(Note: This
blog entry is based on the text for the Introduction and Welcome video for our
YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCB7KnYS1bpHKaL2OseQWCnw),
co-produced with my wife, Rev. Sally Welch.)
Hello, and welcome to our home. I’m Pastor
David Berkedal. My wife, Rev. Sally Welch, and I are co-producing these videos,
Streams of Living Water. These videos are being streamed via Facebook and YouTube,
and the Bible speaks of living water as the life-transforming presence of God. That’s
why we’re calling it Streams of Living Water (get it?) 😊
We are producing this Introductory Video to
give you some background and some basic information for all of our coming
videos.
We are both retired clergy. I am a retired
pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, and Sally is a retired clergyperson of the Christian Church – Disciples of Christ\ United Church of Christ.
These are challenging times for all of us,
especially medical professionals, food service workers, clergy, teachers, the
homeless, those living with families and those living alone, and all those who
may seem invisible but are known to God and are providing essential services.
We both continue to do what old people like
us are supposed to do: stay at home.
It occurred to us that one of the things we
could do while we are here is to connect with friends old and new and share
encouragement with one another via video.
Our current plan is to go live on Facebook, and
then upload the video to our YouTube Channel, Streams of Living Water twice a
week.
We are fully aware that, as someone online pointed out, there suddenly seems to be
more pastors online than cat videos. Except that, in our first video, at about
12 minutes into it, our cat Phoebe suddenly appears from behind the window
curtains, looks indifferently at the camera, and jumps to the floor. So, there
you get a two-fer. 😊
Each week we’ll introduce our theme, share
some humor, encourage you, pray with you, and be reminded that loves us, that
God died for us, and that God walks with us through these challenging times.
We’ll look at the Bible for the promises
that never fail, and experience the presence of God in the action of reading
and hearing. If you’d like to follow along, bring out your Bible. We’ll help
you find the passage we are looking at.
We are using our very basic equipment to
record these videos: a somewhat out-of-date cell phone to record video and
audio and natural light. We are hoping to improve our production every week,
but there are bound to be glitches.
For example, if I look a little out of whack,
or at least more so than usual, it’s because my phone records video in a mirror
image. Everything is flipped horizontally. I spent hours trying to correct that
on my Google Pixel phone with no success. But I’m still working on it. Apparently,
Facebook removed the feature that lets you correct that. We’re still looking for
an effective work-around. One hack I’m using is to print text in a mirror
image, so that it appears to be normal in the video. So, see, improvement! 😊
Please send us your ideas for improving our
video and audio, as well as this blog, your prayer requests, and suggestions for content. We will
respond to every one.
We would also especially like to know if
this blog is useful to you. Would you like to see more of
something: Prayer, Bible Study, encouragement,
humor, or something else? Do you have questions you would like us to speak
about?
We hope that you will be encouraged to
live the abundant life that Jesus came to give us, even in this uncertain time
of risky work and quarantined homes. We want you to know that God is with you,
and that we are all bound together in our common relationship with the one,
true, living God. You are not alone.
We are not a church, we are just a small
part of the whole church on earth, a couple of retired pastors who see a need.
Continue to pray for your pastor and support your church. If you don’t have
one, pick one and join its members in worship and service when this thing is
over. And it will be over.
You can contact us publicly by commenting
through the comment section below, or privately by sending me a personal
message on Facebook or by sending an email to dberkedal1@gmail.com. Please remember that your public comments
are visible to the public.
If you
send your email address to me, I’ll see that you are alerted to new videos.
You can also Subscribe to our YouTube channel,
Streams of Living Water by signing into your YouTube account (it’s free). Search
for Streams of Living Water. If it doesn’t appear at the top of the list, click
on the slider icon near the top of the page (three horizontal broken lines). Look
under the Type column and click on Channel. Click on Streams of Living Water, then click
on the Subscribe button. You can also follow
the Facebook Page at the name David Berkedal.
Finally, we ask that you remember us and
Streams of Living Water in your prayers. We need encouragement and to hear the
gift of new life in Jesus Christ as much as anybody, and we thank you for your
presence in our common ministry of the good news of Jesus Christ.
May God bless us in this time of uncertainty
that God is with us, and that God has promised to all who accept the gift of a
living faith, a living relationship with the living God, Streams of Living
Water.
