Here they are:
"The Great Commission does not apply to me."
(Thanks Craig Evans.)
When Christ told us to go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, it wasn't a suggestion, and it sure wasn't just meant for those who work for churches.
Loy Mitchell says this:
"One reason we have too few workers is we thought we could pay someone else to do it."
Ouch.
But don't we look at it that way sometimes?
Visiting the sick - that's the Elder's job, or the family minister's job. Helping with youth activities - that's the youth minister's job. Talking to people about Christ - that's the pulpit minister's job.
It's ALL our job. Every single one of us.
In his article yesterday with almost the same title as this one, The Last 8 Words of a Dying Church, Trey Morgan says that those famous last words are
"But we’ve never done it that way before!"
And he's right.
Why are we trying to bring people to Christ and grow as a church doing the same old things?
Someone once said that definition of insanity is doing something over and over again and expecting different results.
I'm not talking about any ideas that are anti-Biblical. If it goes against the Word, then we shoud have nothing to do with it. But what about getting oustide our comfort zones? What about breaking the monotony of doing "what we've always done," and trying to reach people in a new and fresh way?
Our worship and dedication to the Scriptures doesn't need to change. Our structures of our classes and activities don't need to change. It is our perspective towards outsiders that needs to change.
Jesus looked at everyone as a lost soul in need of saving. Do we look at people that way? Of course we don't. I think if we could convince ourselves to look at people that way then we would see the Great Commission in another light.
A church that ignores the Great Commission is a dying church. It may take generations, but that church will eventually die out.
We're in the business of making disciples, and those disciples should be taught to make other disciples. I don't know if it's an art that we've lost because we're disconnected, lazy, scared, complacent, or we think someone else will do it - but we need to desperately get back to the core of the Great Commission, to seek and save the lost.
