Unlikely Choice

When he walked into our little country church, everyone’s head turned.  Black leather jacket, hair down to his waist tied in a ponytail, dirty jeans and motorcycle boots.  Our church was in farm country, attended by regular ol’ people who faithfully sat in the same pew and talked to the same people each week. His name was John and he came late that Sunday, slipping into the second row behind my dad, the pastor. He sat quietly throughout the service, soaking in everything that was said.  Following the sermon, John and my dad had a long conversation in the front row.  Mom watched pensively from the back foyer of our church, her heart both worried and filled with prayer for this disheveled, rough looking man.  These types of people rarely darkened the doors of our quaint church. 

The conversation ended with Dad praying, his hand firmly placed on this man’s shoulder. Dad prayed with a look of authority and earnestness. John shook my dad’s hand, wiped tears from his eyes and left quietly through the doors he entered. Later, Dad shared with us that John had lived a hard life filled with drugs and booze.  Someone had recommended that he try going to our little church.  He said John prayed for the first time, asking God to enter his life and forgive his sins.  Dad was confident John’s heart toward God was authentic and that we’d be seeing John again. God was interested in bringing a dramatic change to his life. 

This memory from my childhood flooded my heart on a day when I was visiting my elderly father.  Dad has since passed away but at the time he was in his nineties, with his pastoring years well behind him.  My mom had died a few years prior and dad was living his final years in a comfortable room in an assisted living facility.  As I flipped through dad’s mail, I found a prayer card from John.  Attached was a picture of him and his family.  For the past 20 years, John has been a traveling preacher; he calls himself an “evangelist.”  His home was in Texas but he traveled from town to town, church to church telling his story.  John has shared with thousands the Good News about Jesus’ forgiveness of sins, his love and his desire to give a true, meaningful life.  This all began during those nervous, awkward moments in our little church over 30 years ago.

As a preacher’s son, I heard plenty of sermons on how God loves to radically transform people.  But this, perhaps, was the first time I had actually seen radical change in someone. Over time, we saw John grow.  He cleaned up—inside and out.  He read his Bible, came to church faithfully, prayed and did Bible studies.  He enrolled in a local Bible institute, studied to become a pastor, moved to Texas and started preaching to anyone who would listen.  John, once a dirty, drunk biker—an unlikely choice for a missionary and pastor. 

John’s story would fit perfectly into the story of Acts.  Acts is a story of God moving in ways that can only be explain as, “That had to be God.”  God is interested in reaching people who could have been thought to be unreachable. The first Christians never imagined the inclusion of Gentiles into the Jesus movement. God also is interested in changing people we thought irredeemable. The first Christians never imagined that Saul (later Paul) would be powerfully used to build the church and not destroy it. And, God is interested in sending people on missions that are inconceivable. Paul (formally Saul) would deliver the message to the center of the known world (Rome).  Healthy churches would be sprinkled along the way where passionate followers of Jesus would build community with one another and spread the Good News through their towns and regions. Acts is filled with unlikely characters doing unlikely but extraordinary things as God moved among them. 

When my dad woke that morning, I’m sure he didn’t anticipate spending time with a guy like John.  I’m betting he thought about his sermon that morning through the ears of the regular folk that had faithfully filled the pews in that country church. But, knowing my dad, I’m fairly confident he asked God to use his sermon any way that HE saw fit. I think Dad was ready for the unlikely to happen that day.