Reaching Across the Counter

This morning, I had an interesting conversation, but it’s what I over-heard afterward that has stuck with me.

Over the past year or so, when I’ve come into a local restaurant for breakfast, I’ve had occasional conversations with a certain employee.  At some point I realized she knew that I was a pastor, though I’d never talked about it.  I realized I had met her dad in another circle.  We had some common background.  So, we talked.  A smile and a nod most mornings, because she was busy.  But other times, a brief exchange.

I’ve watched her duties change and she’s moved up – looks like she’s a manager now.  This morning, she came from the back to say hello.  Ahead of the blueberry bagel that was still in the toaster, she told me that someone had suggested our church to her.  They had told her that she and her boyfriend should come because we have a younger crowd.  I said this is probably right.  She asked where we were located … I told her she’d be welcome.  That was it.

As I filled my mug at the self-serve coffee counter, now facing away from the cash register, I smiled and thought, “I sure hope she comes; that would be great to see her connect!”  Then, I heard the girl who was working the register – the one who had taken my order – say to this co-worker, “I haven’t been to church in forever.”

And that’s what I’ve been thinking about ever since.

I know something about this person now.  She doesn’t go to church and hasn’t in “forever.”  She can’t be 25 years old, so “forever” must be a good bit of her life, maybe all of her adult life.  I also know something about the conversation between her manager and me got her attention, even if briefly.  So, what do I do about it?

She’s not unlike many young adults in our area of the country:  de-churched.  Something about her experience of “church” failed to captivate her or turned her away.  And I want her to find something different, life-changing.  It’s so hard to know what to do in these forced relational situations.  Yes, she and I have been “friendly” (though she’s new, I’ve seen her a couple of times and we’ve joked and said hi and bye) but it’s nothing more than a forced friendly.  She’s paid to be nice, and at this point I have an agenda …

How can I reach across the counter and tell her that she needs to meet the Jesus who shows up most weeks in the midst of our community?  He’s what she needs and wants in the deepest way.  But if I tried to tell her that, she’d likely be pushed further away, and I’d be perverting our still-forming friendship.

So, I guess it will take time.  Maybe over the next year, maybe longer.  There will be opportunities to get to know her.  If I’m listening, she may share something of what’s important to her.  My agenda will fade away, and I’ll learn to like her for who she is.  I may gain a modicum of trust with her.

I wonder if she’s like a lot of people her age, and I’ll have to “prove” I’m not that kind of pastor.  Because she knows something about me now, too!