Sharing with Others Where We’ve Found Bread

Pastor’s Ponderings

May 2025

Sharing with Others Where We’ve Found Bread

One of my favorite definitions of evangelism is that evangelism is essentially sharing with others where we’ve found bread. It might mean sharing with others where we’ve found a supportive faith community that accepts us as we are, that welcomes us wherever we may be on our spiritual journey. It might mean sharing with others where we’ve found a community of people who want to learn together what it means to follow Jesus in our present time and circumstances.

If you’ve been following our church’s Facebook and Instagram pages, you may have noticed several video shorts. José Espinoza has been producing these brief, engaging videos that pose important questions or share insights from the weekly sermons. If you like these, please consider posting them to your own social media pages so that they can get a wider viewership. Think of this as the electronic way of sharing with others where we’ve found bread.

Another way we hope to extend our church’s reach is by expanding our weekly livestream.

We’ve contracted with the Rev. Bill Lane (who’s a techie as well as a pastor) to build us a new computer and upgrade other components of our current setup. We currently livestream each Sunday to our friends on Zoom, and we will absolutely continue to do so.

Beginning in June 2025 we hope to begin livestreaming the entire service to YouTube and/or Facebook, with the YouTube feed also being displayed on our church website. The hope is to make our worship service more visible to people looking for an online service. Many people browse online services somewhat spontaneously on a Sunday morning, and by that time it’s too late to email the church office to request a Zoom link. By making our online service more visible and accessible, we also hope that more people will feel called to visit us in person.

In terms of privacy, only the worship leaders and musicians would have their faces shown on the more public livestream. If you have other questions about our plans for livestreaming to multiple platforms, please ask me.

I also want to express my gratitude to our team that’s been working with the Rev. Bill Lane to expand our livestream—Jan Vanderlaan, Hanafi Tanojo, Brian Mattson, Beverley Dere, and John Fok.

I’m excited about the possibilities for making our church’s worship and ministry more visible. Nonetheless, even with all the technological advances and changes, the number one way that most new people come to church is through personal invitation—people sharing directly with others where they’ve been spiritually fed. If you have friends, neighbors, relatives, acquaintances, or colleagues who are spiritually searching, who might be interested in learning more about a church, please invite them to visit us at Covenant, either online or in person.

Grace and Peace,

Pastor Jack