Last Sunday while I was sitting in church, the pastor was talking about how to be a fisher of men. How to draw others to Jesus and lead them to salvation. Pretty normal discussion to be had in church, I suppose. While I was sitting there, however, it hit me that in some ways, those who are GOP or part of the conservative/tea party movement could also be considered evangelists of sorts, spreading the word of limited government and personal responsibility to the masses.
The title of the sermon was "How to Land a Fish". We could title ours, "How to Land a Voter". He gives us in step one the instructions, find a pond. Find a pond? What does that mean? It means find a place to fish; not your usual circle of friends or Christians, but those who need desperately to hear the gospel. Again, same thing with us; find someone who needs to hear the conservative message.
Step two was to develop patience and perseverance.
The pastor was teaching from Mark 2:1-4. Here it is for your reference:
"A few days later, when Jesus again entered Capernaum, the people heard that he had come home. So many gathered that there was no room left, not even outside the door, and he preached the word to them. Some men came, bringing to him a paralytic, carried by four of them. Since the could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus and, after digging through it, lowered the mat the paralyzed man was lying on."
Picture it, a room so crowded with people that no one could get in. People standing shoulder to shoulder and even though they turned and saw the four men carrying the paralytic on their shoulders, they didn't move a muscle. Hold it right there. Now, imagine the crowded room is full of establishment Republicans. They're crowded in there like sardines and they're happy with their stagnant, stuffy ideals. They love BIG government and the idea that government knows better than the average joe. Hmph.
Then the tea party comes to the meeting. Heh. They've got a heavy load on their shoulders, too. What is that heavy load, you say? LIBERTY. FREEDOM. AMERICA. The tea party looks inside and sees there isn't any room being made for them. Do they give up? Nope, and neither did the men who came to get Jesus to heal the paralytic.
So what did those men do? They carried that heavy load, the paralyzed man up on the roof top and they started digging through. Yeah, they did. Then they lowered that man on his mat down in front of Jesus. Right in front of Him. "When Jesus saw their faith, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
The tea party did something similar. We weren't given an easy entrance to the party. We may have tried to shove our way through the crowd, elbowed a few folks out of the way and began to make a difference. Then with the heavy load of liberty and freedom on our shoulders, we climbed on the roof top. That wasn't enough, though. We started digging. We started phone banking and block walking, we started running people for office, We elected conservatives to the Senate, Congress and to the state house. We're not done yet, either.
Now, I realize that by all counts the moniker of 'tea party' is essentially done being used. I still, however, count myself as a small part of what I look back on as the tea party movement or contingent of the GOP. Did the tea party make a difference? I'd like to think so. Did the direction of the country go exactly the way we wanted? No. Does anything ever go according to plan? No. I know I'm personally willing to cut my losses and stay involved. Others may disagree, but that's the freedom that we all share. The freedom to continue to fight for principals and ideals, as well as the freedom to not.
The pastor also mentioned that fishing is dirty work. I think we can all agree that the work of maintaining liberty and freedom is dirty work, too. It's a dirty job, but someone's got to do it. Count me in, and I hope I can count you in, too!
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