This is the last of a series of posts marking the conclusion of Bishop Lindsey Davis’ 12 years as the leader of the North Georgia Conference, now the largest conference in the United Methodist Church. Bishop Davis begins his new assignment in Kentucky next week.
Bishop Lindsey Davis
Today, MethodistThinker.com features a recent sermon by Bishop Davis, preached in June 2008 at Mt. Bethel United Methodist Church in Marietta, Ga.
He spoke about passing on the gospel to younger generations, who are growing up in a culture that often views “religious faith, especially Christianity, as unenlightened, foolish, and sometimes even dangerous.”
An excerpt:
There is a strong movement in the United States and in Europe, by those who want a very secular culture, to put the Christian voice on the sidelines — to not allow the Christian faith and the Christian witness to have to have its proper place in the public arena, in the public square, or in the marketplace.
It is an effort, I think, to sideline our Christian witness, so that we will be weak. So it’s very important these days that we tell our story, and we tell it well….
It’s important for us to tell the whole gospel story. Often within the life of the church in America today we want to spend all of our time talking about grace and redemption and salvation. And that’s an important part of the story — the story of God’s love for us.
But it’s also important that we tell the rest of the story — that we tell about sin and the consequences of sin, and that we talk about redemption and the need for redemption, so that then the stories of grace and salvation make sense to those who come after us.
You can listen to streaming audio below (19 min.) — or download an mp3 (4.4MB).
