In the past six months I have gradually been shifting my office life around and now I have an office in my home and a downtown office in a space I call my studio.  Home is for the usual work of ministry and the studio is for special writing and music projects. I also have two desks in my home office, one at the usual desk height, and the other at counter height so that I can stand and work, doing a lot less slouching and hunching over the computer.

In the process of all this moving around, I came across a business card that I received about thirteen years ago.  I was flying through Houston to get to a training conference in Dallas.  On the way back to Richmond I would stop by Orlando for an oral defense of my doctoral dissertation at Reformed Theological Seminary.  So as I flew toward Houston, I had all my notes and my rough draft piled high on my tray table.

The gentleman next to me asked what I was doing and I filled him in.  I told him that I was in ministry and that I was engaged in starting new churches.  He asked, “You don’t think we have enough churches?”  I told him that it wasn’t about the number of churches but about the kinds of churches.  The churches that I plant, I explained, are meant to reach people who don’t go to church.

He said, “That doesn’t make sense to me.  That would be like opening a restaurant for people who don’t eat.”  Hmmmm . . . .

When I asked what he did he handed me the aforementioned business card.  On the front panel was what I learned was a print of a painting of three astronauts standing on the moon, a painting he had painted.  I opened the card and read:

Alan Bean – Apollo 12 and Skylab 3 Astronaut – Artist – the fourth human to set foot on the moon.

Here was one of the most accomplished men of our time and he was telling me that what I did made no sense to him.  The truth is, that’s exactly what we do when we go to make disciples – we open restaurants for people who don’t want to eat – we try to make disciples of people who don’t want to become disciples.  But, then, that’s the point.  Jesus came to seek and to save the lost and he sent us to make disciples of the lost that He will find.

There isn’t much we can do about putting people on the moon but we can help people get to heaven.  Go and make disciples!