Intersections

  Have you ever seen evangelism done poorly? Like… you witnessed maybe a street preacher on the corner with a bullhorn, or … less and less now, but the people with the sandwich board signs with the big letters “THE END IS NIGH”? Well - evangelism may not be one of my gifts but I do have a story for you of it going horribly bad. There  So I was in my later teens (you know, back in the late 1900s), and I had been talking to a friend online for a while and I wanted to share my faith. My friend didn’t have much of a background, and having grown up in a different area, it wasn’t really culturally relevant either. She knew I came from a Christian influence, but I hadn’t been really forthcoming about it. I knew it was something that I should do, because - you know, it’s exciting and I want more people to know about Jesus and the faith that helps sustain me.  Let me tell you: it did not go well. I don’t remember the specifics of it, but all I remember is that I thought it was goi...

  What a wonderful September it was, and here we are in October! How fast was that - those festivals really make the month fly by.  October is kind of this weird space in the church calendar, we could focus on stewardship, but typically that’s saved for November, it’s not Advent yet, and our time within summer is slowly fading away. I’d like to fill this space then with a series I’m calling “Not Ashamed”, based on the Second Letter to Timothy. The New Testament letter, written by Paul, is a short one yet very powerful. Let’s walk further into our faith and our discipleship by proclaiming that we are not afraid of the power the Gospel has over us, and how that makes us unique.  This act of boldness and enthusiasm can be mistaken for arrogance and false teaching, though, so we may need to be careful of how we share the power of the Gospel. It is about looking inward and outward at the same time, that we may grow upward to be closer to the divine, and also outward to be clos...