I was raised as a Jehovah’s Witness, and I hated going door to door.
It wasn’t only because we did it in nearly every kind of Minnesota weather. Rain, sleet, snow, or hail, we were out there carrying those magazines.
More than anything, I hated trying to convince people to take them and join my religion. It always felt wrong to me, even as a child, long before I understood why.
From my understanding, the whole point of “going out in service” was supposed to be spreading hope, comfort, and understanding as Jesus Christ did—not peddling religion.
Then one day, a friend of mine went to pioneer school, a special training program for Jehovah’s Witnesses who committed themselves to spending a significant amount of time preaching. For one of her assignments, she had to go out using only her Bible so she could become more comfortable finding scriptures on the fly while talking to people.
I remember thinking that sounded so much better than being awkwardly rejected over and over while trying to hand people what was essentially junk mail.
So I started bringing only my Bible and the little notepad where I kept the names, addresses, and conversation notes for all my return visits.
Before long, my list started getting longer.
They were kind people from all different religious backgrounds. I was supposed to eventually turn our conversations into a sales pitch and try to convert them, but I never really wanted to do that. I loved simply visiting them. We would share scriptures, talk about what those words meant to us, and tell each other about our lives. Then I would ask when they were free again, and the next time, we would do it all over with a different topic.
It was fun. It was encouraging. It was exciting to connect with people through something that brought comfort to both of us, without any pressure on either side.
Just two people believing in something bigger than themselves, sharing what had helped them, listening to one another, and finding common ground without needing to believe all the same things.