My first post-college abode was a house divided into three apartments: I occupied the upper level, another guy about my age lived right below me, and Don Brown lived in an apartment jutting off the main porch.

Don was an angry, bitter, disagreeable fellow. I met him one night as I returned from a church meeting. He stood at his screen door grousing about something–either about me or the landlord, I don’t remember which–as I approached the door to the upstairs.

“What did you say?” I asked with good humor, walking to his screen door. He repeated it. Whatever it was. I joked back, and it disarmed him. He calmed down a bit–just a bit–and I asked him if I could come inside and chat. He hesitated about that, but relented with a gruff “Sure.” Or something like that. It was 27 years ago. He opened the door, and I found a place on the couch while he settled into a recliner. He wore white shorts, probably boxers, but nothing else. No shirt, no socks. I remember his skin being very white and pale.

We talked. Don asked what my Dad did. I told him he was a pastor. “That’s a great racket,” he said sarcastically, trying to tick me off. Throughout that visit, Don tried to tick me off. But I just joked with him, and eventually, he was smiling as part of our banter. It was some of the best relationship-building I’ve ever done.

I was intentionally trying to be a witness. At the time I was involved with Evangelism Explosion, so I knew what I was doing. Eventually, I hoped to lay out the gospel message for him and give him a chance to respond. But first, some cultivating was needed. So he became my “project.” Today’s postmodern and emergent writers mock the idea of making someone an evangelistic project. Well, jolly good for them.

I returned another time. Don welcomed me in, but our conversation went pretty much as before. Don was a retired railroad engineer, divorced, alone, very bitter, and not in good health. He was mad about everything. He was also very smart. Not senile. Just a grumpy old man who made a formidable sparring partner. And I think he came to like me. Appreciate me, even.

Then he moved. One day his apartment was empty, and it made me frantic. I hadn’t gotten very far, hadn’t presented the gospel to him. I had been nice, but hadn’t told him why I was nice; for all he knew, I could be a Mormon. But somehow–I don’t remember how–I learned where he had moved, the upstairs of a house about a mile away.

One night I went to visit him. He was surprised to see me, but invited me right in, and we talked for a while. I probably witnessed in some simple way, but was mostly still cultivating. I was just an immature jerk a couple of years removed from college, 23 years old, yet my interaction with Don was tempered and wise, far beyond my years. Don’t know what got into me.

Life zips along way too fast. I didn’t go back for a long time. I thought about doing so, but I didn’t. Soon. I told myself. And then one day, I saw Don’s obituary in the newspaper. I cut it out and placed it on the credenza in my office. It was a reminder of my failure. A reminder that I hadn’t done enough. That because I didn’t go back, because I never presented the gospel, Don was in hell. I genuinely felt this way.

I kept that newspaper clipping in my office for probably 15 years. It always made me feel guilty. We evangelicals are taught to feel guilty–that we’re unworthy, we never do quite enough, we fall short, there’s always more we can do. But at some point I tossed the clipping, having evidently concluded that the statute of eternal limitations had expired.

At the Church Media conference Pam and I attended last June, one speaker, Paul Clifford, told about doing man-on-the-street interviews with people in his city to craft a video to use in a message. One fellow they approached was a Wiccan. They struck up a conversation, and the guy gave some comments on film.

Paul said, “We didn’t do anything. All we did was be nice to him.” But the result of being nice was that this young man began giving Christianity a second look, and on his own, he accepted Christ into his life. Then he led his brother to the Lord. And then both of them were killed in a car crash. Two souls now in heaven, all because they were nice.

I was nice to Don Brown. I regrettably didn’t get any further than being nice. But maybe nice was enough. Maybe Don gave Christianity a second look. Maybe I made some huge influence that I never saw. I definitely felt led by God to visit Don. I was obedient. That’s a good thing.

I’ve always viewed that as a failure. But now I’m thinking that’s hogwash. I should view it as a success. The Holy Spirit prompted me to do something, and I did it. I tried to befriend a guy the rest of the world couldn’t stand to be around. God knew how the story would end. He valued my role, but wasn’t limited by it. And maybe, just maybe, Don’s waiting up there in heaven for me. Wouldn’t that be something.

Now I’d like to get that clipping back. But this time, I would hang it on the wall as a success story. As something I did right. Lord knows I need more of those.

For many years now, “worship” has been the in thing in churchdom, the thing we do which is supposed to be paramount, more important than anything else. Evangelism, obedience, faithfulness, discipleship, missions, spiritual gifts–they had their day. But today’s United States church says it’s all about worship.

I confess that I’m totally confused when it comes to worship. I’ve heard so many definitions and general proclamations about worship, with so many contradictions and inconsistencies, that I’ve given up. I think I helped craft one definition, as part of a music team exercise, along the line of, “Worship is giving all of myself to an infinite God.” Or something like that (am I close, Chris?). It was profound, as everything about worship must be.

We hear that worship isn’t what we do on Sunday morning, but how we live throughout the week. That worship is a lifestyle. I’ve heard that everything we do is an act of worship. That we worship by teaching Sunday school, by eating right, by driving within the speed limit. That world missions is, in fact, an act of worship (rather than an act of obedience to the Great Commission, which I was errantly taught as a kid by non-worship-minded adults). When I send my wife flowers or do the dishes or get to work on time–more acts of worship.

But then, we do some kind of elevated worship on Sunday, when we hold worship services. But what part of the morning is worship? When people say, “I really worshipped this morning,” they’re usually talking about the songs. Nobody says, “I really worshipped in listening to that sermon,” or when the offering was taken, or during announcements.

As a worship team, we lead the congregation in worship. But if it’s a lifestyle, and not something we do on Sunday morning, then what exactly is our role? If what we do inspires positive emotion, people will say it was good worship. If the pastor gives a knock-em-dead sermon, people will say it was a great sermon, not a great act of worship.

I read today someone’s thought that, “Quite often worship is simply a baptized version of our culture. In our worship we simply mirror what is all around us–worship of self.” Wow, there’s something to think about. But that person is confining worship to what happens in worship services.

Our new Christian rock stars are worship leaders like Matt Redman, Chris Tomlin, Darlene Zschech, and Tommy Walker. Instead of going to hear them “in concert,” we go to hear them conduct musical worship. During my childhood years we had fulltime evangelists, and they emphasized that winning the lost is more important than anything else we do. Well, few fulltime evangelists are still around; it’s just not a marketable skill, I guess. But we do have thousands of worship leaders who tell us that worship is, of course, more important than anything else we do. Since I’m a Communications Director, I’d like to tell people that nothing is more important than communicating clearly, but you can’t pack an auditorium with that message.

So anyway, I’m confused, and I’ve been blissfully confused for many years now. And I wonder how many other people share my confusion, but don’t want to admit it and thereby show themselves to be spiritually unenlightened. When I hear new definitions or profound pronouncements about worship, I just nod my head with severe understanding and privately look forward to the day when some other Christian concept becomes in vogue, something that people can explain with a little more consensus and less starry-eyed abstract prose.

To me, it’s not all about worship. It’s all about obedience and faithfulness. Those are concepts I can wrap my mind around. Is God pleased with what happens at my church on Sunday morning? If he’s pleased, then I’m pleased, and I don’t get my shorts bunched up about whether or not worship occurred.

(This is what happens when I’m snowed in.)