The phone call came late at night. My dad answered. It was Joe. He was stranded in Maine. Out of gas. With no money.

Could my father come and rescue him?

Dad, who was intensely engaged those days in a journey of personal spiritual discovery, agreed. Joe was one of the Jesus People he had met at Charisma Coffeehouse. Christians should help fellow Christians. So he got dressed, went out to the car, and dutifully drove off to Maine in search of Joe.

But when he returned home hours later, dad was furious.

It seems that when Joe left work earlier that afternoon the Lord told him to turn left instead of right. Further down the street, the Lord said, “Turn right.” Then, “Take the northbound ramp on the expressway.” Turn-by-turn, the Lord told Joe which way to go until he ended up somewhere in southern Maine out of gas and out of money. Joe was just trying to follow the Lord.

Bumper Stickers: 'God is my co-pilot', 'My co-pilot has a map'

“Next time the Lord takes you on a trip,” my father wanted to say to Joe, “tell the Lord to bring a map – and gas money!”

What my father didn’t quite understand at the time is that the Lord was always telling us Jesus Freaks stuff.

Which is why I became a street and beach evangelist.

It was the summer between graduating from college and starting seminary. I was driving in the car one day listening to Christian radio when evangelist Clinton White made an appeal for volunteers to bring the gospel to the unsaved masses in New England. During the next commercial break the Lord spoke to me, “Butch (my nickname back in those days), remember how I told my disciples, ‘Go into all the world and make disciples of all people’…?”

“Yes, Jesus, I remember.”

“Well, GO!”

So I signed up for the job. Shortly after, I found myself traveling around New England in a red and white Ford Econoline van with a half-dozen other Jesus People evangelists. During daylight hours we went out to the beaches – Revere, Nahant, Cranes, Hampton, and others. Passing out a free “Jesus People Magazine” with giant headline saying, “The Jesus Revolution!”, we asked people, “Are you ready?” or “Do you know Him?” If they responded, “Ready for what?” or “Do I know WHO?” we saw it as God giving us an opening to start a conversation. “Thank you, Jesus,” we’d whisper under our breath and then proceed to proclaim the gospel which – after a dramatic prelude detailing all the “signs” of the imminent end of the world and second coming of Jesus –  was simply “the four spiritual laws:”

  1. God loves you and has a great plan for your life!
  2. BUT…man has sinned and become separated from God.
  3. God sent Jesus to be the bridge over the chasm of our sin and separation.
  4. If you believe and receive Jesus as your personal Lord and Savior, you will be reconnected to God and saved from God’s wrath which is coming soon, probably as early as today.

Few of these unwashed souls on the beach turned out to be easy pickings, jumping onto the salvation bandwagon without need for further convincing. Even our quotations of all the relevant scripture passages didn’t have much effect. Most just wanted to be left alone to sunbathe or splash in the ocean, even refusing the free paper. Others, though, had questions, or objections, or – even worse – arguments against our gospel.

I believe God loves us all no matter what we’ve done. You don’t really think that God rejects people who’ve never heard of Jesus do you? I’ve been a church member all my life so I’m taken care of, thank you very much! With all the hate and tragedy in the world, how can you even say there is a loving God? If you know so much about God then tell me why He took my 2-year old daughter? God is just a crutch for weak people. I don’t believe in God.

To be honest, I discovered there are many more questions out there than simplistic lists of answers. And when the questions people raised turned out to be bigger than our well-rehearsed Jesus People answers we resorted to the SUREFIRE ANSWER TO ALL OBJECTIONS: the threat of hell and spending an eternity in the torment of its inextinguishable fires.

But even hell’s destruction didn’t convince most of those who weren’t buying what we were selling, although we did manage to scare a few folks into God’s kingdom.

Eventually, though, those unwashed and unconvinced masses on the streets and beaches of New England provoked what was for me a new and very unsettling question:

Is the Gospel of Jesus Christ really a message that says, “Love me or I’ll destroy you!”?

How is that GOOD news?

And why would anyone want to believe in such a God?

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