Yesterday, while riding the lift at Eldora, I had an interesting conversation with a guy who, like me, was up snowboarding alone.

He was from Boulder, probably in his late 20’s or early 30’s, and works in some area of the tech industry.

He was very interested when he found out I was a pastor, because he said he’d always been interested in what goes on in churches, but had never been to church himself.  Here’s how our conversation went:

• “Wow, you’re a pastor?!  Like in a church?”
  • “Yeah”
• “So, what do you do there?”
  • “I teach the Bible and counsel people and lead the church as an organization in all the endeavors we are involved in.”
• “Do you like emcee the shows and stuff?”
  • “You mean the church services?  Yes, I lead the worship services.”
• “So you’re kinda like an emcee!  That’s dope!”
• “Wait, so you’re married?  (I had mentioned my wife and kids to him)
  • “Yeah, I’m married”
• “I thought priests couldn’t get married”
  • “Well, that’s a rule in the Catholic church – but we’re not Catholic. In fact, even in the Catholic church, they only introduced that rule a couple hundred years after Jesus lived and established the church, so most Christians don’t follow that rule, and most pastors get married.”
• “Wow. I always thought that would be a pretty dope job, but the one downside is that you couldn’t have girls. But, you know, if you can have girls, then that’s like the dopest job ever!”
  • “Well, I mean, as a pastor, you can’t just go around having lots of girls – you can have a wife and a family, but it has to be monogamous.”
    • “Yeah, but same thing – you get to have a girl. That’s dope!”

About this time the lift reached the top of the mountain – and I encouraged him that he should really check out a church sometime for himself, and that he ought to give some consideration to who Jesus was and what he taught. After that, we bid each other farewell and got off the lift, and went separate ways. Who knows if we’ll ever meet again.

It did surprise me though, how little this man knew about church and about Jesus. It served as a reminder that we live in a post-Christendom society. Boulder has long been considered a trend-setting, cultural hub for Colorado and the Western United States. That means that as Christians, increasingly we can no longer expect that most people in our society have a basic understanding of Christian doctrine and practice, and know who Jesus was and what God requires of them. More and more people in our society are growing up without that, and we as Christians need to be prepared to present Jesus and the message of the Gospel to people without the assumption that they have some basic background understanding of Christianity – because more and more do not.