I have an odd collection of rocks on the bookshelf in my office. Among the collection are a jagged chunk of concrete, two broken bricks, three red cylinders cut from a brick wall, and a large cement cylinder cut out of a floor.

The first of the collection is the large cement cylinder. It stands about 4 inches tall. The sides are smooth from the blade that cut it. The smooth sides reveal the rock and rebar that were once part of the first floor of Roberts Hall, a men’s dormitory on the Rome, GA campus of Shorter University. During my sophomore year of college, the building was being wired for a new campus phone system and computer network. To provide access to each floor for the needed wiring, holes were drilled through the concrete floors. The new phone system was rendering the payphones on each floor obsolete, so their closets made convenient spaces through which to run the new wiring. The payphone closet was adjacent to the place at the end of the hallway, where I would often go late at night to read scripture and pray. The circular coring blade that cut through the concrete produced smooth-sided cement cylinders that the workmen left on the floor when they finished. One night, as I was reading scripture and praying, I noticed the forsaken remnants of the previous day’s work and decided to take one piece to be a reminder of how the Lord had been so gracious in those days and at that spot to draw me to Himself. It became a treasured reminder to me of God’s grace to convict me of sin and to deepen my obedience to His word.

It must have been sometime in the mid-1980s when I experienced both the thrill of unrestrained excess and the brutal consequences that followed, all in the span of an hour. It took place at a wedding reception in our church fellowship hall. These were the days when most couples had their wedding receptions at the church fellowship hall, and whole families were invited to attend. If you are unfamiliar with this cultural era, let me briefly describe the setting. The wedding ceremony would take place in the church sanctuary. Following the service, the wedding party and the guests would walk over to the church fellowship hall. This could be anything from a building finely appointed and decorated on the level of the sanctuary or it could be a metal building normally used as a gym with strategically placed flowers to dress it up for the special occasion. The bride and groom would stand in a prominent place to greet each guest while everyone else enjoyed small sandwiches and other finger foods arranged on a long table in the center of the room. At one end of the table there would be a punch bowl and at the other end would be cake. All the guests would stand around with small plastic plates in hand, talking until it was time for the bride and groom to make their grand exit. Everyone would then line each side of the walkway leading out of the building, and as the couple passed between them, all would throw rice and shout congratulations!

These past few weeks have been deeply troubling for many in the Southern Baptist Convention as we witnessed some of the Executive Committee members and Executive Committee staff attempt to ignore the directive of the messengers and thwart an investigation into their handling of sexual abuse issues. It was ugly. It was frustrating. And it revealed a serious threat to the polity and stability of our Convention.

We are natural evangelists. We need no training or class. We are born knowing how to lead others to experience what we love. We are born with a natural desire to tell others about the good things we have discovered.