My daughter starts a new job today as a social worker, so I prayed there would be a Christian co-worker in her office. Then I started to worry: What if it’s a Christian like me? (This is a variation on the worry of a father who watches his 16-year-old daughter go off on her first date and hopes the guy is not like he was.)

When push comes to shove you know what a Christian should be like. When your daughter’s soul is at stake, you don’t need a seminary class. Demoninational affiliation becomes meaningless. You want someone who is more charismatic than not, even if you yourself have always avoided charismatics; someone who talks about Jesus at socially inappropriate times. You want a person who is not so “sensitive” to the cultural situation that it’s never going to be the right moment to bring up the subject.

You don’t necessarily want someone who has done it all right in her life. That’s fine. But I would prefer a person who has done business with God, maybe has a telltale limp like Jacob. She will not be appalled at anything my daughter has done because she knows her own heart. She will not be put off by my daughter’s initial disdain. She will know the Bible well, but will not be proud of doctrinal correctness. She will be a person who is more or less regularly overcome with emotion at the thought of Jesus’ love.

She will find time, by hook or by crook, to reach out to my daughter with the gospel, because, after all, she’s really only an ambassador moonlighting as a social worker.