Reflections From Sunday Evening

I had lunch with Israel Kamudzandu.  Israel is the New Testament professor at Saint Paul School of Theology.  We were talking about the most important things in the Church.  He and I are of the same mind in believing that evangelism is central to our purpose.  If we are going to make a disciple of Jesus Christ we must evangelize.  If we are going to transform the world we must evangelize.
A couple things come to mind in this light.  We have a great new building.  We have provided excellent space for fellowship and opportunities to connect with people in the gathering space.  We have provided an up-to-date modern worship center  where we may worship and connect with God.  We have a great youth center where youth may be formed with a Christian identity.
With all that we must discover a new motivation to reach out to those who do not know Christ and are not connected to the faith and a faith community.  We call this evangelism.  We have good news to share and this is essential to our purpose.
In another context I think about the horrific shooting in Olathe.  There is much conversation about "hate crimes" and people who are "other".  We have more and more issues brought out into the open that demand our attention, conversation and action.
But I believe that we can make all sorts of laws and rules -- we can change structures and systems, and we definitely need to work in these areas - but until we change the human heart our efforts will fall short.
If a person has a "sinful" heart changing their environment will not make it good.  If a person has a racist heart (that would be an example of a sinful heart) and then that darkness gets further clouded with alcohol abuse some evil things will come forth.  We need to change hearts which change lives which promote the common good and overcome sin.
What I just described is the result of evangelism, sharing the good news of Jesus Christ.
There is much at stake.  What will we do?
It's been a good day.  I hope you've had a good day too.
steve