Challenge: This Sunday, 15 students and 3 (very brave) adults are heading off for Challenge, the EFCA conference for youth. I have heard tremendous reports from our youth about previous Challenge trips, including several coming to Christ. So, I "challenge" you to pray for our group as they travel. Please pray for God to bear much fruit, for safety, and for unity.
Colorado: Lynne and I will miss you this weekend. I have had a long-standing commitment to perform the renewal of wedding vows for friends of ours to celebrate their 30th anniversary. It is their desire for their renewal to be a strong witness of God's faithfulness to their non-Christian loved ones who will be attending, so please pray for us to put together a Christ-honoring service. We got to know this couple in Texas, we reconnected with them after we all had moved to California, and the celebration will be in Colorado - quite a nomadic friendship.
Shalom: This week, I attended an informative presentation at the Jewish Community Center near the Sprint complex. Several professors from their Jewish adult education program gave previews of what they teach in their classes. It was interesting to see how they approach Scripture and the rabbinic writings from centuries past. I was also interested in some of their comments about how the Jewish writings from the 3rd and 4th centuries were written in response to the rise of Christianity. They were quite welcoming to have a Gentile pastor attend, and I did pretty well not to verbally object to anything that was said. They are not coming from the direction of conservative Jewish scholarship, so I hold more to the traditional view of the Hebrew Scriptures than many of them do!
In order for us to be able to engage people with the claims of Christ, we must understand at least some of where they are coming from. To fail to do so shows that we don't really care about where they are, just where we think they should be. Only when we understand where someone is can we show them specifically how Christ speaks to them specifically.
Serve well.
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