I am not an evangelist. I am a pretty relational guy. Yet today’s church needs the evangelistic gift desperately, as more and more churches get stuck in old ways of doing and being while the culture zooms by the church at increasing speed. My career has been about trying to figure out how God can use my relational gifts to meet the need for evangelism.

I don’t think that I’ve become very good at evangelism, but I do think that I’ve become better. I’ve read books on it. I’ve prayed to get better at it. And most recently I’ve watched David Mojica and other church planters in my work with the Classis in multiplying new churches.

So I am in my office and an unchurched Preschool Dad walks in. This guy and I have formed a growing friendship over his years in our school. We started out talking about politics, but lately we’ve been talking about the Bible. He just finished a Lee Strobel book called, The Case for the Creator. So he stopped by today to tell me how much he liked it. I thanked him for his recommendation and promptly ordered it off of Amazon. Now he is reading the Bible for the first time, and is having trouble making sense out of it. So I give him a book off my shelf to help explain it. Will we see his family in our church someday? I don’t know, but I do know that he, along with everyone I see every day, is on a spiritual journey. How can I help them take one more step along that journey toward Christ?

So as you follow Jesus in his mission of restoring people to God, let me tell you three steps that I, as a non-evangelist-but-friendly-guy, am learning:
First pray to see opportunities to help people along their spiritual journeys;
secondly, seize opportunities to talk about how Jesus helps you progress along your
path; and,
thirdly, stick with those opportunities by continuing to walk alongside those seeking.

Hope that’s helpful. For whether you think of yourself this way or not, you are an evangel; that is, someone who has good news to bring others.

Peace and joy,
Pastor Todd Buurstra

Click to read North Branch Reformed Church’s monthly newsletter:
The Messenger May 2008

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Click to read the latest issue of North Branch Reformed Church’s monthly newsletter for children, teens and college students:
The Shepherd’s Kids and Young Adult News May 2008

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Click here to see our scheduled events for May 2008.

The Buildings & Grounds Committee and, hopefully, you will be gathering May 3rd, starting at 8:00 AM, to give NBRC it’s Spring cleaning. Speed bumps will be re-set, windows will be washed, sticks/trash picked up, bushes trimmed, weeds pulled and more. All we need is an hour of your help to make this a successful day. Call Dennis McGale (908-704-8523) or Keith Strege (908-231-0764) with any questions.

Where Do We Find God’s Calm in Life’s Storm of Global Warming?
Gen 7:1-5; 8:20-22; 9:8-15

Did the flood cover the whole earth or just a part of it? so asked a fellow pastor whom I knew immediately was checking my orthodoxy. If I failed the test he might not cooperate with me in a ministry important to one of our members. So I hedged: the whole then-known earth, I said. Honestly? I don’t think it matters whether you believe the flood actually happened or not. That answer would have sunk my ark.

Here’s what I mean. (more…)

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Ignite! Church proudly presents:

Traveling Light

A contemporary play of Mark’s Gospel in two acts
by Lawrence G. Enscoe

Date: Saturday, April 19th, 2008

Time: Performance starts at 7:30pm.

Location: Bridgewater-Raritan High School Auditorium

Reserve your seats today. Click here for complete details and order information.

Proceeds to benefit Samaritan Homeless Interim Program (SHIP).

If you can’t attend, could you help by forwarding this to a friend? Thank you.

About Us: Ignite! Church is supported by North Branch Reformed Church. Ignite! is a contemporary church seeking to build meaningful relationships among it’s members and Jesus Christ. Are you in your twenties or thirties and desire a spiritual connection? Do you want to influence change in a broken world? Learn more at Jerseyignite.com

 Podcast Video [1:32m]: Download

Click to play the video…

If you have trouble playing the video, click here instead.

Ignite! Church proudly presents:

Traveling Light

A contemporary play of Mark’s Gospel in two acts
by Lawrence G. Enscoe

Date: Saturday, April 19th, 2008

Time: Performance starts at 7:30pm.

Location: Bridgewater-Raritan High School Auditorium

Reserve your seats today. Click here for complete details and order information.

Proceeds to benefit Samaritan Homeless Interim Program (SHIP).

If you can’t attend, could you help by forwarding this to a friend? Thank you.

About Us: Ignite! Church is supported by North Branch Reformed Church. Ignite! is a contemporary church seeking to build meaningful relationships among it’s members and Jesus Christ. Are you in your twenties or thirties and desire a spiritual connection? Do you want to influence change in a broken world? Learn more at Jerseyignite.com

 

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Where Do We Find God’s Calm in Life’s Storms?
Racial Complaints

Numbers 11:4-6, 10-18, 31, 32

Where do we find God’s calm in the swirling storms of complaints? Moses had had it! He was as hot and bothered as the rest of the Hebrew people trudging from the Si-nai oasis through that desert. He didn’t need to hear them grouse for quail! Why did you take us out of Egypt? We may have been slaves there, but at least we had fish! Yeah, I’m all dried up out here under the hot, desert sun! Blah, blah. Waa waa Moan, moan.

Now, it was Moses’ turn to complain to the LORD: Why do I have to carry this people? What am I, their mother?! Where am I supposed to get meat?! If you’re going to treat me like this, you might as well kill me, `cause it’s killin’ me anyway! Blah, wah…

Now we could relate this story to any number of complaints today: from kids to parents, from employee to boss, from congregation to consistory, but verse 4 helps us to apply it… Rabble is the motley crew, couldn’t resist, that went along for the freedom ride from Egypt to the Promised Land. From Egypt, Midian, Edom… they instigated the meat complaints. So how does God calm the storm of racial complaints?

Obama’s pastor, and my seminary professor, Jeremiah Wright’s sermon soundbytes about America KKK… Not God bless America, but G d America!… have un-leashed a storm of racial complaints. Can we find God’s calm in the storm’s center?

Before I try, let me share my limited qualifications to speak about race as a privileged, white male, and I mean limited. I lived as a minority, albeit a privileged minority, for 2.6 years in Japan. I strive for equality in a bi-racial marriage within my culture. I strive for equality in a bi-racial staff in my culture. Lastly, Jeremiah Wright was an all-time favorite professor who taught me more about racial inequality than anyone.

There’s a racial storm so how does God calm it? God calmed Moses’ storm of complaints in two ways: by allowing Moses to let off his steam of complaints to God, which we already saw, and, once his blood pressure lowered, to give Moses the idea to involve other leaders by delegating authority. With the load lifted Moses calmed.

How will God calm the storm of our racial complaints? In the same ways. First, God allows us to let off the steam of our racial complaints: how could Pastor Wright say Gd America?! If Obama is a racial healer why didn’t he choose another church?! Etc. And then I think that God would have us involve others. I want to suggest a specific way that you might do that. Ask a minority person, preferable an African American, what they think of Pastor Wright’s comments. Don’t you comment; just listen to learn.

Here’s what I learned listening to Jeremiah Wright 23 years ago. Today’s racism isn’t as blatant as white water fountains and colored water fountains; its more subtle about pulpit talk. We judge Jeremiah’s sound byte sermon by white preaching standards. Jeremiah taught us that black preaching starts low, builds slow, waxes warm, and sits down in the storm. In other words black preaching builds to a rhetorical and emotional storm—G d America! That lends itself to exaggeration. Just like Jesus who said if your right eye causes you to sin, pluck it out. Preaching should be judged within its culture.

What is the result of bringing God our complaints and involving others by listening to them? It may not be that quail migrate on past, but it may be that when whites pause to judge blacks by our standards the black pulpit will need less divisive rhetoric so that our racial complaints may be calmed. That’s what I hear, what do you?

Reverend Todd Buurstra
Pastor of Worship and Witness

 

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We’re conducting a little experiment. We’ve published the audio file from Pastor Mark Swart’s sermon on Sunday, March 30th.

1. Right now, you can listen online by clicking on the Player button.
2. You can download the MP3 file to your desktop to play on your computer.
3. If you have an Apple iPod, you can download using the iTunes Music Store.
4. If you have a Microsoft Zune, you can download using the Zune MarketPlace.

We’d appreciate your feedback. Are you interested in listening to audio files of sermons and other happenings at NBRC?

If yes, which of the following would you prefer if possible (all are free)?

• Listen online.
• Download a file to your desktop to play on your computer.
• Have a file automatically download to your MP3 player as a podcast using either the Apple iTunes Music Store (iPod) or the Microsoft Zune Marketplace (Zune Player).

Please click this link to answer our poll. Thank you.