Muslims are everywhere

This has been a week to meet Muslims. In the DuPage College student center, it seems that about a quarter of the students are Muslims. The last guy we spoke to really knew his stuff. He said that he had memorized the entire Koran in his youth (why can’t we memorize some of the Bible?), and rattled off the common Islamic objections to Christianity (“your Scriptures have been corrupted”, “you worship many gods”, “your idea of forgiveness promotes irresponsibility”, etc.). Fortunately, I remembered some of our fall Islam class (thanks, Bill Scheerer!), and was able to answer some of these objections sensibly. But a guy like this could only be reached through love, and the sovereign working of the Spirit.
Two days later I was again in a similar discussion with a Moroccan fossil dealer in NJ. Muslims are increasingly everywhere. We all need to learn about Islam if we are to give a good defense of the faith to those we meet.

Jaskos party hard!

I have never felt so simultaneously old and young. Hanging around with college students and those in their early twenties brings back my days of college ministry at Princeton. Andrew and Christina’s church, Antioch, has created a great environment of community where people enjoy being with each other.

While I was there, my kids put together a party to “meet the original Jasko “(me!- not the original, but I guess it is a compliment). Andrew’s email warned people that “Jaskos party hard”, and that his dad had “lots of outrageous pastor jokes”! I felt like a curiosity, with the students checking me out (“what kind of person produced both Andrew and Christina?” and “What is a middle-aged pastor from pagan New Jersey like?”).

But it was fun- I ended up discussing predestination and inerrancy with a young guy Mike for at least half an hour. I miss the old college ministry days of community and great late discussions.

What are the chances?

In the morning, our friends the Jobes and I were reminiscing about the great hoagies of the famous Hoagie Haven in Princeton. “No place here in Chicago makes hoagies that good,” Karen lamented. This is true- I bought many hoagies from them when I ran the Student Hoagie Agency in college. Don’t forget- I know hoagies, I’ve sold ten thousand of them.

About 6 hours later, I am in the DuPage County college student center with Andrew, witnessing to students. In the distance, I see a young man in an orange and black (the colors of Princeton, very visible and distinctive). As he walks closer, I am stunned to see that it is a Hoagie Haven t-shirt from Princeton itself! How did he get this, being almost 900 miles away?

Unfortunately, Andrew kept talking, and I couldn’t stop the discussion to ask the guy how he got the shirt (must be quite a story). So Mr. Hoagie Haven walked right out of the center, and the mystery/coincidence continues.

THE WOMAN IN THE PURPLE SHIRT

My son Andrew leads an evangelistic outreach to college students at the huge College of DuPage (known as COD). I thought I would tag along with them, and see what they do there.

Their approach is to pray and wait on God beforehand for direction as to whom to speak to and what to do. So before entering the student center, the 3 of us in his car waited on God to hear today’s marching orders.

“I see a black woman in a purple shirt”, said the girl in the back seat.
“I hear God saying that Islam must bow to Christ”, said Andrew.
After about 3 or 4 more words, we were ready to go.

This kind of witnessing took guts. Six of us from Wheaton divided into pairs and struck up conversations with students who were eating, sitting, or just hanging out. Surprisingly, most were very open to talk. We ran across several Muslims, surprising to me, since we were in the western suburbs of Chicago. After asking God whom we were to speak with, we spoke at length with a student from El Salvador who had an evangelical family back home, and who had frequent dreams of God. It was remarkable how God was reaching out to him.The whole thing really motivated me to be much more sensitive to listening to God while witnessing.

And yes, we met and spoke with not one, but two, African-American students in purple shirts!

GIVE US THE KEY

God spoke to me this morning as I hunted for a spare pair of car keys (I ultimately took the wrong car keys with me). I have always believed that every city and area has a key to reach it, a way to evangelize it and saturate it with the Gospel. What is the key for Marlboro, for my part of east central New Jersey? Has anyone in NJ discovered God’s key for their city? Is there just one key, or are there several? We need to be seriously asking God for the keys to our city. How can we say that we are making much of an impact on our city/area if we have only a thousand or two people in the church, when there are hundreds of thousands outside it? We need to find the key which will unlock the hearts and minds of people through this area.

God, give me the key to reaching Marlboro, and its area.

A NEW FORM OF EVANGELISM

When I drove into my driveway after church today, a $5 bill was laying right next to the driveway. Living on a main road, lots of stuff gets tossed onto our lawn (usually from the Wendy’s down the road), but rarely money. An empty faded envelope from our neighbor was next to it. It seemed likely that it was money sent by the grandmother next door to her granddaughter in Florida, which never got there.

Having just heard and been convicted about having integrity in our education hour class, I went right over to her house, and gave it to her. Unfortunately, there had been a card and another $5 inside, but that was blown somewhere else in Manalapan. But she was incredibly appreciative, having left the letter in her mailbox 3 weeks ago, before the mailbox fell apart, with the mail inside missing.

Maybe I have discovered a new form of evangelism- returning good lost stuff which I have found!

HOW I GOT MY FREE BLACKBERRY STORM

While prayer-walking Rt. 18 in Marlboro, I was forced to walk along the 50 foot wide median, since there was no shoulder at one spot. Ten feet off the road, there lay a beautiful new Blackberry Storm. I picked it up, feeling sorry for its owner, since it was undoubtedly ruined, with rain falling on it the day before. But when I pressed the power button, it turned right on.

Showing it off in our church office, my youth pastor had a coveting fit handling it. “I would love to have one of these,” he said. “Look at this beautiful touch screen.” He lamented, “Why can’t I find stuff like this lying on the side of the road?” (answer- pray along the road, and maybe you will).

A few hours later, another twenty-something passing through the office also went crazy when he heard my story (“I really wanted one of those, but they cost too much”), and volunteered to find the owner. This turned out to be much harder than you would think, but after 15 minutes he was able to find “Bruce” from his Facebook profile. We then googled his name, and found him in a neighboring town. Ironically, Bruce lives right around the corner from the office secretary who traced him on the internet.

Bruce (age 45, in a Pink Floyd tshirt) came by an hour later to get his/my Blackberry. Too bad, I was just starting to covet it myself! Turns out he put it on top of his car in the morning with some pens, and forgot it. He drove about 3 miles before it fell off his car top onto the highway median, which is amazing. I told him that maybe God had orchestrated this so that he could come to church on a Friday. He was stunned by this thought. He said he hadn’t even been to temple for a while (obviously he is Jewish). But I gave him a tract to read, he hung around and talked for while (especially to his neighbor/secretary) , and I think we planted a good seed in him.

Plus I had a new Blackberry for free for half a day.