Well, here we are. Starting next week this weekly column in our local newspaper will pass into history and a “new” venture will take its place. The News-Herald
will return to the format it took up not so long after I came to Grand Marais. Each month a different member of the local Christian clergy will share their reflections on spiritual topics of their choice. Dennis Schutte of Life in Christ Lutheran Church (Missouri Synod) will pick up the baton for the month of October and others will follow after him.
Writing the Good News
has always been a privilege. I confess I’ve lost count of the years since Hal stopped me in the post office one day not long after the Cook County Star
was born and said, “I hope you’ll consider writing for us.”
What an incredible invitation in this day and age! Thank you Hal and Deidre for the opportunity and support over the years. Thank you Rhonda for accepting, reading, and publishing all those columns, and for fielding the various responses over the years. It truly has been a joy!
Thank you, as well, to all of you who have read the column and posed questions, challenged assumptions, offered alternatives, and extended appreciation. You have equally contributed to my joy as through you, God has molded my heart for our community. This is a remarkable place to live!
I also want to thank all the emergency services personnel in our county. They have nothing really to do with the column, other than that some of them read it, but I don’t think they get thanked often enough for the service they provide and I don’t know when I’ll have another chance to thank them using this venue, so I want to say it while I can: Thanks to the sheriff ’s department, the doctors and nurses and ambulance crews and first responders, thanks to the various fire departments, including the folks who watch over and put out forest fires, thanks to Human Services and Public Health people who keep preparedness and response in the forefront of our thinking, thanks to Border Patrol and Customs folks and the Highway Patrol guys who from time to time remind me to concentrate on good, safe driving. Thanks to all of you who care about me and my family and prove it with your lives!
Thank you to the family of Cornerstone Community Church who have prayerfully supported their pastor in these years of “going public.” That has not always been easy, since we had not really done it that way before, but you came alongside and trusted God to make a difference in people’s lives through this humble column and we know of instances when he has done exactly that. And thank you for daring to step into the wider world through our Facebook page, through our website (www.cscchurch. com), and most recently by sharing your worship services with the entire world through our LiveStream and Sermon Library project on the website.
Most of all, I want to thank Jesus Christ, not only for giving me Someone and something to write about, but more so for telling me the truth about God and his grace, about myself and my sin, and about himself and his sacrifice to bring me to God. You give my life and my writing meaning and purpose and I thank you, Jesus, most of all!
Finally, an apology. I heard several weeks ago, again, about a response to the content of this column over the years. The comment was something along the lines of “I’m tired of hearing I’m going to hell all the time.” I checked. In all the years of writing I’ve only mentioned hell about eight times. That’s less than once a year. I’m sorry. I should have been more diligent.
You see, God’s Good News is good not only because he loves us, but because his love responds to his justice. Thefact that every human being, even the nice ones, fail to conform to God’s moral law in act, attitude, and nature subjects us to God’s judgment. Yet, knowing the misery that would await us, God in love responds by sending his Son, Jesus Christ, to die on the cross and take the punishment our moral failure deserves. When we trust Jesus and put our faith in him, God forgives us and does not hold our sin against us. Hell holds no fear for those whose faith is in the Son of God.
And that
is the Good News.
Pastor Dale will continue to
write in his blog “Notes from
the Northland” at www.notesfromthenorthland.
blogspot.
com. You can also access the
blog through the website
of Cornerstone Community
Church at www.cscchurch.
com. LiveStreaming of Sunday
worship services are offered at
10:30 AM on Sundays through
the website and archived services
are available under the
“Sermon Library” buttons on
the home page. On Facebook,
you can find Pastor Dale and
Cornerstone as “Cornerstone
Community Church of Grand
Marais.”
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