What? What did you say?
Pathway Points
Stepping Up for Jesus
If you’ve ever been in a meeting with either myself or one of the pastors, you know that we tend to start the meetings with a question. It’s the same question every time, “Where have you seen God at work?” It’s definitely not an easy question to answer for most people, but after being asked month after month, people start to stumble through an answer. If it’s such a challenging question to answer, and people tend to not answer at first, why do we keep asking? The answer…Gospel Fluency, the ability to express the gospel in an understandable way to anyone, inside or outside the church.
Jeff Vanderstelt, the visionary leader of the Soma Family of Churches, Saturate and the lead teaching pastor at Doxa Church in Bellevue, WA, says it this way:
Even if they want to, many Christians find it hard to talk to others about Jesus. Is it possible this difficulty is because we’re trying to speak a language we haven’t actually spent time practicing? Is it possible we have neglected to understand for ourselves how the good news of Jesus impacts every facet of our own lives? To become fluent in a new language, you must immerse yourself in it and commit to practicing it, over and over again. You must use it everyday until you actually start to think about life through it. Becoming fluent in the gospel happens the same way—after believing it, we have to intentionally rehearse it (to ourselves and to others) and immerse ourselves in its truths.
He explains what he means in these videos, for all my visually inclined friends: Gospel Fluency and How to Be Fluent in the Gospel.
So, what are you doing to practice this new language that we’ve all committed to learn, and with whom?
Stepping up with you in His strength!
Monica Lebsack
Creative Ministries Director