She concluded the webinar by talking briefly about a well known scripture passage from Acts 1 that goes, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." We often read those words as a great sending out to mission fields. Harper suggests that a better understanding of the words might be, “you will be my evidence…” As if we were being called in a court of law to show the evidence for a very different transforming kind of living. We become evidence. We live a life that is evidence of the Jesus Way. Not tell everyone about me so much as show everyone about me. Much harder to do. Much better.
Lisa Sharon Harper is the founder and president of Freedom Road, a consulting group that works at the intersections of faith, race, gender, economic development and environmental justice to design forums, trainings and do capacity building. Her most recent book is entitled The Very Good Gospel. We had the opportunity last week to hear her speak to a group of us on a webinar for Vibrant Churches. She’s a power house and there were many things she said that are worth thinking about more and thinking about deeply, especially in the area of race and the need for deep and lasting change and reconciliation.
She concluded the webinar by talking briefly about a well known scripture passage from Acts 1 that goes, “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth." We often read those words as a great sending out to mission fields. Harper suggests that a better understanding of the words might be, “you will be my evidence…” As if we were being called in a court of law to show the evidence for a very different transforming kind of living. We become evidence. We live a life that is evidence of the Jesus Way. Not tell everyone about me so much as show everyone about me. Much harder to do. Much better.
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