Low and behold: It worked!

So, one of the reasons I don't think I've ever done well with journals would be that I've always struggled with figuring out what to write. I think that I'm a fairly reflective person, I surely have an opinion on just about everything, but I just don't think about writing it down. I find that I have to make mental notes to myself, "Hey, this train of thought bouncing around your head right now would make a great journal entry!" (I realize that real journalers probably don't think this way, but let me do this as I can for now...)

Last week, I played a coffee house that I haven't played before up in Bentonville, AR. It's a pretty cool vibe in the room, although all the walls and floors are concrete with the "industrial-warehouse-unfinished" ceiling, so it was pretty loud and muddy in the room.

It just so happened that friend of ours, who's actually from Nebraska, was in the area for the week on his spring break and he drug along a bunch of his friends that he was with. This was nice, since I was afraid that nobody was going to be there at all.

Throughout the 2 hour gig, people came and went, some were interested, some were not. I think I sold about 3 CDs through the night and I know that at least one of them was to somebody that just happened in. We also had a tip jar out and a few people contributed to.

It was an ok gig. I figure something like this is better for me than sitting on my butt at home on Friday night. Then, Holly emptied the tip jar as we were packing up to go home. (She knows that it would have been better to pocket this and not tell me about it, but she handed to me, and now I must rant.)

Some (well-meaning, I'm sure) person had dropped into my tip jar a folded piece of paper that LOOKS like a $50 bill. When you unfold it, you get a little evangelism: "Disappointed? Jesus won't let you down. Make Jesus Christ Lord of your life!" and proceeds to tell me that God provides things that money won't buy and invites me to pray to receive Jesus into my heart.

Hokay...where do I start?

Disappointed? HELL YEA! I'm a singer/songwriter trying to supplement my income playing a little coffee house for $30+tips! I wonder how this well-meaning person would feel if they found this little tract in the envelope where their paycheck would be...

Here are just a couple of thoughts about this attempt at evangelism:

1. It's lazy. This person didn't take the time to know me (or to pay attention to any of the songs I was singing) enough to realize that I might already a Christian. Jesus himself didn't spend his time simply telling people to believe in him. In fact, for most of his ministry, when people realized he was God, he told them to keep it under their hat for the time being. The fact is, I don't think you have any right trying to tell somebody about Jesus until you have proven to them that you care about them first.

2. It's unbelievably ineffective. Do you honestly think anybody who receives this scrap of paper are going to be inclined to pray the sinner's prayer inscribed upon it? Trust me: I'm already a believer and when I opened this thing, it made me have 2nd thoughts...

3. It's cheap. My fear is that this person is leaving these things for tips in restaurants and anywhere else that tips are accepted. This is not a good thing. Believe me when I say that this behavior does NOT draw people to Jesus. If anything, it hardens people's hearts against Christianity.

That's my rant.

-shack