Dear Friends,

The "Faith-And" Trilogy has been completed. These books were written with the goal of developing confidence for Christians to walk by faith in Christ. In the first book, Faith That Sees In the Culture, we conduct a survey of biblical dualities and paradoxes to bring clarity to the relationship between faith in Jesus Christ and our lives in relation to the world. In this volume we peer through the lenses of biblical dualities for perfect acuity to see who we are, where we live, when we live, and to whom we speak (just to name some of the dualities). When understanding is grasped in these areas, it is easier to live out faith in the culture.

The second volume Faith That Enages the Culture considers the important task of evangelization but in such a way as to leave programming and marketing devices behind. The emphasis is genuine relational engagement with people while prioitizing the love of Christ when sharing the faith with anyone we might speak to. In this volume I introduce what I refer to as "the engagement triangle," that leads us to a biblical outline for effectively engaging people with the saving Gospel of Jesus Christ. We begin with Perspective as especially laid out in 1 Peter 3:15, then continue with People and how we connect as taught in 1 Corinthians 9:22, and then finish the triangle with Place as we examine how our unique envirnoment in the culture might serve as a bridge for better communicaton taking St. Paul's example in the Areopagus in Athens, Greece as recorded in Acts 17.

In the third and final book of the series Faith That Shines In the Culture we fortify Christians for celebrating how God shines His light in our everyday vocations/callings in the world since the light of Christ shines upon us through His powerful Word and Sacraments. We step back to consider our daily vocations within the three estates in our lives established by God: the family, the church (local congregations), and the state (the greater society). These are to serve each other and responsible Christian citizenship is to treat all three as both secular and spiritual (sacred). When we do so, we learn to apply the fourth estate which is estate of Christian love (agape sacrificial service) in and through all our calls in the three estates. Here, Christ serves others in and through Christians and we are saved from the temptation to treat our callings as drugery.

Please help me spread the word about the "Faith-And" series.

In Your Service and To Christ's Glory,

Rev. Alfonso Espinosa, Ph.D.