The Deacon's Bench
Priests have been known to offer confession in shopping malls. Now a Lutheran pastor is getting into the act.
A Lutheran minister is taking an unconventional approach to ministry by setting up a booth on the streets of Manhattan and charging 5 cents for spiritual help, much like Lucy from the “Peanuts” comic strip.
In other words: “The pastor is in.”
Pastor Gregory Fryer of Immanuel Lutheran Church in New York City told The Christian Post in an interview on Thursday that the idea to do this just dawned on him one day.
“I do this for fun, but also for real,” Fryer said.
Lucy was one audacious child to step forward and offer advice like she did, he noted.
“Likewise, it could be said of me that I’m excessively bold to put up my ‘Pastor is in’ booth, except I know that I have no wisdom to share with people. But I figure the Bible does, and the teachings of the Church do, and I have devoted my career to studying these things and I’m glad to share what I have learned.”
Fryer told CP that people might be surprised to learn about the number of New Yorkers who appear as though they have it all together, dressed to perfection on their way to work, who are willing to sit down and talk with him right there on the sidewalk.
His outside-the-four-walls of the church approach leads passersby to view him as more accessible, and he’s learned to have a box of tissues handy because many people freely unburden their souls and cry.
Photo: Christian Post/Immanuel Lutheran Church
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