I have been engaged in a study of the second half of Paul's letter to the Ephesians, and, not surprisingly, the themes from that letter have been resonating in my mind over the past few weeks. I have been struck by Paul's emphasis on the importance of love and unity in the local church. On the one hand it's kind of obvious--we need to love the Christians around us--but on the other hand, the personal implications are profound. I've always known that God calls me to love the people I covenant with in my local church, but until now I haven't been quite so aware of the danger of falling out of love.
I am the dean of a school that focuses on missions and evangelism, but evangelism does not always come easy to me. That is surprising to me now, as sharing my faith was quite easy when I was a young believer. In fact, evangelism was never difficult until I became a pastor - when the multiple tasks of ministry seemed to get in the way of evangelism. The more involved I was in leading my church, the less involved I seemed to become in evangelism.
