This is the newest addition to our website–a Blog, which means, I’m told, a web log. One of my pastor friends told me about the software, and our trusty webmaster found it on-line and installed it for our use on the website, for which we offer him our heartfelt thanks. Most pastors use web logs–Blogs–to offer weekly columns or comments in between newsletter publications. This blog will be a series of reflections, or comments, written over the course of a month. And in keeping with our proximity to the sea, I’m calling it “Beachcombing,” since some days, when you walk on the beach, you find interesting things, and other days, the waves have swept everything away. I hope readers will find it useful.
I’ve been studying a book on evangelism, “A Story Worth Sharing,” recently published by Augsburg (a Lutheran publishing house) and edited by a Lutheran pastor, Kelly Fryer. I’ll be using the book for a N.E. Synod Rooted for Life workshop on evangelism on October 15th, in Worcester. The first essay in the book looks into the way we Christians tell the story of our faith, and how our individual stories are embedded in the larger story of Jesus’ life and mission. As I understand it, evangelism is telling that wonderful story of God’s love for all of us, as we see it in the life and ministry of Jesus, and also as we experience it in our daily lives as Christ’s disciples. At the beginning of each chapter in “A Story Worth Sharing,” the individual authors of the essays write a brief column called: “Who I am in Christ,” just two paragraphs, with information about themselves, and why they do what they do, and how they see themselves as Christians. That’s my question for whomever is reading these musings on this amazing April morning. Who are you in Christ? But to take it further, what is God up to in your life, in your community’s life? What is God up to in the world today as you see it? What do you have in Christ, and what do you know about this risen life that’s a story worth sharing?