Yesterday, I got the most wonderful call, but first a little set up. With the onset of COVID in March 2020, I was presented with a unique challenge. I knew I could figure out a way to transmit messages and other information online. I already had a website in place and some video skills, it wouldn’t be anything Oscar worthy, and the learning curve would be steep, but I knew I could do something for all those who have internet access. The question was what of those who don’t have it? I have a lot of older people associated with my church who have neither the access nor the interest in the internet. These people have been faithful servants of the church for decades and they deserved something too. One thing I knew I could do would be to write out my sermons in manuscript form, edit them and mail them out in written form. It was at least something, but I must confess, I always felt a little bad about it. It felt somehow insufficient, and this brings me to yesterday’s call.
When I started mailing these sermons out, and a funny thing happened. The recipients loved them. Not only were they grateful for the reading material, but they started telling me they were passing them on. One woman lives in a retirement community, she was passing the sermons on to someone else in the community. Another woman, Helen passes them on to her sister, who compiles a few weeks worth and then mails them to a friend in another state. This friend is the person who called me. It seems she faced a recent loss, and was thanking me so much for the words of comfort she received from a message she had just received. I had written that sermon almost two months ago, yet it somehow managed to arrive right on time. She also told me she is passing the sermons on to someone else. Now needless to say I didn’t know about her loss, but God did, and He used that sermon to speak to a precious daughter of His in her time of need. God is good like that. Here I was lamenting that I could not do more, when what I needed to see, was that putting what I already have in the hands of God would do more than I could have imagined.
As we sit here at the beginning of a new year, we could lament the way things have been over the last two years, and I don’t want to deny that there have been some lamentable things that have happened, but there have also been opportunities to innovate. Now some of that has been high tech, but it doesn’t have to be. Those of us who are creative need to look at this as a time and an opportunity to be creative. We need to find new ways to deliver what we have been called to do, knowing that sometimes those ways are not really all that new. What matters is that we find the ways to do all we can with what we have, making the most of every opportunity. How can you use what you have to spread the Gospel, minister to others, etc.? Are there ways to collaborate with others? In this new year, let’s find new ways to spread the Gospel!
AMOKArts 