John appeared in June, almost by accident. He’d been wandering through town when he bumped into a mate and asked where he was heading. The answer was church. His friend had been invited by another student from the church community, and John, on a bit of a whim, asked if he could come along too.
He arrived with no expectations, but seemed to enjoy himself. He even turned up at a student night shortly afterwards. But then silence. Our invitations to dinner and for coffee were left on delivered. As summer arrived, we resigned ourselves to the quiet assumption that, as quickly as he had drifted in, John had drifted back out.
September arrived. We returned after the holidays, and on that first Sunday back, in walked John - new haircut, quiet smile. We almost didn’t recognise him.
That Sunday we began a new series through John’s Gospel. Something about hearing ‘the word became flesh’ captivated John. He told us he’d never thought that Jesus might have been a flesh-and-blood person; he’d only ever seen him in stained glass windows. To him, Jesus was two dimensional. After that service, he said “I’m so glad I get to find out about Jesus now”. He met up with someone for coffee and chatted through some of his questions - and each week he came back, hungry for more.
A few Sundays later, when we asked how his week had been, he shrugged and said, “Yeah, pretty good. I believe in Jesus now.”
Turns out, he’d been reading the Bible on his way to lectures. He’d been praying on his walks home from uni. The next week, we’d made it to John 3, and the talk was about being born of the Spirit. John walked over during worship and said, “I think I’d like to get baptised.”
And so, at the start of November, we lowered him into the water and raised him into a new chapter of life. Today he’s a key member of his missional small group and has just started a regular one-to-one discipling relationship. He’s figuring out how to walk with Jesus and it’s beautiful to watch.
I realised we’d given up on John. But God never did.
