Trying to be a person of faith is such a strange assignment, eh? Frederick Buechner once wrote, “Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen.” He certainly got that right. There is beauty everywhere, but also more than enough of the terrible to keep a person awake at night. How does one believe in a world like that? Well, this season at Nexus we’re exploring The Strange Art of Believing in a Terrible and Beautiful World, because, well, to practise faith these days requires some imagination, a little courage, and the willingness to admit that we’re still figuring it out. This Sunday, we begin with a sermon I am calling The Strike Zone, which is about how we stay in dialogue with that strange old book we call the Bible. We know that anyone can pick up a Bible and make some calls with it. Then again, anyone can pick up a reciprocating saw, and some of us really shouldn’t. How do we learn to handle Scripture well, especially when everyone seems so certain they’re reading it correctly? I want to explore all that and more this week. So, expect a questionable marriage experiment, a crash course in Bible safety, a nineteenth-century Scotsman stepping in as umpire, and a family reunion with a surprising reception. We’ll also consider why getting something wrong about the Bible can feel so frightening to us and why we might have more room to learn than we thought. And given that I'm all in on the Toronto Blue Jays right now, there will also be a whole lot of baseball metaphors, because the first thing to learn about the art of reading this book is how to call The Strike Zone. So, batter up! (yes, it felt as cheesy to write “batter up” as it probably did to read it, but I am going with it folks because of the baseball metaphors). - Brad Watson