Devotional thought of the day…
 ¹⁸  Jesus came to them and said: I have been given all authority in heaven and on earth! ¹⁹  Go to the people of all nations and make them my disciples. Baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, ²⁰  and teach them to treasure (do)  everything I have told you. I will be with you always, even until the end of the world.   Matthew 28:18-20 (CEV) adapted

Monday, Wednesday and this mornign I returned to my undergraduate alma mater, the school were 30 years ago I started my journey towards becoming a pastor.  I had the pleasure of working with some senior students, talking to them about sacramental views of the Lord’s Supper.  It’s been a great experience, and provoked not only much thought about what I beleive and why I trust in God, but many memories.

As I walked across campus, I saw where the escalators were, and even though they never ran, it still seemed odd that they weren’t there.

Even odder was that the walking bridge that cross Nutwood Avenue is no longer there.  Though never an “official” symbol of the school, it was a valued object lesson in missions, and in going to “all nations”.  For across that bridge was the world, or at least the 28,000  students of California State University at Fullerton.  A veritable mission field, and one of the reasons my alma mater, Pacific Christian College (now Hope International University), was re-located from Long Beach to Fullerton.  28,000 students, their faculty and staff, and our little school of 400 students had a mission field.

That bridge was our access point.  Sure, you could cross at crosswalks – crosswalks that were still there.

Doug Dickey was one of my professors, as in his retirement he served as a professor of homilatics (preaching) and as the pastor of Campus Christian Fellowship.  He led the students who did outreach over the CSUF.  He constantly encouraged and molded us to keep our sermons and our ministry focused on Jesus, on Christ crucified.   When i would write a sermon about some great theological truth, the question asked was, “where is Christ-crucified in your sermon Dustin?  How will it save anyone, how will it give them hope?”

The Bridge….. was a way to share Christ… it was a way into others lives… it was a way to get to the what Peter called, “the words of life!”  The words that were the reason Peter and others stayed with Christ.  Words that made even more sense after the cross.  A Bridge Doug would cross – leading us in prayer, zealous to engage our peers and friends in conversation, conversations that would eventually focus them on the cross, and on the love of God, and the presence of God in thieir lives.   That bridge, it was the way to get the message out to the world, to people of every ethnicity, of every imaginable type.

It leaves me think ing….

Where are my bridges today?  Where are yours?  Were are the places we can go – to teach people of all nations about a Lord who loves them enough to die for them?

Dove of the Holy Spirit (ca. 1660, alabaster, Throne of St. Peter, St. Peter’s Basilica, Vatican) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

The local coffee shop?  A Doctor’s office?

Where are our bridges, where we can teach everyone to treasure what Jesus has taught us…

To teach us His love…

May we never forget those people – or how to get to them….

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