"Jason, you never struck me as a back pew kind of guy."
The words still hang in the air around me, like an echo that never says good night. T
he observation came from a good friend and church leader who visited my congregation last year. When the service ended, he approached me with a handshake and a wide smile, saying the words I still hear today.
We'd known each other for some time and he had visited our ward of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints before, but on the Sundays he'd passed through, I was traveling or attending elsewhere.