I know I'm not the only person to post under this heading recently but I thought I might as well join in.
At our lunch club today I was handing out leaflets about our church to those who are not part of it, One man asked me who these Baptists were, afterall, he asserted, I was Church of England (does Rowan Williams know this?!), and were they Christians? I assured him we were!
Apparently Christians have some nice hymns and songs, which he likes, and he thought our 'thing in the pub' sounded a good idea. He is a curious fellow, one of those you find yourself feeling protective of, with mental health issues and no short term memory. In recent months I've discovered that he was for a while part of a bowls team, has dabbled with landscape painting and has children who live not too far away. I wonder whether 'thing in a pub' might be 'right' for him, and how he'd be received by others who come along - but it would be quite exciting if he did come along, even once. Whether he might think we were Christians then, who knows?!
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Looking back, the people who have mopped up most love and support with least visible outcome (the schizophrenic friend who kept disappearing away for weeks and coming back with less teeth, the lonely person who grabbed caring attention wherever he found it and then wouldn't let go when you needed him to, the lady who smelt awful - no nose - and couldn't read but still came to bible studies for the company and nobody else would sit next to) are the people who have pushed me hardest into actually giving unconditional love and feeling I was doing something God really would have done in my shoes.
Is that just a way of making myself feel better about them - or God at work?
Your friend is of course a person in his own right and none of the above, but as Kez has said elsewhere (I don't know how to do that 'here' thing), it's the process (in this case the process of caring), not the product that matters.
Hmmm, not really like a minister AND Church of England... best of both worlds?