I am really excited about church this weekend. I will be preaching at all the services but I am not excited about what I am going to say so much as I am excited about what somebody else is going to say in my sermon.
By this I mean that I have invited a very wonderful, gentle, wise older man name Roy to come and share a story that he shared with me a few weeks ago. It is a story about well... hmmm... jail.
But it is not really about jail so much as it is about God's presence in a jail that he visited while volunteering at for a prison ministry gig. It is a great story.
Its not a great story because doing jail ministry is a great thing (which of course it is). It is a great story because as Roy humbly discovered, what Jesus says about the Gospel and how it can make a difference in peoples lives, about how it can set people (even people in jail) free, and how that is pretty much what Jesus is currently in the business of doing, is all true.
It is also a great story because the person who God transformed in this story is not just Oscar... the guy who Roy was ministering to, it was not just Roy the person who was doing the ministering... it was me... the one who heard the story. Isn't it amazing how it works? That's why you should hear the story too.
I invite you to come to Ascension this weekend and hear the story. If you can't... we will post it online next week at our www.alcto.org website.
Peace be with you.
