“It’s Jesus who integrates my past and present. He hangs out with sinners and tax collectors and welcomes them to the table. He is the only hope any of us has and, subsequently, is the source of our joy and gratitude.” — Rev. Luke Edwards (’09)
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Gospel lesson. “Is not my word like fire, declares the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” (Jer. 23:29 ESV). While serving a three-church parish in central South Dakota and now in Rapid City, Edwards said he “spends quite a bit of time hammering through rock to get to issues so that finally I can give people Jesus.” He knows firsthand how big and hard those rocks can be. Integrating past, present
Only in recent years has this once hopeless “lost cause” opened to sharing his past. “God doesn’t erase our past, but He gives us the grace to live with it,” Edwards said, paraphrasing Christian theologian Stanley Hauerwas.
jeff jenkins
‘Don’t leave me alone’
Jeff Jenkins said despite being “stumbling drunk” several nights a week, he was a top architecture student at Oklahoma State University (OSU) in Stillwater in the 1980s. So imagine his shock when professors could find “nothing good” about an important project Jenkins, then a sophomore, presented before an academic jury and fellow students. Furious, he left campus, intent on ending his life. Instead, he “broke down and started talking to God.” “I’ll go wherever
“It’s Jesus who integrates my past and present,” he said. “He hangs out with sinners and tax collectors and welcomes them to the table. He is the only hope any of us has and, subsequently, is our source of joy and gratitude.
You want me to go and say whatever You want me to say,” he
“I love being a pastor,” said Edwards, who has two children with his wife, Gina. “I’m thankful that God, for whatever reason, has chosen me in Christ, not only to be His own but also to serve His people.”
he overheard classmates laughing about drunken antics he
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prayed. “Just don’t leave me alone.” Now more than 30 years later, Jenkins’ voice cracks with emotion as he talks about that life-changing autumn – the same semester didn’t even remember. “If I had a dime for every time I tried to quit drinking and started again. ... But this time was different,” said Jenkins, who felt he “needed to go to church.”