A Passion for Reaching People in Our Changing Culture

By David Powless

Salvation is taking place across the globe. Revivals have been breaking out on campuses such as Asbury University and Ohio State University. Many missions across the world are happily overwhelmed with the numbers coming to Jesus.

Ways of communicating the gospel continue to change with our changing culture. There are also more ways of sharing the gospel because of the internet than ever before.

We also have more ways of seeking pleasure, comfort, and entertainment. The result? Anxiety, depression, and suicide are at an all-time high. The solution is not more alcohol, Xanax, or high-gloss entertainment.

Although there are exceptions, most people still come to Jesus because of a need; usually a need to have the empty void inside filled. In our fast-changing culture, the solution is still Jesus. Most of you don’t have a platform to share your faith with large groups of people at one time, but you do have a story to tell. In our fast-changing culture, personal encounters with nonbelievers are still the most effective way to reach them.

Driving With Della

The story of Della is one of many encounters I experienced with hurting and empty people during my travels.

I taught high school in Ohio and coached the girls varsity basketball and track teams for three years before attending Asbury Theological Seminary outside Lexington, Kentucky. In the spring of my first year at Asbury, I decided to hitchhike to Toledo, Ohio, to watch my former girls track team run in a large regional track meet. My friend John agreed to hitchhike to Toledo with me.

Our plan was for the person sitting in the front seat to share his faith with the driver. The person sitting in the back was to pray. After getting a few rides around New Circle Road/Kentucky Route 4 in Lexington and arriving on Interstate 75, we began to hitchhike up I-75 to Toledo.

Within minutes, a black Firebird with a deep rumble sound pulled off to the side of the road. John and I picked up our backpack and sprinted to the car. We threw our backpack in the car’s back seat, and I climbed into the back seat with the pack. John climbed into the front.

“I prayed that John would be given wisdom so the conversation would lead to spiritual matters without John being aggressive or condemning.”

A woman named Della in her early 30s was driving this souped-up hot rod death trap. She was wearing short shorts with a cold can of beer placed between her legs. A number of tattoos lined her arms and legs.

She had a cigarette hanging from her lips, and the ashtray between the bucket seats overflowed with ashes. Under the driver’s seat was a brown bag with more “cold ones” (beer) that would soon replace the can of beer between her legs. The passenger side was so covered with liquor bottles and beer cans that John’s knees were nearly up to the top of the dashboard.

Della quickly put the car in drive, and we took off as if we were a getaway car running from the police. Within 30 seconds, we were traveling at an unsafe speed of 85 miles per hour.

Della informed us she was going to the north side of Georgetown, Kentucky, less than an hour away, and would be getting off at the Georgetown exit. That meant we had less than an hour with Della, if we lived through it!

As I sat in the back of this souped-up Firebird, I prayed that John would be given wisdom so the conversation would lead to spiritual matters without John being aggressive or condemning.

When the conversation finally came around to spiritual things, she blurted out, “I hate God! My mother was a Christian and suffered for two years with cancer before she died. I hate God, hate life, and want to die. Look at my arms! These marks on my arms are where I tried to kill myself. This is my third car in two years. The other two I drove off bridges to kill myself.”

As I looked at the speedometer and saw the speed to be 85 mph, I said to myself, “I hope it is not today.”

John was not prepared for the conversation he was now involved in. His face was becoming more and more flush, and Della was getting more and more angry.

Twenty minutes later, Della pulled off the expressway to purchase gas. When John and I climbed out of the car, I looked at John’s face and knew he needed a break from this volatile and toxic conversation. I said, “John, let’s switch places and let me sit in the front. I know what to say.” (I had no idea what to say!) One look at John’s face, and I could see he was relieved to change places.

After Della finished pumping gas, we all climbed back into the car. I was now in the front, and John was in back. We quickly reached 85 mph again, and the toxic talk from Della began again. It was obvious she was one angry and miserable person on her way to an early death.

As the conversation continued, God somehow turned the conversation back to spiritual things. Della continued in her angry voice, “God caused my mom to suffer for two years. I hate Him. How can you expect someone to trust a God like that?”

After a long pause in our conversation, I strangely found myself saying, “Della, where do you find your happiness?” There was another long pause, this time from Della. She replied, “Well, as you can see, I don’t really have any happiness. I just want to die.”

I responded, “Della, can I tell you where I get my happiness?” She said, “Sure.” (I had to make this quick since she was getting off the expressway in less than 10 minutes.)

I continued, “When I was in high school, I went to church a few times. At the end of one of the services, the pastor said, ‘You can have all your sins forgiven and be cleansed from all your past.’ I wanted that. I had crud in my heart, and I couldn’t get rid of it myself. The pastor continued, ‘You can have peace with God, and He can fill that void that is in your heart.’

“I wanted that peace too. I had this void that I tried filling with all the wrong stuff. The pastor began again, ‘You can have eternal life and spend eternity in heaven with Jesus.’ I certainly wanted that too. I had a fear of going to hell because of my sin, and I lacked that peace inside that could fill my void. Della, I just kept putting Him off. I didn’t commit my life to Jesus that day, but it wasn’t long before I said to myself, ‘I have seen what I can do, and I am not all that impressed. Now I want to see what God can do with my life.’

“One day in my college dorm room, I knelt beside my bed, and I asked Jesus into my life. When I did it, He forgave me of all my sin and filled the void that I had been carrying all those years with His peace. So today I can say that my happiness comes from my relationship with Jesus.”

Della replied, “I hate God. Look what He did to my mother!”

For the next six minutes, Della went back into her toxic and angry discourse. Then I looked up and saw the sign on the expressway, “Georgetown 2 miles.”

I found myself being prompted by the Holy Spirit to say, “Della, you have a right to be angry with God. Your mother did suffer, and it was horribly painful for you. It was unfair. You can stay angry with God for the rest of your life if you want. Or you can find peace and happiness where I found mine, in a relationship with Jesus Christ.”

As I finished my words, Della turned onto the exit ramp for Georgetown. She coasted to the end of the ramp and pulled onto the gravel, right in front of the stop sign. My throat was dry, and my heart was pumping so fast it felt like it was going to burst out of my chest. I took a long breath and spoke these words, “Della, would you like to ask Jesus into your heart?”

Her eyes became moist, and small tears began to roll down her cheeks. This hard, worldly, angry, and suicidal woman said to me, “Yes.” She then repeated after me a simple sinner’s prayer.

“She laughed as the tears kept running down her cheeks.”

After praying a salvation prayer, Della did one of the most unusual things I have ever seen in my life. She began to cry … and laugh at the same time. Tears of joy and laughter came from her newfound happiness. She rolled down her window, took the beer that was between her legs, and threw it out the window and over the top of the car into the weeds. She then took each of the cans under her seat from the brown bag and did the same thing. She laughed as the tears kept running down her cheeks. She gave us her address and how to contact her, and we said our goodbyes — never to see her again.

Following Up

When we returned to campus, I contacted two female college students who attended the University of Kentucky. These two committed followers of Jesus lived near Della and would be contacting Della to follow up on her decision to follow Jesus.

Two months later, I received a letter from them. The letter was handwritten and only a couple paragraphs long. The most important content of the letter for me was this: “We meet every week with Della for a Thursday night Bible study, and she attends church with us every Sunday. Della is doing well.”

The Dellas of the world are why I hitchhiked. There are more like her out there.

After serving as a high school chemistry teacher and coach, David Powless attended Asbury Theological Seminary. He then served as a full-time pastor in the Free Methodist Church for more than 33 years. Throughout his college and graduate years, he hitchhiked over 113,000 miles. His travels took him south to Mexico, north to the Arctic Circle, and east to Prince Edward Island. Powless shares in his new book, “The Incredible Journey: A Hitchhiker’s 113,000 Odyssey,” his experiences that ranged from heartwarming to downright bizarre, proving that the adventure was often found in people rather than destinations.