Message from a Baptist Minister

Back in July, we received a little note in the mail from my MIL's minister. She goes to a large Baptist church ... spiritually, she is a UU. But she likes the people, and she wants to play in the bell choir. No bell choir in that town's UU church.

Back to the story.

Her minister sent us this: "Just a quick note to let you know that God has placed LW on our hearts down here and we lift her and you up in prayer often. Jesus Christ is your strength and healing."

Now, the theological message doesn't happen to be my flavor of brandy, but I'm impressed that he took the time to do this. I spoke to MIL, and he actually stopped her in church one day, asked for our address, and jotted it down.

Would your minister do this? And if not ... why not?

In an action that took maybe 2 minutes, this guy impressed us -- total strangers -- and got some major loyalty from his parishioner.

I think it's easy for us to "close the gates" around our congregations. To the person who stands up in Joys and Sorrows and says "my family member is having this happen ..." we will give our sympathy, perhaps even drop the church member a card. But to go the extra step and ask for the address of the person in question? And send a note?

Impressive. A lot of bang for the buck.