In response to The Daily Post’s writing prompt: “Race the Clock.”

So the daily post has given us this assignment today…

Here’s the title of your post: “An Offer I Couldn’t Refuse.”

Set a timer for ten minutes, and write it. Go!

Several years ago I was asked to come and sing for a group of people at a local visiting nurses dayhab unit. I went and sang.

They liked me and so they invited me back. They liked me the second time and so they asked me if I would begin coming once a month. I agreed and went to sing hymns on a monthly basis and did this for two years.

Over the course of those two years my schedule began to fill out exponentially. It was becoming harder and harder to keep the commitment to my monthly hymn-sing at the VNA and so I approached God about it.

“God you know how busy I am.” I complained, “This hymn-sing is nice but I am not seeing any real fruit from it and I just can’t justify continuing when there are so many other more productive pursuits I could be involved in. God I am going to quit after this next concert. But if you want me to stay you will have to do something to make me stay.”

I went to the concert, set up my piano and sang my heart out feeling fully liberated that at the end of the day I would be handing in my walking papers.

We were about three-quarters of the way through my set when suddenly one of the elderly ladies in the room stopped the concert and asked, “Hey you are a pastor right?”

“Yes I am. ” I replied (they had been calling me Pastor J since day one but God chose this day to make it all sink in).

“You know most of us in this room don’t get to go to church anymore.” She said. “Would it be possible for you to bring us communion?”

The activities director blanched a little. But I had to ask, “Is that possible?”

I fully expected an unequivocal “No!”

What I got from her was a, “Let’s vote.”

The vote was taken and everybody wanted communion.

It was an offer I could not refuse. I had my next marching orders from God. Today I have a team of three which brings communion to 35 individuals at this venue. We started another off-campus service with another team two towns away and last month two of us started bringing music to a third day program two miles up the road from the VNA where it all started.

You never know where fruit from ministry is going to pop up!