Don't we have to scare people into heaven?

This is an interesting interview. It's Anne Lamott on the Stephen Colbert show. Colbert asks- in his usual ridiculous way- some pretty good questions, and Lamott gives some pretty good answers. It's worth thinking about. I have only one disagreement with what Lamott says, but I don't want to prejudice you. Take a look and lemme know what you think.

Never say never

I have a bad habit of saying I won't do something ever again. When I started The River, the list of things in the "I'll never do that again pile" got long. I took a look at all the things I didn't like about church and said "I'll never do that again" to just about all of them. And along the way in The River, we've tried some things that didn't work very well, so they too got tossed into the "I'll never do that again" pile. The ironic thing is that the "I'll never do that again" pile is almost empty, because just about everything I've put in it has come back out. I have, in fact, done almost all of them again. And I think the last one will be coming out soon.

When I started The River two and a half years ago, the only method I was taught for growing the church was to go 'door to door'. So I did. I knocked on 5,000 doors. The results were awful. Three families have come as a result, a total of six people. Not six families- six people. Since I hated it and it didn't work, I gladly put it in the "I'll never do that again" pile.

I found out last week that pastor I know went and visited a new church out in Braselton (near Chateau Elan). This pastor went door-to-door telling people about that church for six weeks. He got twenty families to come. Not twenty people- twenty families. It's a result that's hard to ignore, so he's going to come out here and do the same thing. He's going to do the door-to-door calling himself, but he's also going to take us along and teach us what he knows so we can do it too. So here I go again, about to do one more thing I'd put in the "I'll never do that again" pile.

Which raises an interesting question. What if I put "putting things in the 'I'll never do that again' pile" into the "I'll never do that again" pile? It's worth thinking about. Then again, I think God laughs with glee every time I put my foot down like that only to end up with it in my mouth. So maybe I won't. God needs a good laugh every now then too.