The People You Meet Part I

This morning after I took the kids to school I went to Cypress Creek Cafe for some breakfast. As I was walking out I met S---- (I'm protecting names here because I haven't asked his permission to write about him.). I've known S---- a long time, but today we talked about spiritual things. We got on the subject of suicide because a common friend of ours committed suicide a few years back. He asked me if I thought you'd go to heaven if you committed suicide.

What a question! I told him that, while the Bible doesn't teach that you'd go to hell for this, it does teach us to value human life. I continued to tell him that it's a pretty horrific thing to do, considering the loved ones left behind. He wasn't too sure about my answer and said he might have to study the Bible for himself on this subject. That's good. He'll find out that what I said was true. I said the most important question to ask is "what am I going to do with Jesus?"

I happen to know that my friend works all the time. I asked him to consider having a Bible study with me, on another day other than Sunday. I certainly couldn't meet with him on Sunday, and he works a lot on Sunday too. He said he might be interested in that, but also that he'd be interested in continuing the present discussion sometime in the near future. "Good," I said. I hope we get a chance to do so.

What about these people who work every Sunday? What about those who work on Wednesday nights? Could our church provide Bible study opportunities for these people. Or are we going to convey to them, that if they're really interested in our church, they're going to have to switch jobs so that they could join us for worship on Sundays. I got to thinking about this after Reggie McNeal of leadnet.org, discussed this topic at a recent conference. I hope we can soon reach out to those who work on Sundays.

My friend also told me about how he has studied many belief systems, including Mormonism and Jehovah's Witnesses. This might be why he wasn't sure about my answer concerning suicide. Anway, I hope we do get a chance to talk again soon.