A Challenge to Evangelism
A Lutheran pastor living in Idaho decides to oversee a basketball blog in his free time. Seriously, his name is Dave and he has put together "the" fan blog of Portland Trailblazers basketball. I discovered he was a pastor about a year ago. After building up the blog to quite a base, he invited readers to check in one night to talk about anything. Someone asked what he was reading. He mentioned Tolkien and Lewis. Then, somehow, it came out he was a Christian and a pastor.
This made sense of a lot of things. For example, he was always unusually vocal about the importance of keeping vulgarity out of the site. He emphasized respect, integrity, etc. He was very good at metaphors. It all made sense when I found out he was a pastor.
It is the kind of site where he writes posts like this, defending a player who is seeking counseling and even discussing the danger of sports and sexuality being so casually combined.
I don't know anything about his theology. For all I know, this guy wants to spread world peace more than the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I just don't know enough to say. But here is what impresses me. He has spent years cultivating a relationship (and not just virtually--he organizes get-togethers at games) with fans of the Blazers. They know him. They like him. They listen to him.I like that.
Yes, the Gospel is offensive and we can't think we have to "earn" the right to share it. But our evangelism should be robust enough that our lives really are overlapping with non-Christians. We really should be getting to know them. So, I'm impressed with the way this Lutheran pastor has opened lines of communication with people he might not otherwise meet. Sounds missional.
It doesn't hurt that he is a Blazers fan.
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