Online:
- From the President: On Pastors and Spiritual Priests
From the editor
If the thought of telling your boss you can’t work Sundays because you go to church makes you break out in hives, if your brother is living with his girlfriend and you can’t figure out how to tell him he’s breaking the Sixth Commandment, if a complete stranger is having a tough day and you want to share Christ’s love with him but don’t know where to start, this issue of The Lutheran Witness is for you.
Are you a grandparent? You’ll learn how to start a conversation with a wayward grandchild who has left the Church. Are you in college? You’ll learn how to defend the faith against profs and peers who think your Christian beliefs are nuts. Are you a coworker, neighbor or family member? You’ll learn how to speak the truth in love to those around you.
You’ll also hear about the LCMS’s “Every One His Witness,” a new evangelism program rooted in the understanding that God, not man, grows His Church. You’ll discover what Jesus has to say about those who acknowledge Him before others and those who don’t, even as you’ll get a better understanding of how to find a congregational balance between witnessing to the lost and caring for those already in the pew.
Bearing witness to Christ – on account of your Baptism and by His grace – doesn’t have to be scary or hard or intimidating. It simply starts and ends with Christ. No hives needed!
Adriane Heins, Managing Editor
The Lutheran Witness
Witnessing does not have to initially involve verbal communication. As paraphrasing from the Bible, witnessing can be living a life in accordance to God’s will and when asked about your source of hope, then speak.