Pastor In The Parking Lot by (Tom Rhue)

Eddie Ramey and I were arriving at a Poker, Beer, Food and Cigar outreach event in Chandler, AZ., at which Eddie was the featured “Prophet from another country”, Colorado Springs, to speak to a bunch of young guys.

I pulled into the adjacent church parking lot and was promptly greeted by a man picking up trash who did not seem to like others using his lot. He asked us what was going on so we told him that we were arriving at the car wash for an outreach event.

He immediately wanted to know what organization we represented. I told him just a bunch of guys wanting to share the gospel. He wanted us to produce a brochure or something to prove that we were for real as he was dubious with our answer. It does seem a bit odd …. an outreach in a car wash. Eddie and I looked at each other and didn’t elaborate on the format!

We told him that we like to get guys together and explain the gospel to the non-believers. He appeared very skeptical of laymen doing such things.

The man identified himself as the pastor of the church and wanted to know the religion we represented. We told him we are just a bunch of bible-believing Christians. I asked him if he was one. He kinda stepped back at such a direct question and said he was. I asked if he believed in salvation by grace and grace alone. He said he did. We did not see the need to pull out the “Steps to Peace”.

Maintaining a quizzical look the Pastor asked again for some kind of brochure, web site etc., which might affirm who we really represented.

I mentioned that were loosely affiliated with a group known as Christian Businessmen’s Committee. He had heard of that group.

I offered to move my car and he responded that it was fine as he was checking to make sure we were not Mormons or Jehovah Witnesses and asked if he could pray for us.

The Pastor graciously prayed for us, our event and told us to let him know the next time we have an event and that it will be fine to park in his lot. (He might change his mind if he saw the format.) What fun, thank you Lord for the opportunity to spread your good news of salvation to those you put in our path.