Office - 116 LaRonge Rd. Saskatoon, SK. S7K 8E5
Phone - 249-4844 Fax - 955-7462

Bible Readings and Meditations

I'd like to read a number of short scripture passages to start our evening.

• Isaiah 52:7
• Mark 16:14 & 15
• Acts 5: 40 - 42

What do these three readings have incommon? At least in the NRV version they all talk about 'Good News'.

God sends the entire church - each one of its members and all of its activities into the world to fulfill His restoring reconciling and saving purpose for the world. Like those recharged disciples after the resurrection so many years ago, we in the church have all received the good news and we are all charged with passing it on, despite our problems. We are all, each and every one, called to proclaim good news.

Jesus always spoke His Good News in response to the bad news in people's lives. To the blind he brought healing, to the lepers He brought cleansing, for Lazarus he brought victory over death, and to the woman at the well he brought truth and a new beginning. True evangelism is always contextual; that is, it is always related to the reality of people's lives. It is about supplying the good news that heals the bad news in people's lives.
Billy Graham speaks to one kind of bad news; that of feeling lost, alone, purposeless and without hope. Martin Luther King brought good news to another kind of bad news; that of racial oppression. When you visit an inmate in the Prince Albert Penitentiary through P2P, you bring good news to that inmate's bad news of rejection, loss of self-worth and friendlessness. When you have coffee with a lonely widower or baby-sit for a single mother, you are an evangelist, one who brings good news to their bad news. We are all called to be evangelists, working alongside God to bring His Good News of healing and hope to the world, across the street and across the seas.

You folks here at _______ Mennonite Church have spent a lifetime working out how to live out the Good News in your community and in the rural Saskatchewan context. We're hoping that you will share some of what that experience has taught you. Teach the rest of us what you have learned. Share with us what is working, what gives life and energy to your spiritual walk as a rural congregation in times that are, in their own way, as difficult as those experienced by the disciples in Acts 5.

In these difficult times, can we too 'rejoice to be counted worthy?'

Eric Olfert

Go to Next Page