Go & Tell the Story

By   Jon Fredricks, Executive Director, Campus Ministry Coordinator Nebraska Lutheran Campus Ministry Spamming students…and fulfilling our mission It is always amazing how God works in our lives to bring us together.   Sometimes the connections can be profound—akin to a blinking sign seeking our attention—but at other times, the spark of the Holy Spirit drawing us together in Christ can be delivered in a much more mundane way…like in an ordinary can of Spam. When you think of ‘spam’, you probably think of the obtrusive email solicitations you receive, sent out to the thousands of people who may (or more likely may not) wish to receive them.   Others might recall Monty Python’s Spamalot , a musical comedy adapted from the 1975 film Monty Python and the Holy Grail . However, spam is also the name of a product made right here, close to home in Fremont, Nebraska. Spam, or ‘spiced ham’ is a canned meat product.   The first can of Spam luncheon meat...

By Rev. Day Hefner, pastor at St. John's in Schuyler, NE All throughout the fall, the sound of drums and marching feet echoed through the streets of my hometown.   We prided ourselves on being one of the best street marching bands in our class, with our straight lines and perfectly synchronized steps and crisp turns that were practically a work of art.   Everyone was on the same page and knew their place.   We were walking together. Walking together is fairly easy when everyone is playing the same song and you all know the steps and what to expect.   It’s easier when the lines are straight and the streets are level.   But take any of those factors away, and walking together gets a whole lot trickier! When I first moved to my site as a freshly minted Peace Corps Volunteer in the Dominican Republic, I found myself bewildered and unsure what to expect.   In the first place, the streets were no fit place for marching – often c...

By Brenda Rivas, Communications Manager Walking Together, there is no better time to be considering the meaning and the importance of such a phrase, than right now. Now, when there is so much division, so much animosity, and so much blame or shame permeating our communities. Everyday images and words of fear, hatred, jealousy, anger, confusion, and so many other negative emotions inundate our inboxes and social media feeds. It makes it so easy to sit there and watch, and eventually we find ourselves affected by it all, even buying into it at times. The more we surround ourselves with these messages, the harder it becomes to ignore them. The harder it becomes to see past them. But pushing past obstacles and doing the right thing are not always easy. Taking the time to look outside ourselves, to look outside our inner circles of friends and families requires some resolve and some effort. It requires us to consider walking together with those outside of our comfort zon...