Last night was a car wash. I was expecting to get good and sore scrubbing down cars. I did do some, but what excited me more was the chance to talk to people and show them the love of Christ through my attitude and my conversation. In my bay, I found myself the go-to guy for showing people in and out of the bay. As the first car was being rinsed, I would walk back to the car waiting and chat with the driver and passengers. Once the car in the bay was ready to go I would advise the driver to pull out to be dried off. It was great being able to deny them the opportunity to pay and explain we are just there to make their day better.
After a bit, Philip needed me to go help with the signs on the street. I was to encourage people to come in to get their cars washed. The first couple of seconds I needed some direction, but quickly found my own way. What really began to sink in for me as I “worked the street” was the eyes of people as they drove by. Rarely do you get the opportunity to see into people’s lives through a 1.5 second glance. I worked to make eye contact with people. So many simply refused, despite my silly antics. They just kept their hardened eyes straight ahead and refused to let the light, the fun intrude on whatever dark place their minds occupied. Some waved. Some said no. and kept going. Some I think simply didn’t believe my sign that read, “FREE CAR WASH”. Some I had to talk to as they stopped for the light. “Really?” they would ask. “Yeah, really! We WANT to wash your car! Come on in! Have a bottle of water!” I’d reply. Often they did.
I don’t want to make it more grim than it was. I think most people who ignored me were simply too wrapped up in their own troubles to see what was right in front of them. When I later switched to the other street, another detail struck me: the number of people driving by with cel phones held up to their heads. I was shocked. It wasn’t 1 in 5. Not even half. For a stretch of 5 minutes, almost every single driver passing me was talking on a cel! I literally could not believe what I was seeing.
We as a culture are way too busy. I mean, it’s beyond sanity now. The people we are trying to reach with the gospel have been enslaved by urgency. They have no time to think, let alone consider God. I am at an utter loss as to how to break in to people past that tyranny. Technology arises to “make our lives easier” but it doesn’t. It makes our lives busier. We deceive ourselves that we are being “freed” but really we are shackling ourselves with more and more chains. First the cel phone, which was supposed to help by giving us ready access to calling people. But now we can’t think for ourselves. Even I am guilty of this – it’s easier to just phone my wife from the grocery store rather than think about what we need to remember to keep a list.
Then Blackberries, but now we’re not only calling people, but texting people and emailing people, and receiving email all day every day every minute. We drive our cars because we don’t “have time” to walk anymore. The idea of taking more than 20 minutes to get somewhere renders that somewhere unreachable without a vacation – but we can go farther now in 20 minutes than our grandparents travelled in half a day.
God needs to break in. I don’t know what it will take – but it may be something big. Change brings opportunity for the gospel. Change may be the only chance left to reach the largest part of North America with Jesus. In the meantime, I think our job is to equip the saints to be ready to give an answer, when people begin to ask why this big something had to come. And come it will.
Tags: busyness, campaign of kindness, car wash, cellular phones, servant evangelism, slavery
