Tell Me Why

One spring, in the early 1980’s, the great American folk preacher and storyteller Tex Evans was to preach one Sunday at a Methodist church in Maryland. The special occasion was the tow hundredth anniversary of the day when Methodism’s apostle to America, Francis Asbury, crossed the nearby river on horseback to preach to the gathered townspeople and plant a new Methodist church. Before the service, several men strolled with Tex the fifty yards to the river that Asbury and his horse once crossed. One man reported, “The rains had been heavy that spring. The river was swollen and raging; it was perilous to cross it. Do you want us to tell you how Asbury and his horse came across the river?” Tex reflected and said, “No. I want you to tell me why he crossed it!”


The men could not tell him. They had no idea, no clue. Evans scrapped his planned address, scribbled some notes on a card, and in his sermon explained to the people what is in Christianity’s good news and in the experience of truth and power that would compel someone to bring the good news, at personal risk, to people. The pathology that Evans discovered in a church in Maryland was not an isolated problem. Most churches in North America and Europe, and many churches on all of the other continents, are afflicted with amnesia. They no longer remember who they are; they have forgotten their main business. As Paul Little once observed, “Most churches are not fishers of men; they are keepers of the aquarium!”

--George G. Hunter III in The Apostolic Congregation p 29