I picked up the book, IN THE LAND OF BELIEVERS, last week from our local library. The subtitle gives away the premise: “An Outsider’s Extraordinary Journey into the Heart of the Evangelical Church.” In other words, a non-practicing, Jewish coed decided to attend and become a member of, under cover, a large Virginia megachurch.
It reminds me of my favorite “over-hearing the gospel story.” An acquaintance of mine, several years ago, was serving as a campus minister at a Texas university. He became friends with a guy, who grew to be very interested in the gospel. They began meeting in the student’s dorm room to study the Bible together.
The student’s roommate got wind of this—and did not like it. He decided to sabotage the study. He began bringing his girlfriend over, and while the guys were trying to study, began a process of—how do I say this?—physical intimacy that led ultimately to consummation.
As I recall, this happened a couple times. The campus minister and the student would be studying. In would come the roommate with his girlfriend. They would greet the studiers; act normal while the studiers studied, the shift into a more expansive, mutually, interactive process. At this point, the studiers would leave. After a couple of episodes like that, the studiers shifted their study somewhere else.
The interesting thing is, the student studying with the campus minister never became a Christian. The roommate and the girlfriend ultimately obeyed the gospel and became upstanding members of the campus minister’s congregation. As a matter of fact, she became the church secretary.
You never know what might happen when people overhear the gospel.
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