This post is for those who have been reading Pastor Tim's blog recently. He submitted a post asking some thought provoking questions on evangelism. The comments section of the post has some really good thoughts. Ted and Penny....this post is for you. I have mentioned in earlier posts that I have been reading the book Ruthless Trust by Brennan Manning. I am nearing the end and had to post on what I read today.....

"the music of what is happening can be heard only in the present moment, right now, right here. Now/here spells nowhere. To be fully present to whoever or whatever is immediately before us is to pitch a tent in the wilderness of Nowhere. It is an act of radical trust-trust that God can be encountered at no other time and in no other place than the present moment. Being fully present in the now is perhaps the premier skill of the spiritual life. More often than not, I do not hear the music of what is happening now because my mind ricochets between the past and the future."

"In Luke's Gospel, Jesus heard a beautiful melody the only place it truly exists: Nowhere. 'When he looked up he saw some wealthy people putting their offerings into the treasury and he noticed a poor widow putting in two small coins'. The music created by the widow's mite entered deeply into Jesus. The present moment was not a narrow crack between yesterday's confrontation with the chief priests and scribes over tribute to Caesar and tomorrow's betrayal by Judas and the feast of Passover. The two words he noticed offer profound insight into the person of Jesus, highlighting his full attention to the present moment, his watchfulness, consciousness, sensitivity, perception, and unbridled appreciation for an unobtrusive old woman who tossed in her two coins and scurried away."

"It is through immersion in the ordinary-the apparently empty, trivial, and meaningless experiences of a routine day-that life/Life is encountered and lived. Real living is not about words, concepts, and abstractions but about experience of who or what is immediately before us. The self-forgetfulness that such experience requires is the essence of contemplative simplicity."


I'm fairly certain that is all about evangelism....bringing the church to the people and bringing the people to church.