This year we will elect a president in the USA. About 50% of us will end up being on the “wrong” side of the election. The other 50% will be elated that “their” candidate won.

Yesterday’s primary elections in New Hampshire saw two upsets: Neither Hillary Clinton (D) nor John McCain (R) were expected to win. Whether you are pleased or upset today is mostly a matter of who YOUR favorite is. But most of us take the news “with a grain of salt” and go on about our business — politics as usual.

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News of the ethnic violence going on in Kenya is difficult for me. In 2004, I stayed 30 days with a native pastor in Eldoret (where, last week, an Assemblies of God church was burned with its occupants.)

The dispute over recent elections has apparently aroused tribal violence that a UN report (issued yesterday) likened to “ethnic cleansing and genocide.” Survivors report that their own neighbors, whom they had called their friends, were responsible for the atrocities. The reason why they would target a friend and neighbor: They belong to the wrong tribe.

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This is the subject of a post on Grant Thiessen’s Blog and it poses a very interesting point! Grant states that evangelism is about “Presence and Participation.”

That is a good definition. Unless and until we are “there” in a person’s life, we have done little toward bringing that person to Jesus. It is certain that the people we deal with can recognize our true agenda. If we are just trying to get them into our local congregation to increase the numbers, that cold attitude is going to bleed through the facade of concern that we place in front of us.

A friend from 40 years ago once told me (about the inmates that we were going to visit in the jail), “These people will KNOW whether or not you really LOVE them.” In retrospect, I realize that he was gently chastising me for my “Just do it” attitude – and trying to build in me a true love for the souls of men and women with whom we had the opportunity to share God’s love.

My particular “take” on this is that the LEAST measure of agape’ love is that we can sincerely say that we do not want that person to die and go to the lake of fire.

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I have been looking for other Blog sites that complement what we are trying to do here on ChiefShepherd. In that search, I found Dennis Adams’ blog “rA – di – K – le” (I believe that would be pronounced, “radical”). On his blog, he poses the question of what preaching really is. Check it out here.

I have long tried to differentiate between teaching and preaching. For many, it seems an easy choice. For me, I find it extremely difficult. Some would say that teaching is like preaching but you never get out of 1st gear (automobile talk). Others are less precise but just feel that it is CLEAR when someone is preaching. I think they mean that the speaker is using that authoritative voice and it probably helps if they spit when they speak and extra points are given for throwing in a lot of “uhh” at the end of a sentence. The clincher is how many Clichés they use that bring the congregation to an “AMEN!” or (even better) to bring someone out into the aisle to do a holiness dance.

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