Smart Thoughts
Beginning on Sunday evening, September 7, at 6:00 p.m., we will offer a study on the basics of Christianity. It will continue each Sunday evening for a total of 12 weeks. You can find the subject of each week’s study elsewhere in this newsletter. Beginnings: An Introduction to Christian Faith is designed for those who are seeking information about what it means to be a Christian, who Jesus is, how do we speak with God and what’s in it for me. Those who have been members of the church for years are certainly welcome as well.
The material for this study offers the following introductory remarks:
“Evangelism is witness. It is one beggar telling another beggar where to get food. Christians do not offer out of their bounty. They have no bounty. They are simply guests at their Master’s table and, as evangelists, they call others too.” This quotation by D. T. Niles, a leader of the Methodist Church in Sri Lanka in the first half of the twentieth century, states for us the primary task of the church universal: spiritual beggars sharing gospel food with other spiritual beggars. [My] dream is that Beginnings: An Introduction to Christian Faith enables you...to share an opening course of the gospel feast with inquirers seeking God.
Jesus makes it clear in the 28th chapter of Matthew’s gospel that we are all called as individuals and the church to go and make disciples. This study I will be offering is YOUR instrument-YOUR opportunity to invite others to the gospel feast. If we are to make a difference in our corner of the world, we must reach beyond our comfort zones to invite people to be a part of this introduction to what it means to be Christian. In the midst of your nervousness to reach out to others, remember that in the same passage calling you to make disciples you also find Jesus’ promise to be with you always.
You will receive “business cards” you can use in making your personal invitation wherever you are. During August you will have the opportunity to place door hangers in your neighborhood or a neighborhood we will identify for you. I hope our giving during August and September will be sufficient to allow us to spend money budgeted for evangelism so that we might make this a deep thrust into the heart of Brown county. My desire is to make this a powerful, transforming experience that is widely attended by the people of our community because you made it happen. Please be in prayer, lifting up this introduction and pray that God will give you the names of those you can approach.
Pope John Paul II put it well when he said, “We cannot forget the power of Christian conversion, that radical decision to turn away from sin and back to God, which reaches to the depths of a person’s soul and can work extraordinary change.” This is the goal of Beginnings: An Introduction to Christian Faith. Jesus will do the work if we offer the opportunity to others through this study.
Blessings,
