{"id":12460,"date":"2016-05-10T12:56:33","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T19:56:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/?p=12460"},"modified":"2016-05-10T16:42:38","modified_gmt":"2016-05-10T23:42:38","slug":"man-takes-evangelism-on-the-road-to-gc2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/man-takes-evangelism-on-the-road-to-gc2016\/","title":{"rendered":"Man takes evangelism on the road to GC2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Heather Hahn<\/strong>
\nMay 9, 2016 | PORTLAND, Ore.<\/p>\n

Most United Methodists who traveled to the 2016 General Conference got here by plane.Randy Neal made the nearly 2,500-mile (4,023-kilometer) trek between Crossville, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon, by Greyhound bus.His hope for the journey: To meet people and share Jesus.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just wanted to ride the journey through however God presented it,\u201d he said. \u201cI know my life intertwined with others\u2019 along the trip, and I know their lives intertwined with mine.\u201d<\/p>\n

He departed his Crossville home as the sun set May 4 and arrived in Portland as dawn was breaking May 8. It marked the first time the 65-year-old had taken a bus for interstate travel.<\/p>\n

Neal talked to people running from bad relationships and others running to a fresh start. He saw a marriage proposal and acceptance. He met military veterans, ex-cons, people traveling to and from rehab, a priest and a girl from Somalia.<\/p>\n

Whenever he could, Neal listened as people shared their pain, and he tried to lighten their load.<\/p>\n

\u201cGod has taken care of these people somewhere, somehow before I ever entered their lives. He really doesn\u2019t need me, but he\u2019ll use me if I\u2019m willing,\u201d said Neal, a member of Fair Glade United Methodist Church near Crossville. \u201cI just want to be willing.\u201d<\/p>\n

At the Council of Bishops meeting just before General Conference, Nashville (Tennessee) Area Bishop Bill McAllily described Neal\u2019s sojourn as Christian discipleship in action.<\/p>\n

Inspired by famed evangelist<\/strong><\/h4>\n
\"Randy<\/a>
Randy Neal sits May 4\u00a0packed and ready for his long bus trip. Photo by Holly Neal.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Neal got the idea for taking the circuitous trip after last summer\u2019s Tennessee Annual Conference when McAllily told those gathered about the late Harry Denman, a renowned sharer of the gospel.<\/p>\n

Denman<\/a>, the first top executive of the Methodist Church\u2019s Board of Evangelism (now part of Discipleship Ministries), counted both the Revs. Billy Graham and Martin Luther King Jr. among his fans. The lay evangelist traveled the United States mostly by bus and frequently asked those he met to \u201cpray for me.\u201d<\/p>\n

Neal, who years ago had received a Harry Denman Evangelism Award<\/a>from his conference, wanted to follow the lay evangelist\u2019s example in his travel plans. He saw an opportunity since the Tennessee Annual Conference elected his wife, Holly, for the third time to be a General Conference delegate.<\/p>\n

Neal, who is retired, has accompanied her each time to the 10-day-meeting. He volunteers with local church homeless ministries and soup kitchens while his wife participates in the denomination\u2019s top legislative assembly.<\/p>\n

Most United Methodist leaders point out building relationships with people is critical to bringing Christ into their lives<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Neal agrees, but he stresses that relationships don\u2019t have a set time limit.<\/p>\n

\u201cA relationship can be three minutes or it can be the rest of your life,\u201d he said. \u201cWe shouldn\u2019t limit ourselves. We shouldn\u2019t say, \u2018I don\u2019t have time to invest in a relationship, so let\u2019s not do this.\u2019 Don\u2019t ever pass up an opportunity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u2018Pray with him\u2019<\/strong><\/h4>\n

By far Neal\u2019s most meaningful experience came at one stop when a fellow passenger named Cleo asked Neal to buy his lunch.<\/p>\n

At a nearby fast-food restaurant, Neal bought Cleo the burger he requested and a cup for water. Cleo headed for the drink dispenser and then left the restaurant. Neal finished his meal inside.<\/p>\n

As Neal headed back to the bus, he passed Cleo talking with friends and noticed that instead of water, the man had soda in his cup \u2014 soda not paid for.<\/p>\n

Neal suddenly felt in his spirit that he should pray with Cleo. \u201cI thought, \u2018Sure, I can pray for Cleo,\u2019\u201d Neal recalled. \u201cBut I felt again the nudge to go pray with<\/em> Cleo.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, he approached Cleo and asked if he could pray. Cleo agreed. It was not the usual prayer that many would offer with a stranger.<\/p>\n

\u201cI thanked God for providing the money and the love of his people so that I could buy us both lunch,\u201d Neal said. \u201cAnd then I asked God to forgive Cleo for getting soda in the cup we both knew was meant for water.\u201d<\/p>\n

A few hundred miles down the road, Cleo approached Neal again. He told Neal lots of people had told him over the years that they would pray for him. But until that day, no one had ever prayed with him in his presence. Neal estimated Cleo to be about 50 years old.<\/p>\n

Hahn is a multimedia news reporter for United Methodist News Service. Contact her at\u00a0<\/em>newsdesk@umcom.org<\/strong><\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/section>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Heather Hahn May 9, 2016 | PORTLAND, Ore. Most United Methodists who traveled to the 2016 General Conference got here by plane.Randy Neal made the nearly 2,500-mile (4,023-kilometer) trek between Crossville, Tennessee, and Portland, Oregon, by Greyhound bus.His hope for the journey: To meet people and share Jesus. \u201cI just wanted to ride the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":12461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[449,3],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-12460","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-general-conference","8":"category-umns"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/randy-neal-main-horizontal_1-574x388.jpg?fit=574%2C388&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-3eY","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/51"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12460"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12471,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12460\/revisions\/12471"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}