West Port Experiment

As the weather cools, the leaves turn and fall, I continue my rounds in my little “territorial vineyard,” as Thomas Chalmers affectionately would call it. Since I arrived in S. Jersey in late 2023, I’ve made it more than midway through my second round. The Lord has been pleased to pick up my spirits after something of a little ‘dry spell’ in the mission. The following are sample conversations of late that have given me some encouragement.

As I approached one particular house that I first visited a year ago, I checked my notes. “Talker.” Yeah, I remember something of that first visit. Talkers in certain ways are definitely better than not-talkers, since they often give you more of an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel. If you can get a word in edgewise! But “talkers” will hardly enter the Kingdom for their much talking, unless of course they finally close their mouths and let God speak.

This talker was “Jeb.” A white man in his seventies, I’d say. Scruffy, a little disheveled, flannel shirt, and stubble on his face. My kind of guy! He answered the door once again, and we fell to it. Friendly enough, but definitely a man with his own opinions. Pretty self-confident in his theological views, which were definitely not orthodox. Oh, he believed in God, for sure. But he has his “own God,” thank you. And he was decidedly not in favor of religious mediators, and certainly not Jesus Christ. He “prays to the Father,” but needs no help from the Nazarene. Jeb also repeated the worn-out objection to the New Testament because of the supposed fallibility and doctoring of its transmitters; and maybe he had taken a page out of Dan Brown from some years back, as he knew enough about the Council of Nicea to claim that the Church itself canonize (and thus made) the Bible. I’ll certainly give him that he has at least not been totally passive in his engagement with Christianity.

As I often do these days, I raised the text on which I was currently preaching at church. That following Lord’s day, I planned to handle the words of Jesus, “the light of the body is the eye,” and if “your eye is evil, your whole body shall be full of darkness,” I entered into the subject of the darkened mind of man. God has given us reason and intelligence. Our mind is the “eye” of our being. It “sees” our world, and by our mind we navigate our world. And as it goes with our mind, so it goes with our whole life for good or ill. But while we may have 20/20 physical vision, our “minds are darkened” and are “alienated from the life of God by the ignorance” that is in us. “There is none who understands; there is none that seeks after God.” I tried to shed light into the “false light” of his spiritual darkness by holding out Jesus Christ, the “Light of the world,” with the promise that “he who follows him shall not walk in darkness,” and grope in vain, stumble, fall, and go altogether lost, “but will have the light of life.” We listened politely enough. As always, I invited him again to church and told him I’d be very happy to treat him to a drink if we could read the Bible together.

I met “Marta,” a bilingual Mexican woman from near Cancun (must not have lived in the classy, touristy part if she preferred Woodbine). We didn’t speak terribly long as she was returning home; but I spoke a little in Spanish about myself, our church, and the essence of the Gospel. Not that I needed to use Spanish, since her English was pretty good. But I like to practice where I can and to establish a sense of connection and shared humanity with whoever is on the other side of the door. Marta was Roman Catholic—how devout, I didn’t really get. But she was happy to hear my Gringo Spanish. I hope to visit them again down the road, and try to draw them especially to our bilingual meetings.

Like “Jeb,” I had another longer conversation with a parishioner whom I met the first time in my first round a year back. This was “Deshawn,” a black fellow in his late 30s. Also like Jeb, I remembered that that our visit was deeper and more engaging. But unlike Jeb, Deshawn wasn’t giving me push-back. He claimed to be a church-goer, but not consistently. I spoke with him on the same theme of my sermon text, taking occasion from his Halloween season décor to speak of the very real darkness that the Evil One has brought upon us by our complicity, and the death in darkness now and into eternity. But Christ comes not to bring darkness and death, but light and life! He was thoughtful, polite, and very engaged. I got to meet one of his little children and learned that he has three others. I welcomed him to church and even asked for his cell number so that we could connect again to study the Bible, which he happily gave. I’m doing this more and more after longer conversations when it feels like it wouldn’t be off-putting. This way, I can periodically text a Bible verse or a link to a sermon.

The last case I’ll mention here—I think these were all on the same day—is that of “Jack.” This fellow looked to be a white, working class fellow around 40 years old. A really nice fellow. When it became clear that I was an evangelical pastor, he really opened up. He told me that he was a born again Christian, and that the Lord had rescued him from bondage to drink and drugs some years back. Fully confessing that he was a prodigal son away in a far country, God gave him one last “wake up call.” When under the influence, he claimed to have crash his car into a tree at 125 mph! As I responded with various scriptures and observations, he clearly showed a measure of biblical literacy. He is even a deacon at a nearby church in Woodbine, which I’m guessing is Pentecostal of some time. We didn’t have more time to get into any depth about the Reformed faith—but I’m quite confident there will be a next time. I got his number, and he assured me that he would love to visit our church sometime.

Please pray for these parishioners of mine. Whether or not they ever darken the doors of our church, the Word was sown and will not come back void. But please pray that the Spirit would work where I cannot. Also, pray that God would enable me to establish at least one more regular Bible study in Woodbine, especially for English-speakers.