I have a friend who wishes to remain anonymous when it comes to my writing.
So when Mitch Wesley had the incredible misfortion to attend both college and seminary with me he waivered his rights to anonymity. He can actually vouch that this story is mostly true.
We were in seminary and I recall that we were pretty far along when we had to take a class on world missions which we would have avoided like the plague because of the boredom of the subject matter. But the Baptist require such things so there we sat.
I should confess before I go further than I was a founding member of the subversive group B.A.T. or Baptist as Terrorists.
We once found ourselves alone in the Billy Graham museum in the library where there was a mannequin of Billy dressed in a suit with his hand sticking out like he wanted to shake yours. He had been stuck like this for a long time and there was a film of dust on his suit and hand. So the Spirit called some of the members of B.A.T. to reposition him so that his backside would be to the crowd and a moon could descend on the museum. It must not have been the Spirit afterall who led them to do this because who knew? Mannequins come apart. Billy was left scattered about the museum.
But I digress.
The assignment in missions class was to develop a visual presentation of missions in action.
Talk about boring! I don't recall what I did or what Mitch did that day (though I did take a rum and coke to class) but we both vividly recall this presentation.
The room was darkened. A voice came across the speaker. "There are lost people in this world. Very lost people."
And there was an image of Ronald McDonald standing in front of a McDonalds. It was a life size statue and his white face was smiling and his white gloved hand was waiving.
The class giggled.
"But then good Christian missionaries appeared to bring salvation to these lost people," the voice continued.
An image of two black robed missionaries holding big black Scoffield reference Bibles appeared.
They were preaching at Ronald, meaning they were screaming at him and pointing fingers and casting stones.
"And the lost hear the message of salvation."
A close up of Ronald's face appeared and tears were streaming down it. His mascara was running down his white powdered face.
We were hallowing!
"Then," the voice continued, "sometimes the lost become the vehicle of salvation themselves!"
And there was Ronald, with a Bible ducked taped to his waving hand bringing the message salvation to all lovers of Big Macs, Quarter Pounders with Cheese, and Chicken Mcnuggets!
"And that is how the world is saved. One Ronald at a time," the narrator concluded.
We burst into applause though the professor just leaned down and pulled up his falling socks.
And to think. I paid a lot of money to learn stuff like this in seminary.
