Evangelism

September 25, 2009

Dear family and friends of WCPC:

I’ve had a good week.  I joined Facebook on Monday and have been receiving messages throughout the week with people confirming me as a friend.  Good to know you have friends.  Even though I’m not as comfortable with it as I like, I do see potential for it as a means of communication.   If any of you would like to be my friend on Facebook, I would welcome it.

            WCPC also has a Facebook page.  We haven’t done much with it so far, but it also, like our webpage (www.wcpc-tx.org), the monthly newsletters (both mailed and posted on the website), the Life of the Church, and my emails to you is another form of communication so that we can connect with one another.

            Friends are vital to our health and happiness.  Human beings weren’t created to live in isolation.  We need other people who will laugh and cry with us.  I’ve found that because I live in community my joys are richer and my sorrows more bearable. 

            Friendships aren’t always easy.  We have to be willing to be a bit vulnerable, allow people in as they get to know us, but in the long run it’s worth the risks.  There are many places where you can develop friendships, but I’ve found my friendships with my brothers and sisters in the church family to be the most important. 

            Of course as we develop friendship with people we get to know them and they get to know us and in the process we can share with them the things we value most, like our faith.

            Evangelism is often seen as a negative word.  We think of street preachers or today some television preachers who try to guilt us into believing or scare us so that we want to believe.  Or we complicate it by thinking somehow we’ve got to make certain we get it right in our presentation, less our error cause someone to turn away.

            But evangelism, as a friend of mine once said, is simply “one friend telling another friend about their best friend.”  Evangelism is simply telling our story of how we came to know the love of God found in Jesus Christ and what that has meant for us as we live our lives.  What God does with our story is God’s business.  Ours is to just tell it, share it.

            This Sunday is designated as EVANGELISM SUNDAY in the Presbyterian Church.  I will be preaching on Acts 1: 6 – 11 and talking about the kind of evangelism that I believe is most appropriate in our world today and also very biblical and even Presbyterian.

            A few announcements:

 Tomorrow WCPC Social Justice Forum meets at 8:30 a.m. in the parlor.  The focus:  “Gitmo – Criminals or POWs?  Does it matter?”  All are invited.

Our Adult Sunday School got off to a great start last Sunday with 99 adults involved in five classes.   There is still room for you! 

This Sunday from 6:00 p.m. till 8:00 p.m. a monthly Marriage Class will begin.  It will meet once a month through the spring. 

And next Saturday WCPC is sponsoring a Yard Sale in the Fellowship Hall.  Proceeds will be used to support the Montgomery Homeless Coalition and our Youth Ministry.  If you have any unwanted treasures, bring them to church next week. 

             See you on Sunday.

             Your pastor,

             David Jones