Originally posted 09-10-2009.  Reposted 08-03-2010

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Today I want to tell you about Vince.  Vince was a married father of three girls who sold parts at a car dealership.  He became a Christian at my church in Santa Fe and his life was radically changed.

It was important to Vince to play pool with his buddies on Monday nights at a local bar. Pool was important to Vince because he was really good at it.  He and his friends would take a team to a state wide tournament each year and one year they won first place!  Although he loved pool his wife wanted him to stop hanging out at the bar because it didn’t seem very “Christian” of him.

He asked me what to do and I said, “Make your pool team your ministry.  Become the designated driver on Mondays and don’t drink at all.  Tell your friends you want to make sure they are safe and that you are going to stop drinking so you can drive them all home on Mondays.”  He did it and his friends were dumbfounded but grateful.

I’d like to say that all of Vince’s friends also became followers of Christ, but I don’t really know how it turned out.  Here’s what I do know:  Vince made a huge impact.  He lived a different life in front of his friends.  He became the lead servant of their group and it left a mark.

How do I know this?  Because, sadly, Vince lost a short battle with Pancreatic cancer at age 42 and I had the privilege of speaking at his funeral.  He died a couple months after I moved from Santa Fe to Oklahoma City, and I traveled back for the funeral.  When I arrived I was amazed!  The parking lot was PACKED!

At the funeral Vince’s friends stood up and said things like, “Vince was one of the best guys I ever knew, but then he started doing the whole Church and Jesus thing.  After that he became even better.  Whatever he had was real.”  Person after person after person stood up and said almost the exact same thing.

When it was my turn to talk, I stood up in front of the crowd and with tears in my eyes realized that I was speaking to more people at this funeral than I had ever spoken to in the church I pastored there.  Vince’s relational evangelism had impacted more people in that city than my preaching ever could.  I cried and praised God for Vince’s life.