Part of being an elected official is attending community events and occasionally speaking when invited. I was given a ticket to the annual Municipal Prayer Breakfast for Skagit County, which was held on a weekday at the local Elks Club in the spring. I had no idea what a prayer breakfast was all about, but was assured by other politicians it was an event where I should put in an appearance. Begrudgingly, I attended, expecting I would slip out before the main speaker so I could go to the courthouse and prepare for a jury trial. It did not work out that way. The guest speaker was a vice-president of Ranier Bank in Seattle, and he spoke about his daughter, who dropped out of college and became a street person living in the University District of Seattle, estranged from her family. The man described the pain of being the father of a lost child. After a long period of living on the streets, the daughter came into contact with a street preacher who shared the love of Jesus, which turned her life around. The message touched my heart.
A week or so later, I was at my office in the courthouse when our receptionist announced by intercom that I had an unannounced visit from two men from the Municipal Prayer Breakfast. I told her to ask for their names and what they wanted. A few minutes later, she called back with their names and said they wanted to discuss the prayer breakfast. Uninvited visitors are not something a prosecutor encourages, but I also realized they were voters. I told the receptionist to bring them to my office and mention to them that I was preparing for a criminal trial, hoping they would get the point. The men said they were following up with elected officials who attended the breakfast and wanted to share a tract explaining the four spiritual laws. I was immediately on the defensive; these guys were sitting in an attorney’s office telling me about laws.
I listened to the explanation of the four spiritual laws, which reminded me of things I had heard at a Baptist Church in Yakima before I quit attending Sunday School. After a few minutes, I interrupted them, “Listen, I know this is about money,” I said. “You want me to attend your church so that my family will become financial contributors. We are currently looking at churches, so if you want us to visit your church sometime, I’m open to doing that. So, gentlemen, thanks for visiting,” I concluded. The men looked at each other and smiled, and then one of them said, “We don’t go to the same church, so this is not about inviting you to our church.” It turns out that Walt was a Catholic, and Lou was a Baptist. I was almost speechless, realizing I had judged their motives incorrectly and how unusual it was for a Catholic and Baptist to be making an evangelistic cold call on a nonbeliever.
I began to let down my defenses, explaining that I had last attended a Baptist church in grade school and was married in a Catholic church. We were looking for a place to take our daughter to learn spiritual values. They told me the solution was Bethany Covenant Church, which they said was filled with Baptists and Catholics.
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