Fishing

I got to do some fishing this week. Will Heflin (one of our members here at Mt. Dora) took me out on his boat. We fished in Lake Eustis. Didn't catch anything. Didn't even get a nibble - probably too hot. Wil took me through one of the canals (Dead River) to Lake Harris. Then back again to Lake Eustis and through the Dora Canal to Lake Dora. The Dora Canal was quite long. It felt like a typical Florida stream. There were Cypress trees everywhere with Spanish Moss hanging down. There were also Blue Herons around every corner. One of them had found a fish (he certainly was better than we were that day). Will also pointed out a bird (don't know the name) that spends most of its time drying out its wings. They just stand there with wings spread waiting for them to dry. The best part was seeing an alligator. It was a baby - probably 2 or 3 feet. But it was swimming across the canal in front of us. Cool.

Speaking of fishing. I heard a sermon one time where the preacher contrasted commercial (ancient commerical) fishing with modern lure-type fishing. The purpose was mainly to suggest that anglers today rely on the latest fad to catch fish and so a lot of preachers (and members interested in evangelism) use too many fads. I suppose he's right in some way. But you could also say that ancient commercial fishing drags a net and the fish have no say in the matter. That wouldn't be good in evangelism!

Acutally I would like to see community fishing explored. This involves a village where some of the men go out and catch fish for the community. I think that is a great image where fishing is thought of as a community effort. The effort feeds the whole village. Evangelism certainly is a church community effort and the effort benefits everyone in the church. I know this is not what Peter, Andrew, James, and John did with their families but I don't think we are ever going to get a perfect picture of what "fishing for men" means. Perhaps we can take a bit from each image and put them all together for the imperfect picture of evangelism in this day and age. Maybe more on that later.