Church Numbers, The Nation of Islam

Last night, I sat on a panel with ministers and pastors from various evangelical denominations to discuss “Big Church/Small Church: A Conversation about Church Growth, Evangelism, and Church in the Age of Marketing.”

Once again, Calvin Moore has done an excellent job with putting together this series (House of God).

Some of the ministers represented pastor mega-churches (22,000 and 6,000 respectively). I represented the medium-large church (1,000—less than one percent of all American churches are larger than 850 people). Three other pastors represented “small churches” (200, 20, and 15 respectively).

I toyed with idea of beginning the panel with this quote, “I think—tide turning—see, as I remember—I was raised in the desert, but tides kind of—it’s easy to see a tide turn—did I say those words?”—President Bush in Washington D.C.; June 14, 2006

Or, I could've turned to Michael Scott for wisdom: ". . . Am I a great leader? Yes. Yes I am."

The conversations ranged from whether or not Joel Osteen’s church is “orthodox” to Barak Obama’s UCC ties in Chicago (c.f. African emphasis); to the marketing that takes place in the confines of the “evangelical Christian ghetto.” It was a spirited conversation, full of wisdom, passion, experience, and (some) humility.

When discussing the mystical (my word) relationship between the people of God and the gathering of God’s people, I told this story.

Along with one other college friend, I once went to hear Cummings debate two Muslim ministers, over a two day period, concerning the reliability of Scripture versus the truthfulness of the Koran. I went to hear Cummings the first night by myself. I was the only white person “in the house.” I was treated with great respect and dignity by the Christians hosting this event. The second night was the debate/dialog session between Muslim Ministers and Christian pastors.

It was quite a scene.

There were only two white guys in the standing-room only auditorium—yours truly and Mark Johnson (who was probably wondering what I’d talked him into exactly). For the most part, the dialog was amicable. Many fine philosophical and theological points were highlighted and debated. What I remember from this night, however, had little do with the former and everything to do with identity.

Near the end of the session, a middle-aged black man sitting next to me, stood up in front of the all-black gathering, mixed with Christians and Muslims, and pointed his long finger in my face saying, “You mean to tell me…you Christians…that you don’t see who this man is.” My heart began racing. He was staring down at me. “This man is the devil. The white man is the devil.” I’m quite sure my face was red as I slumped deeper and deeper into the old wooden pew which, thirty seconds previously, was a fine piece of furniture. Now, it was the most uncomfortable chair in the history of the world.

The crowd grew silent. The place, all of the sudden, was eerily empty.

Just when I thought my heart was going to burst, an older African-American woman put her arms around me and said with great passion, “Excuse me, sir. This man (referring to me) is my brother in Christ. I have more in common with this man because we were baptized into the same Lord Jesus.”

For one of the few times in my young life, in that moment, I felt like I belonged to something spiritual, something other-worldly. Never had I been so convinced of the truth and power of the story of Jesus for a modern and complicated society like ours in these United States.

Never had the word “my” sounded so good to me.