Make them want you to stay

January 16, 2007

By Gary Rogers

Patna, India, is using door-to-door eunuchs to collect back taxes. In India the term “eunuch” describes transvestites and transsexuals. These people dance at weddings and different gatherings making themselves obnoxious, refusing to leave until given money. A capital city in eastern India has hired a number of these people to compel shop owners to pay their back taxes.

In one city tax records show that only 2,000 of the nearly half-million people have been paying property tax. On their first day at work the eunuchs collected about $9,000 in back taxes. Their persuasive skills and obnoxious behavior caused shop owners to quickly pay their taxes to get rid of the collectors.

These eunuchs desire to be viewed as repulsive. The response they are after is for people to want to get rid of them. It is their motivation to be met with rejection and for people to want them to leave. How sad!

This makes me evaluate what I do. One of my desires as a minister is to be a person people want to be around. I never want to talk too much. I never want people to be ashamed of me. I never want to be a source of embarrassment. When I leave, I want people to say, “I wish he would have stayed a little longer.” Not, “I wish he would have left earlier.”

The other day as I drove up to our house, two little girls who live nearby came running toward me shouting, “Pastor Gary!” After parking the car we talked for a short time about their day. When I was alone I said, “Thank You, Lord, for the favor You’ve given me.” It is so important to me that those little girls would want to run over to my house to just say “Hi.”

We should all evaluate how we represent Jesus. Do we work at being a person others want to be around? Do we try to not talk too much? Is it our desire to so represent Jesus that He would never be ashamed of us? I don’t believe Christians can win the lost by being obnoxious for Jesus. I believe we should be the kindest, most loving, caring and generous people around.

Jesus had the same idea: “By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another” (John 13:35).

Gary Rogers is senior pastor of First Assembly of God in Coweta, Okla.