I consider myself to be ecumenical in spirit, open to those with other expressions of faith, Christian and otherwise. From time to time I am reminded that I have a way to go yet.
Yesterday I met with someone about a project, and during the conversation he identified himself as a Pentecostal layperson. Immediately my guard crept up "just a tad." Although I have attended Pentecostal churches a number of times and worked willingly with Pentecostal pastors, I wondered where this would go since he knew I was a main-line church minister.
It turned out that he and his wife will soon go to Cuba and he had some questions about currency and clothing and outings. Along the way I mentioned that we took cotton fabric and sewing thread for a community project run by the seminary mentioned in a previous blog entry. He told me that his daughter, also Pentecostal, works and travels for one of the major airlines and that she had recently arranged for a large shipment of practical goods to be taken to an orphanage in India.
It was a great chat and we shook hands warmly at the conclusion. I was aware that he didn't fit a stereotype of a Pentecostal. Of course stereotypes are rarely fair or accurate.
None of us has cornered the market on following Christ or making our own efforts toward justice. Thank God.
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