The Boy in the Window

The Boy in the Window:  Eutychus in Phoenix (Acts 20:6-12)

A week ago I was in Phoenix.  Thursday evening a group of about 45 people gathered around the pool in the backyard of some friends.  I spoke about the Genesis account of the formation of Eve, the problem with the Greek view of time and our need to read the Bible in its own cultural context.  What I didn’t know was that we had a listener next door – the boy in the window.  A few days later Roderick Logan sent me this:

“I have a story for you. This comes by way of Angie and Mike who hosted the Thursday night event.

Living next door to Mike and Angie is a family whose son is 12 years old. Thursday night the mother found her son sitting in their upstairs bathroom with the window open. He was sitting there gazing out over their neighbor’s backyard – the Johnson’s. His mother thought this was a bit weird and inquired why he was eavesdropping on their neighbor’s party. The boy remarked that there was a man in Angie’s backyard talking about a man standing on the bank of a river of time, he was taking notes and recounted to his mother the story of a woman in the Bible named Rahab who was a prostitute. Later this boy told his family nearly all you had to say and it has started a conversation between the Johnson’s and their neighbors. It seems we had one more in attendance than we knew about. The boy in the window is the picture of the next 25 years – the next generation.”

And unlike Eutychus, he didn’t fall out of the window.

I share this story with you first because it is so precious.  You never know who’s listening.  Secondly, it demonstrates that the impact of face-to-face time is really the most important part of the community and the one piece that is so difficult.  So this story and the experience of that evening is my way of saying, “Let’s make more of this happen.”

A few day after this event, the readers in Dayton asked if I could come to Dayton for a weekend conference.  Now we have it scheduled – June 17 and 18.  If you live within the Dayton metro, contact David Salyer (salyerfam@mac.com) for information about attending.

Folks in Seattle are asking too.  That will probably be in the Fall.

I am now regularly participating with Glad Tiding Tabernacle in New York City.  I’ll be there on June 4 and 5, and from July 23 to 31 (with a lot of work on passions and zones).

Of course, I teach the Matthew class at the Winter Garden Methodist Church (Florida) whenever I am home on Sunday.

But this is just a slice of the larger community.  Would you like to have some face time where you live?  Then let’s figure out how to make that happen.  “Have Bible – Will Travel”