Jesus said he would make us fishers of men, fishers of people. He has sent us out, you and me, to be fishers of “every human.” But you’re not fishing with a pole. You’re not sitting by yourself at the end of a pier with a rod and reel. We’re fishing together with a net. You’re not by yourself holding a stick and a string. We are all holding the net. Together.
It’s a huge net. It’s massive. It’s not the size of a volleyball net, it’s a giant net that spans across generational time and space. And it’s not made of rope or cord; it’s made of Christian seed sown to the Holy Spirit wind.
It’s a song written by Charles Wesley here, a plane assembled by Boeing there, a pie baked by a widow in 1843, an invitation to church written in 1391–God’s Holy Spirit weaves together all these weak and meager threads and it becomes the net. Do you see it?
It’s so big. And it sweeps back and forth across the world. It sweeps across every society and through every culture. The net is drawn in and out through all the decades and centuries. It turns and dips to snag one more soul God is faithfully trying to reach. It speeds up and slows down, it expands and withdraws to catch one more dad, one more teenager, one more generation. While you were sleeping last night, the net was catching souls: maybe a prisoner in Russia, maybe a single mom in Vermont, maybe a cab driver in Tokyo, or a teacher in Nigeria were swept up by the love of Christ.
The mission of the Church is a huge net and you’re holding onto it with us. Your faith and hope and love keep that net moving. Your good deeds for others, the ways you proclaim and share the love and grace of God with your words and acts of service–all of that contributes to our Lord’s salvation net.
The net is floating today by the eternal seeds of the Kingdom sown at GCR by Bert Mercer, Doug Parsons, and Ronnie White. When you serve a meal at Family Promise, when you read to kids at Emerson Elementary, when you write a check for Missions Sunday, when you send a card to your co-worker, when you use blue food coloring and whipped cream at VBS to tell the story of Jesus walking on the water, you are helping to maneuver that massive net.
When you warmly greet a visitor at church on Sunday morning, when you buy lunch for the guy behind you in the drive-thru, when you pray for your neighbor, the Holy Spirit breath of God moves another corner of that net to snare one more lost soul.
Here at our church in Midland, I think about Willie Goudeau and Yvonne Brooks and James and Debbie VanStavern who are still holding that net with Gabby and Kendall and M.J. and Preston. Frances Collins and Wanda McGraw are holding that net; so are Dalton and Hannah Mills, Philip and Caitlin Landry, and Justin and Anna Washburn.
So are you. You’re holding the net. We are, all of us, right now today and forever, connected together by the mission of the Church.
Peace,
Allan
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