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...

Normally, you think of having words with someone, there is generally a conflict. Those words may not be the most uplifting, but sometimes we need to authentically communicate our feelings. If there’s someone who can handle it, it’s Jesus. Our scripture for this series is out of the Gospel of Luke, bits of chapters 14, 15, & 16.  Sometimes we find the words of Jesus to be more difficult to hear than things that are more common. This can be confusing, discouraging, or even seemingly contradictory. We really need to work hard to see what Jesus is actually saying. We need to take those hard verses and really digest them better. Maybe sit with the verses and meditate on it, letting the Holy Spirit work through you to gain perspective. We want to understand, we want to soak up the wisdom and live as close to Jesus as we can.  So maybe we need to have words with Jesus - through the difficulty, through the uncomfortable. In that tension is where we can find a deeper faith. The wor...

 This passage from the Bible doesn’t seem like it belongs there. It feels like we’re reading from a different book, and you might be feeling confused. This and next week may a the only times you ever hear a sermon preached on Hosea and Gomer, so hopefully it’ll make an impact. And if not, well - I’m pretty sure it’s a lot cooler in here than it is outside, so why don’t ya’ll stay for a bit?  Let’s take a wider view of this book before we jump into the scripture today. Hosea is one of the twelve minor Old Testament prophets we’ve been talking about for the last few weeks, and he’ll be the last one in the series. He lived in the northern kingdom of Israel, and he lived about the same time as Amos from last week, just a little bit after him 753 to 715BC, so about seven centuries before Christ. Israel would be captured by Assyria in about 722 BC, so this is the beginning of the end, and based on what Amos heard from God, that seems accurate.  Hosea is preaching to Israel, and...