Colossians 4:5-6 “God’s Mission is My Mission!”

“Are you a religious man?” or so I asked him. Ron was in no way taken aback by my question. “Do I believe? Yes!” he said. “Do I go to church? No! Should I go to church? Yes!”

Ron, at the time, was not a stranger to me. He’s the man who cuts my hair. I have not known him for very long, and I see him only once every month or so when I make my trip to his shop. He does a good job, or so my wife Vivi tells me, and I like the fact that I can make an appointment with him for a haircut that fits my schedule. 7:00 or 7:30 a.m. works for me, and that’s when Ron starts his day. It’s also a time when there is nothing that distracts or interrupts our conversation.

Ron is one of the 12.7 million among the 27 million people who live within the boundaries of the Southeastern District who is unchurched. He’s from a blue-collar section of Baltimore, a man who chose to learn his trade as a barber rather than graduate from high school. He was reared by an Episcopalian aunt who took him to church and Sunday School a few times, and that was it.

While he has no awareness of how he has contributed to its demise, Ron remains a resident of Christendom. He speaks of numerous patrons of his shop who are well off materially, but dreadfully unhappy. Ron decries the moral deterioration of our society. He is convinced that “money is the root of all evil,” and helping rather than hurting people is his primary value. But at present God is not at the center of his universe, and he is not connected with Jesus Christ as his Lord and Savior.

ABLAZE has the lofty goal of reaching 100 million people world wide with the good news of Jesus by October 31, 2017. But in reality it comes down to me or to you sharing Jesus Christ with real people in our lives like Ron. As I go around the Southeastern District, I frequently hand out prayer cards. What I ask people to do is to pray that God the Holy Spirit might bring into focus persons in their lives at school or work, in the neighborhood or family, who are unchurched, and then to write those names on the card. The name on my card is Ron, the man who cuts my hair.

Ron, like many unchurched people, thinks that the church is all about the law. Many of his friends as a young man were Polish Catholics. But in much of their behavior he found a big gap between what they said and what they did. “What they taught me,” or so he told me, “was how to gamble.” No one back then told this man that the gospel is at the heart of the church’s message. My opportunity arrived as Ron expressed perplexity over the strict penalties that the Roman Catholic Church imposes upon persons who divorce without gaining an annulment of their marriage. “I believe that divorce is a sin,” or so I told him. “But I also believe that for this sin and all other sins we commit, Jesus came to die on the cross, and that because he did this for all of us, God not only forgives any sin that we confess to him, but gives even divorced people a new start in life.”

I don’t know about you. But this gospel of God’s grace toward us in Jesus Christ is the reason I am a Lutheran. It’s also the reason that ABLAZE, in my view, is “Lutheran,” in the most orthodox sense of that term. For I believe that sharing this gospel with another person is not a way to earn anybody’s favor. Nor is it a self-righteous act suggesting that I am better than he or she is. On the contrary, it’s a way of letting that person in on the good news that their standing before God, like yours and mine, is based upon Jesus’ blood and righteousness.

“Be wise in the way you act toward outsiders; make the most of every opportunity,” St. Paul told the Colossians. “Let your conversation be always full of grace, seasoned with salt.” (Colossians 4:5-6) That “opportunity,” in the context of ABLAZE, is called the “critical event,” occurring whenever another person is introduced to Jesus through our gospel testimony. You or I cannot force that “opportunity.” But God can provide it, and it’s why I ask people in our District to carry that prayer card with a name or two or more on it around with them, and to keep on praying that God the Holy Spirit will provide that “opportunity” to share the good news with each of these persons whom that same Spirit has brought to their attention.

Another “opportunity” for me with Ron occurred as I sat in his barber chair this past summer the day after an Air France jetliner in bound in Toronto from Paris skidded off the runway and burst into flames. Miraculously, all 309 passengers escaped. “When you see something like that, you have to believe there’s a Higher Power,” Ron said to me. He’s been through a 12-Step Program, you see. “That Higher Power is the God of Jesus Christ” was my response. “I believe Jesus is God’s Son. But he also became a human being like us. He was actually born, and he lived in our world. And that tells me that God is not distant from or disinterested in you or me. God is right here to protect and to help us, sometimes in ways that can only be explained as a miracle.”

I fear that ABLAZE may not burst into much of a flame in the LCMS unless our pastors model the “critical event” for their people. I have written to Dale Meyer and suggested that every seminarian be required to have a part-time job in the real world that will provide opportunity to share the faith that they are being taught with real people, and that this experience be processed during their class time together back at the seminary. But that being said, I know that becoming ABLAZE for God’s mission involves what I do with the faith in Jesus Christ the Spirit first planted in my heart at my Baptism. The mission is God’s from beginning to end, and it’s our mission as his church. But it’s also MY mission and YOUR mission.

In case you are wondering, I have invited Ron to come to church. He’s not done so as yet. On the other hand, I know that our relationship is not likely to end. For I will still need to come to his shop for haircuts. Amen.

Dr. Jon Diefenthaler, President

Southeastern District, LCMS