Dear Friends,
Not long ago, a video gone viral featured an adorable little girl hugging a discarded water heater made to look like a robot as it sat in front of a house waiting for trash pick-up. Maybe you’ve seen it. Like other videos on YouTube, Facebook, or Instagram, it is very cute. But what really got me excited was when our daughter Andrea called my attention to the video’s background and I realized to my utter amazement that I was looking at the front of the house we lived in before moving to St. Andrew! Well, actually it was just the mailbox in the front of the house. But still, it was unmistakably the location of our old house in that very cul-de-sac, no question. The next thing I knew, I was telling people that “a video of our old house has gone viral!” The last time I checked there were close to 3 million views.
Not long ago, I also read an online article on how to “Make Jesus Go Viral.” As you might imagine, it came with a challenge to bring Him up to people in creative and unexpected ways and places where someone else might take the image or word you shared or the experience of which you were part and set off not just a chain reaction but a multiplication of people who want to experience the life He brings to the world. Just imagine if there was standing room only in our sanctuary every Sunday, like there was on Easter Sunday, because Jesus was going viral through the witness of St. Andrew. Or, what if more people sounded like those who came to me after “A Night on the Delta” and said, “We need a bigger Great Room?” The idea, of course, is not to increase the size of an organization. It’s to see more people of infinite worth entering the kingdom of God because God, by grace and with the power of His Spirit, is making Jesus go viral through people like you.
The Lord be with you +
In Christ, Your Brother,
Pastor Hricko