Persistence with Gentleness & Respect

There are models of how to love well as you evangelize.  Let me tell you about one, and this is like Jesus - it would a take a library to tell stories like these if we recorded all the ones out there. Through the entirety of my college coaching career at Mineral Area College, Murphy Thomas was the scorekeeper at the basketball games.  I am a little embarrassed about that now as this serious man of God had to think, "What is he doing?" as I would rant and rave at officials and players, using some language that I can't even think of now, but I am sure flowed out.  I do want everyone to know that I was calling those officials to repent; I was just unsure of how to go about it.  I guess commenting on their mother's status was a bad evangelism method.  Murphy was so patient and so sweet; he was excited when I did show up to church, even if I spent the majority of the time drawing basketball plays on the offering envelopes rather than experiencing the majesty of Christ.

He did go out of his way on occasion.  If he did not see me in church for a while, he would ride his bike to my house which was as death-defying as planting a church in Somalia or Iraq because if you have ever ridden a bike down Hillsboro Rd - which people think is I-25 - it meant that he really cared.  He would ride up and just pretend to talk about basketball or the weather, but church and the Gospel were on the back of his tongue.  I so appreciate it now, but in those dead in my trespasses days, on occasion, I would hide in the closet and pretend not to be home. It is a good thing that God is merciful.

He was just so winsome (I really don't care about the Bridge-Arnold folks who don't like that word), so persistence with gentleness and respect.  (By the way, for you B-A clowns that word means to win over with a child-like charisma, like a 1 year old wanting her daddy to pick her up, good word). But, Murphy just stayed the course. I hope it felt good to him when I was regenerated in 1996 and answered the call to shepherd God's people in the Gospel, and then later to become a church planter.  He has been there every step of the way, from cleaning up half eaten fried chicken and whiskey bottles (not mine) as we set up for church in the banquet center to welding the caps on the beams some 40 feet off of the floor in a small elevated bucket - he is in his late 70's - when we did all of our own construction work on the new Bridge building.  He now sits on the second row enjoying the glowing song presentation and Scripture proclamation of his precious Jesus with most all of his wonderful family around him.

I have never met anyone with such a heart for lost people.  I have seen him invite waitresses at Ryan's to put on a ballcap and go to a men's conference with us to  hear about Jesus.  Just this week as he was having a rather serious heart attack in the hospital, he turned his pain-ridden face to the side and winsomely asked the nurse, "Do you have a good church? Do you know God?" Same as he was being prepped for his quad-by-pass surgery - wearing the doctors and nurses out with talk of church and a glorious Gospel. He loves Jesus, he loves his bride, Mary, really well, and he loves Jesus' bride - the church.  I am glad he is going to be with us for a while.  He, more than any other human, probably had more to do with my redemption than anyone; he is like a dad to me; he is my friend; he is my partner in the Gospel. I hope he feels much better very soon because I love him very much.