The Faces of Mercy

< Previous | Back to Gallery | Next >

Terry Barber, founder of Saint Joseph Communications, the Catholic Resource Center, and Lighthouse Catholic Media. Among other things, he spoke of encountering a group of tough bikers at a waterfall while visiting the Grand Canyon with his family. "I have a question," he said to the bikers. "Yeah, dude, what do you want?" they said. "Can you gentlemen tell me what construction company built this Grand Canyon?" he asked them. "From Los Angeles or from Phoenix?" And they looked at me, and this is exactly what one of them said: "Dude, what are you smoking?" I said, "I'm not smoking anything, but would you gentlemen agree that God built this Grand Canyon for us?" They said, "Look, dude. God built the canyon for us. Whatever." And I said, "Gentlemen, let me ask you one more question. Do you think we should thank God for this beautiful canyon and this waterfall?" And they said, "All right. We'll thank God." And as we came down, I shook their hand. We introduced ourselves. We evangelized them. See the difference here is when you share the faith, you have to first establish a rapport. You can't condemn. You gotta be able to give people the Good News in a way that's palatable to them.