materials for adults, focus all our energies on those who pay the bills, while neglecting the younger generation?

We have been deluged with information about baby boomers and baby busters. The oldest boomers are in their fifties, and the youngest busters are now adults. Who in America is under 20, making up this potential 80 percent of the people we reach? It is the bridger generation, born 1977 to 1994. Also known as the millennials, boomlets, and echoboomers, this is the second largest generation in American history, 72 million strong (boomers numbered 76 million).

So much has been written about boomers – my generation, born from 1946 to 1964. Boomers have been described, all too often correctly, as self-absorbed. We now see billions of dollars spent on reaching busters, born between 1965 and 1976 have you seen those Generation NEXT Pepsi commercials?). But in the church, our efforts to reach boomers and busters have often come too little, too late. Generationally, we are losing the battle

If we are to reach the leaders of the new millennium, the following seven priorities must be addressed at the local church level:

1. We need to strategically seek to reach this generation. “The time to reach the bridgers is now,” says Rainer, “not 2010.”2 In the SBC, there has been a general decline over the past twenty-five years in the number and percentage of youth baptisms. Not since the Jesus Movement in the early 1970s, when we reached more youth both in terms of percentages and numbers, have we as a denomination effectively reached youth. Now that the numbers of youth in America are increasing, will the church intentionally seek to reach them? There is a great deal of talk in our day about revival. Many are praying and fasting, and some hopeful signs are apparent. What is almost totally missed in most discussions regarding revival is the obvious role youth have played in past awakenings. What would happen if our churches stopped treating teenagers like fourth graders and began to see young people less as peripheral and more as essential to what God wants to do in revival? In the past three years, I have been in several churches where God moved mightily with a touch of true revival. In every church, without exception, there was a strong youth group integrally involved in the life of the church.

2. We need a paradigm shift in how we do student ministry. A friend who is a prominent evangelist in our convention met recently with student ministers from some of the strongest churches in the SBC. He told me one of the admissions of the group is that they had personally lost sight of their need to be personal soul-winners. Youth can be reached. When I was privileged to serve in Indiana, I was grieved to find that our state declined in baptisms every year in the 1980s and youth baptisms declined the most. We made a strategic attempt to focus on reaching young people. The youth evangelism conference grew from 200 to 2,000, and baptisms increased four consecutive years. Youth baptisms played a prominent role.

We can more effectively emphasize the importance of building biblical, evangelistic student ministries. Such ministries focus more on relevant biblical teaching than ski trips, and evangelizing their peers more than pacifying their parents.

3. On a larger scale, there remains a serious, urgent call to churches to shift in mentality concerning the very purpose of the church. The church is not a hotel for saints, it is a hospital for sinners. Our failure to reach youth is symptomatic of larger failure in evangelism.

4. Let us see technology as our friend in evangelism. Rainer notes that the Internet will affect the bridgers the way TV affected boomers. At its best historically, the church has been at the forefront of technology. Think of how the printing press was used to publish the Bible and how trade routes helped in worldwide missions expansion. In recent history, we have lagged behind. On several occasions I have led someone to Christ via the Internet. The technology is available. Compare TV evangelists to MTV in terms of influencing culture! The Internet may become one of the most viable tools for reaching this generation.

5. Let us seek ways to use the media and the arts in biblical ways to declare Christ clearly to this generation. Music and other arts play a heavy role in their lives. Can’t we use the arts, created by God, to reach this group? No one epitomizes the buster generation any better than Alanis Morissette. Her in-your-face, filled-with-angst lyrics speak volumes. If Morissette speaks for busters, then the current bridger-aged group, Hansen, who are ages 16, 13, and 11, speaks for many millennials. You may have never heard of them, but their smash hit Mmm-Bop, with its “nostalgic-for-a-simpler-time feel,”3 demonstrates the surface happiness bridgers show when contrasted with the more pessimistic X-Generation. Through the arts, we can strike a chord among millennials that other approaches may miss.

6. We must remain lashed to the cross and the truthfulness of Scripture. Rainer appropriately encourages us to confront the pluralism of the bridger generation, not with a compromised gospel but with the bold declaration that Jesus Christ is not the best way, but the only way to God. An uncertain ocean requires a strong hand and a sound rudder. We must confront the pluralism of the age with courage not compromise.

7. Demonstrate intimacy with God and others. Youth crave intimacy. The millennials are a fatherless generation. The numbers of fatherless children (homes with no father present) have grown from 14 percent in 1970 to almost 33 percent by 1993. Further, the percentage of mothers with school-aged children who work outside the home has increased from 39 percent in 1960 to 70 percent by 1987. Since 1975, 50 percent of marriages end in divorce.4 The crumbling of the home paralleled with the rise of gangs points out the desire for intimacy. As I drove down the Atlanta freeway recently, I flipped to a radio station with a DJ speaking to an adult. She put her child on the line, a young teenager. “What would you like to say to the DJ?” the radio personality asked. “Play more Hanson!” she answered. The song he played included these lyrics: “We’ll be your friend now and forever,” and “we all need somebody we can cling to, someone who always understands.” Then the chorus chimed, “When you have no light to guide you, no one to walk beside you, I will come to you.” The millennials are looking for guidance, closeness, and intimacy. We can show them true intimacy with the Light of the World, Jesus.

We have the opportunity and the responsibility to reach this generation of young people. To do so impacts the next millennium, indeed all of eternity. And it can be done! If we are willing to set our sights and take the steps, it could lead to the next great awakening. But the time is now.

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1. Thom S. Rainer, The Bridger Generation (Nashville: Broadman & Holman, 1997).
2. Ibid., 14.
3. Thus the group is described on their official Web site at www.Hansonline.com
4. Rainer, 54-56.

Adapted from Introduction to Evangelism by Alvin L. Reid, (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 1998). Used by permission.

Reproduced with permission

Football has had an enduring affect on my life. Maybe it stems from the matching scars I have on both knees from surgical repairs brought about from my gridiron days. One thing is certain: every fall I experience a strange phenomenon. Down the street from our house is the local high school football field. About the time school begins each year, as I hear the marching band practice, and see the football players sweating in their two-a-days, I begin to twitch, and feel an adrenaline rush. I find myself looking for someone to tackle, or at least to hit with a forearm! Something about playing high school football, although in my distant past of over twenty years ago, has never left me.

Now I have fought the urge to tackle a colleague or try to convince the secretaries in my office to lead a pep rally. But I have discovered that nothing in my adult experience causes me to reflect on my teenage years more than my annual habit of football nostalgia.

Football gave me a lot. Oh, I was not the all-star player on my team. Like most guys, in my mind the older I get, the better player I was! But I have observed that being on a football team over four years taught me practical lessons about life that have helped me ever since. And, many of these same lessons have been especially helpful to me in ministry. Ministry is to team sports (like football) as painted lines are to a highway — not the same, but a pretty good parallel. Just look at the times Paul used athletics in the New Testament to teach spiritual truth (I Cor. 9:24-27, Phil. 3:14, I Tim, etc).

I look back all the time on the lessons I learned from football.

The team is first

The more you focus on helping others the better it is for you. If you are a pastor or staff member, helping the whole staff honor God should supersede any personal goals. When the team wins, everyone gets the credit, but when the team loses, individual achievements really don’t matter.

Sacrifice is a good thing

If all being on a football team involved was showing up and playing a game every week, half the guys in school would want to play. No, to play the game, you have to pay the price. Hours of sweating in the August sun, off-season conditioning, grueling drills, wind sprints, on and on the sacrifice goes. Afternoons in the fall are surrendered to practice. Ministry is not about finding your niche so much as it is pursuing godliness. This involves great sacrifice over time. Just look at the analogies Paul uses for leaders that relate to sacrifice.

Keep your eye on the prize

Our team’s goal, make no mistake, was to WIN. Our coach never began a season saying, “Our goal this year is to be 0 and 10.” We never started a week of practice with the goal of losing. Excuses were never allowed. In ministry we have to be careful about how we define “winning” by overly focusing on some things to the neglect of others. But let’s be clear — the goal of a team is never mediocrity, and neither should being average satisfy a minister. And winning souls should remain our priority.

Evaluation helps

Every Monday we watched film as a team. Our coach loved to say, “the big eye won’t lie.” If an assignment was blown, all could see. If a great play was made, all observed. Effective ministry requires ongoing evaluation. But the evaluation should always be focused on making people better rather than tearing them down.

Be a good sport

Learn what is important and what isn’t. In football hustle, preparation, and teamwork rule – personal feelings do not. The coach has the right to ride a player’s back if he loafs. In ministry, we tend to take ourselves too seriously, but fail to take the gospel seriously. We need to reverse those two and lighten up!

Leave nothing on the field

A good football player never quits. Too many ministers spend more time preparing for retirement than reaching the lost. I still apply this mentally when I preach. When I am finished, I am exhausted, but it is a good feeling to know I have given my best to communicate the Word of God.

A good coach sure helps

Great football programs on any level are marked by great coaches. The “coach” of a local church is the pastor. Everything rises or falls on leadership.

Be agile, mobile, and hostile

OK, I am getting carried away a bit — that’s how my coach described a linebacker. At my age I am fragile, docile and senile! In ministry we should never be hostile, but we must be agile and mobile, or flexible.

Football and ministry obviously are not exactly the same. Ministry matters a lot more. Ministry is not a game — it’s life and death. But, just as Paul used a soldier, an athlete, and a farmer to describe a minister, football can teach us a lot.

Now, go out there and give it all for the — no, not the Gipper — for the Savior

* With apologies to Robert Fulghum, author of All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten: Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things.

Reproduced with permission

I’ll never forget the first time I went to England. My college choir went for a tour immediately after the spring semester. Dr. Gene Black, director of the A Cappella Choir at Samford University, gave his standard speech about being gracious in each home where we would be staying. In particular, he said to eat everything set before us, whether we liked it or not. “No big deal,” I thought. Well, the baked beans with breakfast seemed a little odd, but I loved the tea and scones each day. One thing I couldn’t stand, however, was the steak and kidney pie. Well, I liked the steak just fine, and I never met a pie I didn’t like. The sheep kidney part was (forgive me) hard to swallow.

At the end of our tour we stayed in the same home in London we did when we arrived two weeks earlier. The father asked me how I enjoyed my time in England. “Oh, I loved it!” I exclaimed. “What was one thing you did not like?” he asked. Without thinking, I said, “Sheep kidneys!” His smile turned to a frown. About that time his wife set my breakfast plate before me. There sat two perfectly shaped, freshly cooked . . . whole sheep kidneys.

I have had better days at being gracious at the dinner table. Being gracious is always necessary, but not always easy. Which leads me to the subject of how Christians behave in restaurants.

Recently I went to lunch with a group of church leaders in Asheville, N.C. As we sat down at a local restaurant, I greeted our waitress Kim, and asked her how she was doing. “Well, I am OK,” she replied in a less-than-enthusiastic tone. As we prepared to say grace before the meal, I asked Kim if we could pray for her. While she gave no specific request, we asked the Lord to give her a better afternoon than she had experienced in the morning.

After a lengthy meal (you know how ministers can shoot the breeze while filling our faces), Kim began to talk with us. She told us how she and her fiancé were looking for a good church in the area. We told her of a good church, and spent several minutes visiting with her. When we left, she was beaming! We had made her day.

I wish I could say that is the effect Baptists have on waiters and waitresses across the country. I wish I could say that is the effect I have had every time I was served at a restaurant. Sadly, that is not the case. In fact, as I have talked with those who wait tables, and with believers who eat out a lot, it seems that those who serve our meals in restaurants have a pretty clear opinion about us – especially when we come to dine following Sunday morning services.

Three subjects typically come up when a waitress honestly describes why Christians eating out on Sundays are among the least favored customers. First, we are rude. We may have made a joyful noise at church, but let our menu order be wrong and we lose our joyful song. It is one thing to discuss being a servant in Sunday School; it is another to be served undercooked chicken!

Second, we church folks have the most unsupervised kids on earth. Okay, so they have been cooped up in church for most of the day – does that give them the excuse to turn the local cafeteria into playland? It may be cute to us when little Johnny throws his beans across the room, but those who clean up after him miss the humor.

Finally, and worst of all, we believers have the reputation of being the cheapest tippers on the planet. I suppose it is because we have just given so sacrificially to support the Lord’s work. Yeah, right. Maybe some of us are just cheap.

The next time you go out to eat, consider the following: 1) If you are a cheap tipper, or are otherwise simply not an example of how Jesus might treat a waiter, please don’t pray before your meal. To paraphrase Lincoln, better if they think you are not a Christian than for you to open your wallet and remove all doubt. 2) If you are going to leave a gospel tract, please, please, please, leave a good tip. I once had a fellow hand me what appeared to be a $20 bill. I unfolded it to discover it was not money at all, but a brief explanation of the gospel. Clever, huh. No, pretty stupid actually. The waitress will not see it as clever when she tries to buy diapers for her baby with a $20 bill that won’t spend! I try to leave a 20 percent tip. If that means eating out less to tip well, so be it. And by the way, I am not Miss Manners, but in the new millennium 10 percent is CHEAP.

Okay, perhaps you are not sure at this point if you will ever go out to eat again. Let me encourage you with some simple, positive steps you can take when eating out.

First, if you are going to show Christlike love to the waitress, and tip well, by all means do pray before your meal. You might say to her, “We are about to ask God’s blessings on our meal. Is there anything for which we might pray for you?”

Second, make an effort to speak to her about the Lord. However, remember R. A. Torrey’s rules of witnessing in public: never embarrass the person and obey the Holy Spirit. If she is busy doing her job, respect that. Still, I have found it takes almost no time to ask, “Has anyone told you today that God loves you?” as a means to encourage her. Then, if she responds to you, and if time permits, share as much of the gospel as you can.

Third, by all means, do leave a tract with a good tip. I have seen people come to Christ this way. You may also!

A few years ago three ministers were eating in a restaurant in southern Indiana. They were breaking from a national witness-training seminar. As they fellowshipped together, their joy was contagious. The waitress was encouraged by them, so she brought them dessert on the house. A pastor said, “Let me tell you why we are so happy. It is because of what Jesus did in our lives.” Another pastor began to share. She stood there, listening. As the pastor got to the place of asking her to receive Christ, she was called to another table. “Another seed sown,” they thought. But she soon came back, pulled up a chair, and sat down! Another in the group actually got up and began to pour tea at the other tables. And the waitress gave her life to Jesus! You never know if the next waiter you meet is a divine appointment from God.

Imagine this scene: next Sunday, across America, thousands and thousands of believers stream from churches into restaurants. In little diners and large cafeterias, smiles are the expression of the day. The patrons are courteous, even if the corn should have been beans, and if the tea was sweet instead of unsweetened. Along the way, thousands of prayers are offered for the servers, thousands of conversations bring up the name of Jesus to waiters and waitresses, most of whom really need an encouraging word. Just how many lives would be positively influenced for the kingdom of God? How many discouraged people, working a second or third job – that single mom, that struggling college student, that weary grandma – could be encouraged with the love of Jesus. Multitudes could be affected if we not only said grace, but demonstrated it as well.

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The Fields Are Ripe…

A British research organization says that at least 44 percent of the world’s 1.6 billion Christians claim to belong to the faith but rarely attend church. The research suggests several possible reasons for this phenomenon. Some people believe Christian values are important but church involvement is not. Some want church involvement only at major life events, such as births, weddings and deaths. Still others feel uncomfortable in church because of social or cultural differences or because they believe they would be shunned because their lifestyles. – Alabama Baptist, April 8, 1999

Research reveals that Washington state is the least religious region in the country. In a massive sampling of 19,761 adults 18 and older during a six-year period, a pollster found that 29 percent of the state’s population attend a worship service in a typical week. In contrast, 56 percent of the population attend a worship service in a typical week in Louisiana. Louisiana represents the country’s most religious region. – Insight, February 15, 1999.

Large majorities of Americans say they’re religious and think spirituality is important, but that doesn’t translate into commitment to a single religion or hours of worship, a MacArthur Foundation survey has found. More than seven out of ten Americans surveyed said they are religious and consider spirituality to be an important part of their lives, USA Today reported. But about half attend religious services less than once a month or never. The finding also suggest that people are equally decided on whether it is best to explore different teachings or to follow one faith. – Christian Index, March 4, 1999

According to a 1996 poll of 1,033 people conducted by Scripps Howard News Service and Ohio University, 74 percent of Americans “absolutely believe that Jesus was a real person.” Another 19 percent “mostly believe,” and only 7 percent “do not believe” or “are uncertain.” – Dayton Daily News, March 28, 1999

Reproduced with permission