People of Peace

In the Mike Breen/British evangelism lingo, the phrase "person of peace" gets bandied about. A person of peace is one who receives or welcomes you into their neighborhood as a Christian and is eager to bring others to meet you. The God-appointed neighborhood networker. I'm sure there's a better definition, but that works for the purposes of blogging.

This afternoon was "person of peace" afternoon. We (Christina, myself and a college student) were in the park, and there wasn't much going on. So we went for a walk around the block. About two blocks later, we ran into a man whom we had met several weeks ago in the park. We met him by playing with his nieces and nephews in the park and then untangling the swings that other kids had flung over the swing set. I guess you form a rapport with someone after you shimmy up a pole and step on his shoulders for balance to take down swings. He is a sweet man who is very open, believes in Jesus, and doesn't know much about him beyond that but would like to. And he knows all the white people in the neighborhood well. He walked with us for several blocks, chatting with us and greeting people he knows. And we realized that he was one of the "people of peace" we had been praying for. If we started a Bible study or prayer or a coffee house, he would come - and bring many others.

Later, back in the park, we did our usual snack time with some of the kids. Normally, we feed the little kids, then the teenagers start trickling over to get snacks. We had noticed this pattern for many weeks now: one particular teenager breaks from the game, comes over alone, asks politely for a snack, stands there and eats it, and waits for 5-10 minutes and talks to us for a bit. Then the others come trickling over to eat. We talk for a few minutes and they go back to their game. Today, while he was waiting, we talked to the first kid.

He excused his friends and relatives for being shy about coming over. We understand - older people don't like handouts. "Yeah," he said, "But they're hungry. But you notice how I'm not shy? I just come over and wait til they get here. Then they don't have to go first." Having noticed this, it was good for him that we could acknowledge what he does for his friends. He takes the humiliation of asking for food on himself, and the shame of going over to the church people and kids table and talking with them so that his friends will have the courage come over. He's gotten some of them to talk with us also. And he knows we're there every Sunday and someday, he says, his family won't be so shy and they'll come out too.

People of peace. A teenage boy who plays basketball. An unemployed man helping his grandma. These are the evangelists.