Popping Gum in Church!!

Yesterday I was talking to a friend and was reminded of the time I got caught popping gum in church. Wait, wait, wait, before you say I deserve whatever punishment I received for disrespecting the House of the Lord, please read this entire post then answer the question, who was more disrespectful in God's eyes? 

Back in the mid 90's, I lived on the south side of Chicago in a neighborhood where the guys sold drugs and ganged banged as a way to survive. In my opinion, many of these guys were truly "good" people but simply didn't know any other way. After talking to them I found that many of them wanted to live life differently and wanted to change but just needed help doing so.

I started praying over the neighborhood in the mornings before everyone came out. Then one day one of the guys asked me a question about God (I don't remember what he asked me), but after I answered the question I prayed with him the Prayer of Salvation, and right their on my front porch that guy gave his life to God. The next day, a girl who was known in the neighborhood as a Jezabel to say the least, came to me and asked me a question about God. Again, I answered the question and then prayed with her and she received Christ. This started to happen several times a week. I would literally have 4 or 5 people ringing my doorbell asking me to led them to Christ. After about a month or so of this, we decided that they needed to be baptised. My church was having a revival in which they were gonna do a mass baptisimal of all the people who had accepted Christ in the past month. I invited the neighborhood converts to this event and they accepted my invitation. The were very excited about it, too.

The morning of the revival, I had everyone meet at my house so that we could all leave together. Boy was it a sight to see when they begin to show up to my home. They came in cars with rims, cars with loud music, putt-putts, and SUV's. As we pulled off and headed toward the church, I looked out the rear-view mirror at the processional of new converts on fire for God but still being themselves.

When we got to the church I noticed that my new friends were walking very close to me and wouldn't leave my side. This was uncharted terrioritory for them and they felt very out of place. One told me, "this place looks so rich. I should have worn something else today." I could tell that they were uncomfortable so I tried to bring the attention back the fact that in a few minutes they would be taken "to the water to be baptisted".

After we got settled in a bit, we needed to use the bathroom. Since the revival was outside, we had to go around the building through the front door to use the restrooms near the main sancutary. As we were walking down the hallway, I heard a man say in a sturn voice, "young lady what are doing"? It was one of the deacons of the church. I replied, "oh, we're all going to the bathroom". He said, "did I just hear you pop gum in the House of the Lord"? At that moment, all eyes suddenly focused on mouth. I immediately took the gum out, apologized, and explained that I normally would have been more cognizant of not chewing gum in church but since we were at the event outside I had forgotten. He went on stress the fact that I was disrespectful and needed to repent and reevaluate my relationship with God. One of the guys I brought to church said, "wow all this over a piece of gum"? After another minute of condemnation and scolding, the deacon left us standing there feeling like two year olds who had just gotten in trouble by daddy. We went on to the restroom and later the crew was baptised.

The next day one of the guys came to my house and said that he would not be going back to church with me. He said that the church was just as judgemental and hippocritical as he expected it to be. He said the man stopping us in the hallway about the gum was the last straw for him. He never came back to my church or rang the door bell for prayer. Many of the other guys said something similar and out of all those guys, only about 3 continued to go to church and change their lives.

Now some may argue that the guys that went back to the old ways were gonna do that anyway. I would agree with that hypothesis. However, I do believe that the encounter with the deacon helped push their decision. I mean think about it for a second. Why didn't this deacon notice that I was standing there with a group of thuggish guys that clearly did not regularly attend our church? Why didn't he ask me who these guys were and how they came to our church that day? Why didn't he ask if we knew Christ and wanted to be saved? I guess we'll never know the answers to those questions.

The deacon said that I was being disrespectful to God's house by popping gum in it. I wonder what would Jesus have said. Would he agree with that statement? Would he have overlooked the obvious new comers and sent them away feeling ashamed? Or would he have said something about the gum but  then opened his heart to the new souls that were in front of him and welcomed them with open arms? Again, that's a question we'll never truly know the answer to.