We hear some Scripture passages more than others over the course of our Christian lives, especially the Gospel stories surrounding Jesus’s birth, death, and resurrection. One of these is the account of the resurrected Jesus appearing to the disciples, cooking them fish on the beach, and restoring His relationship with Simon Peter after Peter’s denial.

I have worked my fair share of odd summer jobs, including working in carnival food carts: from shoveling out your favorite snow cone or grabbing the monster bag of cotton candy to everything in between. Each Fourth of July, I worked in the elephant ear cart, making those doughy, fried treats covered in cinnamon sugar.

I'll just come out and say it: I missed an opportunity to share my faith. We had a superhero birthday party for our oldest son, complete with capes, decorated cardboard-box buildings, a Spiderman hanging from the ceiling, and—at my son's request—a butterfly piñata. My wife had invited an acquaintance of hers with a child around our son's age. This woman came with her two kids and her husband, whom I had never met. But we got talking, and he asked me, "So, what do you do?" And I told him, "I'm a pastor." So he followed up, "You don't hear that very often. What got you into that?"