You know you’ve been to Vegas too many times when you start to tell a story about Vegas and you don’t remember which time it was that you were there…

Not last time or the time before that or, I think, even the time before that, we were in Vegas. Stacey, Dan, Mike and I were exchanging hopes for the trip. I told them in a loud voice, “I want to go to The Gospel Brunch at Mandalay.” I heard mumbling from Dan and Stacey. Mike overheard them and laughed. “What? What did you say?” Stacey smiled at me. “Dan asked what The Gospel Brunch was.” Mike laughed again and I pressed her. “What did you say?” She smiled and said, “You’re trying to eat breakfast and people sing in your face about Jesus.”

They laughed again and I sniffed. “It sounded fun to me.” I thought of all that good gospel music that I wasn’t going to hear. I thought of all that halleluiahing that I was going to miss. I imagined people sitting at their tables, holding their hands up to the singers to “feel” Jesus and realized that my cohorts probably wouldn’t be able to enjoy it on the guttural level like I could. The Gospel Brunch sounded fun to me.

The Gospel Brunch came to my mind when I read Michael Main’s weblog. He just wrote an entry about Subway Evangelism that made my skin crawl.

The Main Point – Subway to Heaven by Michael Main

I read Michael’s site because he’s a good writer. He’s a Christian in the best of ways. Just a couple of days ago, he wrote a wonderful article about the best sort of ministry (God and Guts) that made me nod my head at his wisdom. Then, just a week later, he writes an entry highlighting a bunch of Jesus Freaks that start a ruckus on the subway (imagine a fake fainting spell) and then preach the gospel. I was going to go into the comments and express my opinion angrily, but it looks like his other readers beat me to it. He was even nice enough to explain that he had posted it because he thought it was ironic that they would start out their ministry with deception. So, I’m not angry with him.

In the end, all I can do is sit here. Stewing about Jesus Freaks isn’t joyful, so all I’m left with is how I imagine Stacey would evaluate their ministry: “You’re trying to get to work and people sing in your face about Jesus…”