A couple of days our District Superintendent came to visit Dale and myself. It was a pastoral visit. He just stopped by to see us. During his visited he asked us a question “do you have cruddy buddies?” We knew what he was talking about—were we developing intentional relationships with non-believers outside the church. We smiled and told him about the guys who Dale works with at Radio Shack. In Dale’s eight years (five in NY and three here) he has had many chances to minister to friends and they have asked the hard questions back at Dale. Then we told him about the Army recruiters, which was funny since that morning I had dropped off cookies to them. Dale also told him about our friends Josh and Niki who live down in North Carolina. Most people like them would never walk in to a church like ours because they would feel like they would not fit in.

Although being a bi-vocational pastor is stressful at times, it does have its benefits. One of those is that you know what the lay people in your congregation go through every day. Another is the built in advantage of being able to minister to people, who might not want to be involved in a church – those who might feel uncomfortable or unwelcome in any church.

Not only that, Dale and I have always been intentional at building bridges to community people. Some of our favorite times here are going down to the local store/gas station and talk and joke around with them. Dale asked us on Sunday, do we have people that we are being intentional with – people that don’t know Christ, who need Him? So I ask the question of you tonight.