a fishing story

This morning, I woke up early as to get a head start on the day.  The seminary load (with church, family, marriage, and all that jazz) can seem to get in the way from effective ministry at times, so I woke up early to pound out some reading.  The book I had to read this morning was called The Shaping of Things to Come by Frost and Hirsch.  Now, I've never done this before, but I thought a great place to do some reading would be at the local dam sitting beside the water.  When I arrived, no one was there.  It was quiet, peaceful and perfect for reading.  As I got into the text, it was talking about being a missional-incarnational church.  Instead of being attractional (extractional - come to us), Christ calls us to be incarnational (go to them).  I was fascinated and totally in to this book!  All of a sudden, two loud mouthed, middle-aged, scraggly looking guys with mouths like sailors showed up at the dam to fish.  My first thought, unemployed people who fished for their food every day.  Great, I thought, now these hobos are going to distract my time and my reading and my plans for the day.  Whatever, I thought with determination, I'm going to stay here and focus.  After a while, I found myself glancing up to see what they were catching.  They seemed as happy as could be!  What were they catching?  Small blue gill!  Haha.  Can't they catch anything bigger or better?  I was sort of amused by the whole situation, but still, I was quite irritated by their lack of respect and their loud-as-can-be mouths. 

Soon enough, they noticed that I occasionally would glance over and watch them fish.  The older guy asked if I'd like to try.  After I said, "Maybe in a little while" and really thinking that I wasn't going to, I heard them laugh a bit - I could tell they thought I had never fished before.  I HAVE fished before, I just don't go fishing and have such a great time catching small blue gill.  But the guy kept asking me.  I was busy.  I didn't want to.  I had a bunch of stuff to read.  Plus, I don't normally associate with people like that.  So, there I was sitting on my rock having a pity party about my luck, when it finally hit me.  While reading about the church's flaw in its come-to-us mentality and how it should have more of a go-to-them mentality, I realized that I was doing the very thing the book was warning me about.  I was seeing them as outsiders, outcasts, not-good-enoughs or people who were simply interrupting my time.  As soon as I realized this, I was convicted.

I immediately put down my book and coffee and walked over to where they were sitting.  They introduced themselves as Ron and Cam.  They handed me a pole, some worms, and soon we were laughing, catching fish and sharing fish stories together.  What a blast!!!  We were catching small blue gill and it was awesome.  Soon though, Cam had to leave.  It was just me and Ron.  I sat by the rock next to him and he continued forward by telling me about the prostate cancer he's struggling with, about his beautiful wife, about his love for fishing and his cabin in Tennessee, and about how he refuses to sit and watch T.V. while cancer erodes his life.  I quickly realized that he needed to vent.  And I was there to listen.  I was enriched by his positive attitude.  I feel like I developed a friend today - a fishing buddy.

I was ministered to this morning.  So often, I can be into theological concepts with seminary, having to articulate leadership in church circles, and all the while I'm forgetting to be someone's neighbor.  Today, this morning, I was Ron's neighbor.  It was a beautiful morning and God taught me a little bit through that experience. 

Praise the Lord for his unfailing love and his incarnation.  May I take his example and have more fishing experiences like I did this morning in "going-to-them."