No Shoes, No Pew, No Problem

A packed sanctuary, a barefoot student, and an elder with a cane—sometimes the quietest moments speak the loudest. We share the unforgettable story of Bill, a new believer who can’t find a seat and settles on the floor, and Mr. Edwards, an older church elder who lowers himself beside him so the young man doesn’t have to worship alone. The message that follows is simple and searing: people may forget a sermon, but they won’t forget embodied love.
We unpack why this scene hits so hard: how comfort can crowd out welcome, how small acts can reset a room, and how humility travels farther than eloquence.  If you’ve ever wondered what your life preaches before you speak, this story will stay with you and shape your next move. If it resonates, subscribe, share with a friend who needs this reminder, and leave a quick review to help others find the show. What’s one small step you’ll take to let your light shine today?

Chapters

• 0:10 Welcome and Today’s Focus
• 0:31 Setting Up Bill’s Story
• 1:24 The Walk Down the Aisle
• 2:42 Mr. Edwards Changes Everything
• 4:18 The Takeaway: Be the Bible They Read
• 5:15 Shine Your Light and Closing

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:10

Good morning and welcome to Starting Right. I am Danny Mack, and I'm going to be here every Monday to Friday to help you get a great start to your day. So grab your cup of coffee, sit back and relax for the next five minutes as I help you start your day by starting right. One of the many tremendous strengths that Jesus had was his ability to tell a story in order to get his message across. There's nobody who could do it quite like Jesus could. But I want to share with you this a story this morning that gets a message across as well, and it's not one of Jesus' stories, but I'm sure he would be very happy with this one. This is a story about a man named Bill. Now, Bill was attending college in the early 1970s. He has wild hair, he wears a t-shirt with holes in it, and jeans and no shoes. This was actually literally his wardrobe for the entire four years that he was at college. And this guy was brilliant. I mean he had just a brilliant mind, but had this look to him that was very much early seventies. While he was attending college, someone had recently just led him to Christ. Across the street from the college campus is a well dressed, very conservative church. And one day Bill decides he's going to go there. So in he walks, with jeans, his t-shirt, no shoes, and his wild hair blowing as he enters through the door. The service had already begun, and so Bill he starts down the aisle trying to find a seat. The church is a very popular one, and it's very packed and he can't find a seat anywhere. As he walks down the center aisle he sees what he thinks is a spot up towards the front, but by the time he gets there that spot seems to have disappeared, and the people seem to have spread out a little bit more for some reason. The people are looking at him and are beginning to appear very uncomfortable, but nobody says anything. Bill gets closer and closer and closer to the front, and when he realizes there aren't any seats, he just squats down right there on the carpet, sitting cross legged on the floor. Now, this was absolutely acceptable for him to do when he was at the college fellowship, and it was something that he was very used to doing in his newfound faith. But trust me when I tell you, this had never happened in this church before. By now everybody who was watching him was really uptight, and there was tension in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife. The minister is sitting in his high back chair on the platform is watching all of this, and is about to get up and say something when he sees from the back of the church one of the elders, mister Edwards, beginning to slowly make his way down towards Bill. mister Edwards is in his eighties. He has silver grey hair, what there is left of it. He's a very godly man, very elegant, very dignified, very courtly, one of the true elder statesmen of the church. He walks with a cane, and as he's walking towards the boy, everyone is saying to themselves, This is going to be awkward, but can't blame Mr. Edwards for doing what he's gotta do. It takes a long time for Mr. Edwards to get down to the boy. Every eye in the church, including the pastors, is watching him as he goes down. There was silence. And now this elderly man comes up to where Bill is. He drops his cane on the floor and with great difficulty he lowers himself and sits down next to Bill so the young man doesn't have to worship alone. Have you ever had one of those moments that takes you by surprise and then it both rebukes you and lifts you up at the same time? When the minister has regained his self-control, he stands up and goes to the pulpit and says, What I'm about to preach today you will not remember. But what you have just seen, you will never forget. Be careful how you live. You may be the only Bible that some people will ever read. I was so struck by that story. And it made me ask myself the question, What are people reading about my life? Matthew chapter five and verse sixteen says, So don't hide your light. Let it shine brightly before others, so that the commendable things you do will shine as light upon them, and then they will give their praise to our Father in heaven. Let's be shiners of our light. Let us be the book that people read and see the glory and reality of God's love and care within us. Let us be the kind of people who others will look at and say there's something in that person's life that I want to be like. You and I can have that. The enemy will try to knock us down and beat us up and tell us that we fail, but God will always tell us he loves us, and he's always ready to shine through us. So let's let our light shine today, my friends. I hope you have a wonderful day. We'll talk to you again tomorrow. Thank you for listening today, and I invite you to join me Monday to Friday right here on Starting Right with Danny Mack.