A few years ago I got to spend a week with a very high-powered crowd. All CEO types. From around the world. I was the only pastor.

The small group I was in treated me like a rare species of bird. Or skunk. 

None of them belonged to a church. One of them publicly berated me for wanting to “proselytize everyone.”

Before the week was up each person in my group had privately engaged me in a spiritual conversation. About a job. About a spouse. About her direction in life. 

I was not their pastor. But in that moment I became their pastor.

Everyone you meet is spiritual. Everyone has a spirit and that spirit needs feeding.

Everyone you meet carries around in them the image of their Creator. Everyone is only fully fulfilled when that spirit is reconnected with the Holy Spirit who breathed life into them.

That spirit will wander and search until it is reclaimed by the Spirit of Jesus.  

The haranguer who verbally attacked me showed up at my breakfast table on the last day. Turns out his daughter had been treated poorly by her congregation. I was guilty by association. 

In tears, he asked for forgiveness. In tears, I gladly gave it and then asked the same on behalf of the Church.

I wonder about him often. I trust my words about Jesus worked healing in his life. Especially between him and his Father in heaven.

Who’s your pastor who helps frame your life in Jesus? Who reminds you how loved you are? How eternally secure you are? 

For whom can you be such a pastor? 

Everyone needs one. Especially today.