A few weeks ago, I attended a three-day ministerial conference in Yakima that we call the \u201cOrders Gathering.\u201d During this time, Pastors, Deacons, and Elders of the Pacific Northwest Conference gather with District Superintendents and our Bishop to spend time together. We share news, stories, learning experiences, and participate in small discussion group sessions where we might speak from our hearts on a variety of subjects. It\u2019s also a time to renew old friendships under a less demanding schedule than our yearly annual conference or in our ministry settings. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
When we finished up the first night, and I walked out to my pickup in the parking lot, a teenager flew by on his bicycle wearing one of those scary Halloween clown masks, then circled back, hoping to creep me out, I think. I waved to him, smiling, and left. Kids, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next day, during a break from our meetings, I stepped outside to get some fresh air and sat on a park bench in the sun. About that time, a boy came riding by on his bike, and on a whim, I shouted out to him, \u201cHey, I bet you own a clown mask, don\u2019t you?\u201d He immediately slowed, turned, and rode over to me. \u201cMaybe,\u201d he said. Why?\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI think you know.\u201d He smiled and said, \u201cYeah, I remember you.\u201d He asked my name and told me his, John, and that he was 14 years old. I told him that I hoped he wasn\u2019t scaring any little kids with his mask, and he said only his brothers and sisters. \u201cYou shouldn\u2019t do that, if you\u2019re mean to them, they\u2019ll remember it when you\u2019re grownups\u2026 Why are you riding around instead of attending school?\u201d I wondered. He said he only went a half day and that he liked hanging around the church a lot because they give him a few bucks for bringing them cardboard to recycle.\u201d I knew they didn\u2019t usually do that but didn\u2019t say anything to him about it. Then he asked me an interesting question:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is public property, isn\u2019t it (meaning the church grounds)?\u201d I said no, not exactly, but that everyone was welcome to come.\u201d John then asked, \u201cWell, who owns it then? Do You? Somebody has to own it.\u201d For about the next fifteen minutes, we talked about what churches are for, why people come there, and how he might find something really great if he tried out Sunday School on Sunday morning. I also told him if he\u2019d wait, I\u2019d find out what time services were and that I was sure he\u2019d be welcome. He said okay, so I went in, got the information, and when I returned, he was still there. Amazing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I handed John some treats from the hospitality table, some string cheese, and cookies. He munched on them and we talked more, and he said maybe he\u2019d come on Sunday morning. I said I hoped so, and that I wished I could be there but lived in Lewiston. I saw John several times after that during my stay, not only at church but riding around town in various places, and every time he saw me, he had this quizzical look on his face, and he waved. The last day when it was time to leave, John was there at the church again. \u201cI gotta go, John, it was nice meeting you. Hope you try out Sunday school.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThanks, Mike, maybe I will.\u201d As I drove away, I said a prayer for John and shook my head, thinking how I wished making new friends and talking about church could always be so serendipitous and easy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now that Halloween is past and all the creepy clown masks are put away, I wonder what possibilities Thanksgiving might hold for people who are curious about our church, how and why it is here, and whether they would be welcome? Unless we happen to find ways to meet and invite acquaintances like John from our neighborhood, we might never know. And I have a feeling we would be missing out. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
I\u2019m always hopeful and prayerful that God will help us find ways to make that happen, and be a blessing to other lives. God is good \u2014 and grace is even better (I don\u2019t know if that\u2019s even possible).\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rev. Mike Lawson<\/strong> serves as pastor to the people of Orchards United Methodist Church in Lewiston, Idaho.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" While attending last month’s PNW Orders Gathering in Yakima, Rev. Mike Lawson had several chance encounters with a young person, a youth wearing a scary mask during their first encounter.
\nLawson wonders what we might discover, and be able to share, if we push past our fear of those outside our doors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":51,"featured_media":20513,"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":[510],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-20512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uncategorized-en"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/11\/tom-roberts-8YJI-X-fx08-unsplash.jpg?fit=1200%2C627&ssl=1","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p2l75j-5kQ","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20512","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=20512"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20512\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20514,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20512\/revisions\/20514"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/20513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.pnwumc.org\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}