Yes, it's true! On my way to church Sunday I passed this car wash that even offers a dog wash.
Now you may be asking yourself,"Won't the inside of my car get wet when I roll the window down so Duke can get his wash too?"
No, silly. What they have is a self service area inside with tubs and hoses to bathe our smelly dogs.
Today most businesses are finding unique and creative ways to attract customers.
One of the things I love about the Madea movies is her creative style of addressing the gospel. Here she is trying to reach a troubled teen in I Can Do Bad All By Myself:
"Now a storm rose up and Peter was frightened and Jesus called him to come out of the boat. As Peter began walking on the water he became distracted by Jonah riding by on Free Willey and so he started to sink. Now if Peter would've kept his eyes on Jesus he'd be walking on water. So when Peter started to sink he cried out,'Jesus, Jesus, help me!' And Jesus said,' I can't. I'm on my way to Canaan and then to the cross. But don't worry, I'm going to send you a comforter to help you in your time of need.' And so Peter kept swimming and swimming and then Jaws swam by and all these other Steven Spielberg sharks. And then, just in the nick of time, Noah and the St.Louis Arch came by to rescue him."
The point Madea was driving at was we can get easily distracted at times with the things of the flesh, lose our focus on God and then begin to sink away from Him. But when we call on God, He is there to rescue us. And He does give us a comforter, the Holy Spirit, to help us in our time of need.
One of the first thing I learned in Chaplaincy training was that care comes before evangelism.
This is a practice I think all Christians should follow. Instead of wanting to hammer others with the Bible we need to show love first. And then maybe find our own little creative way of giving them the gospel.
In the Indie drama Stolen Summer an 8 year old Irish-Catholic boy named Peter O'Malley goes on a quest to convert Jewish people to Christianity and get them into heaven. This in part due to the Nuns in the school who tell Peter he is a bad kid and is going to hell if he doesn't change his attitude and ways. So Peter decides to spend his summer proving otherwise.
Peter befriends a Jewish Rabbi at the neighborhood temple and tells him of his quest. The Rabbi lets Peter set up a lemonade stand in front of the temple:Free lemonade-Free trip to heaven. Peter doesn't get much business at his stand, which is a good thing, because he suddenly realizes he doesn't know how to convert someone.
Peter then makes friends with the Rabbi's son Danny, who is in remission with Leukemia. Peter O'Malley thinks he is the perfect subject to convert and get him into heaven and accomplish his summer mission.
Danny is okay with converting and so Peter creates a decathalon as his method of converting.
This decathalon consists of everything from: skipping pebbles, hurdling over people lying at the beach, hurling a rock as far as you can, to swimming out to a boughie in Lake Michigan.
Danny has passed all the tests except for the last one, the swimming part. He's tried it several times with no success. Then one day Danny visits the doctor for a checkup and receives bad news. He goes out on his own one day and finally succeeds the final test to get into heaven. A couple days later he falls ill again and passes away without sharing with Peter that he passed the test. Danny's father, the Rabbi, gives the heart breaking news to Peter along with the news that Danny swam out to the boughie and completed the final hurdle of their decathalon.
Now we all know it takes more than just passing a few tests to make it into heaven. When Peter asks his own priest how do you know if someone made it into heaven, his answer was simple: faith.
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