I have an awful confession to make, an especially odious admission for any self-respecting Baptist pastor. This is painful, but I must come clean. The terrible truth is I don’t have any wonderful airplane stories. Seems like almost every dynamic Christ follower I know has a suitcase full of testimonies about people who sat next to them on a plane, unsuspecting strangers whom God serendipitously dropped one seat over, whom the Christian leader then engaged in conversation, and whom they subsequently guided to conversion to Christ before the plane landed.
Oh, I have had my share of witnessing opportunities in the big blue yonder. I have met some fascinating people on planes, and have been graced to tell many of them about the life-changing power of Jesus’ love in my life. I have shared tray tables with self-absorbed but lonely businessmen, college athletes so full of the life right now that eternity is obscure and unintelligible to them, at least three young people moving to a new city to start their careers, one wayward son returning home to Mom and Dad and hoping to be reconciled with his ex-wife and his own young son, a young lesbian leaving her parents home and values to be her own person, and even the head coach for the United States Men’s Olympic Team – an enormous thrill and honor for a former gymnast like me. I have even had a fellow passenger try to lead me to Christ!
Still, for all the conversations I have had with people on planes, I have not successfully directed any of those conversations to the conversion of even one soul … yet (“Hope springs eternal”). I whimper to Father: “What’s wrong with me, Lord? Why do I seem so lousy at that which seems to come so naturally to my ministry heroes?”
My sense of failure is not limited to the airways. With my feet on sold ground, I regularly find myself in social contexts populated with folks who need to know Jesus. Many times every day, as I talk with bank tellers, teachers, coaches, store clerks, and neighbors, an eagerness rises in me to help them encounter God in Christ like I have. Consider these, for instance (their names and a few identifying details have been changed to protect their anonymity):
Chuck and Cindy are part of our soccer parent fraternity. In his fifteen years as a cop, he has seen a lot of life … and death. So, he would say, he has a realistic view of the world. I would say he has a more calloused, though friendly, cynicism. George and Kathy’s youngest daughter studies Tae Kwon Do with our son. They are generous and love to talk, so, while we watch our kids practice their kicks, we chat amicably … at least about everything except politics and religion. Jack was recently diagnosed with stage four cancer. Still relatively young and evidently strong, he and his wife refuse to think about death but prepare to beat the prognosis of 6 months to a year left. Ron looks for all the world like a successful young leader still selling millions of dollars worth of real estate. But he confides business is so bad he may lose his own home.
In each case I wonder how I might speak life into their world. Here’s some of what I know:
1. People do not get to heaven by slick conversational maneuvers. Most folks are too savvy today to be manipulated that way. Besides, God does not need earthly real estate agents to pitch prime heavenly property for Him. He does not want sales people but sold people. “Sales,” so to speak, is the Holy Spirit’s job, not mine.
2. People do not get to heaven because they are impressed with the person giving witness to the Gospel. I can assure you, when people learn I am a pastor, … well, that is anything but a conversation stimulant. When they learn I am a Baptist, a Southern Baptist, they generally take on the demeanor of a trapped animal frantic for any means of escape they can find or fabricate. My task is not to attract people to me but to Jesus. “I must decrease; He must increase.”
3. By far the most fruitful fields are the fields with which I am most familiar – my friends, relatives, associates, and neighbors (FRANs), the people who are already most familiar with me. Authentic relationships, friendships that do not make people our marks, are (as they have always been) the most fertile soil in which to sow the imperishable Seed.
4. We often seem not to be inspired enough or sufficiently motivated by our own connection with God to deem His promises worth the risk of personal rejection that may come if we invite other people to consider Christ. The solution: get to know Jesus better every day. The more we know Him, not simply know about Him, but truly and intimately know Him, the more marvelous and wonderful and inspiring we find our Savior’s love to be!
5. Everybody needs Jesus. Very few people think they need Jesus. But at some point, almost everybody we know will wonder if Jesus is really the only way to heaven. When the people who know me get to a place where they ask that question of themselves, I hope and pray and purpose to live my journey with Jesus and with them with such consistency and confidence that they think: “Hey, maybe Rob can help me with this.”
6. I am convinced that 99.9% of the people led to Christ by a conversation on a plane have actually been groomed for that occasion by the faithful service of believing FRANs who have been investing in them for some time already. “Paul planted. Apollos watered. God provided the increase.” If I will be faithful, I can trust God to be fruitful.
7. Success is not measured by how other people may or may not respond to my witness. Success is measured by my obedience to “preach the Gospel at all times and use words when necessary.”
Until we “fly the friendly skies” on to Home, let’s encourage and provoke one another to be faithful and fruitful!
Pastor Rob
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