Swapping Sheep Or Making Disciples
Regretfully, it seems that many within the Lord’s church have forgotten our primary responsibility and privilege: “Go ye therefore, and make disciples of all nations…” (Matt.28:19, ASV). Of all the many good things that our Lord came to do while upon earth, his central focus was “to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). We have gotten so far away from trying to reach and teach the lost, and have instead focused on recruiting members from other congregations of the Lord’s people. Paul Harvey once said, “We have gone from being fishers of men to keepers of the aquarium.” Instead of trying to grow the church through evangelism and restoring the erring, many seem to be content with turning the church into a social/civic organization. The church is supposed to be a hospital for sinners, not a country club for saints (Luke 5:31-32). I am told that Christians in Africa will walk for hours to attend services, where they will sit for hours on a wooden bench with no back support or padding, in open-air buildings that do little but keep the rain off of them. Some here won’t even attend a service when they can travel by air-conditioned car for about a five minute drive, to sit on a padded pew in an air-conditioned building for a service that might last an hour. To top it off, some want their coffee bars (as one congregation announced, “Java with Jesus”), and their gymnasiums, and their playgrounds to entertain their children. Is it any wonder that when we are not busy making disciples, then we focus our attention on catering to the ones in the fold? And, when the focus of a congregation turns inward, it seems it is not long before the spiritual gives way to the social and physical.
What constitutes growth in the kingdom of our Lord? Is a congregation growing when it converts no one, yet has some who place membership with them? I realize that people move from various locales, and, therefore, must change congregations. I also realize that there are those who are looking for a congregation that will provide them the opportunity to be of greatest service in the kingdom. However, has the kingdom of God grown at all when one family places membership with another congregation? One congregation may “grow” at the expense of and to the detriment of another congregation. Swapping sheep does not constitute church growth in the eyes of God, for we are all members of the one body already (1 Cor.12:13, 20). Moving sheep from one pasture to another has not increased the size of the flock at all. Sadly, there are some who actively attempt to recruit members away from other congregations. Such is a shameful practice, but I suppose those who are successful feel as though the congregation where they attend is “growing” and being “blessed by God.” Have we become so deaf and blind to the plight of the lost that we are more concerned about making our pitch to those who are already members of the church as to why they should place membership with us? Not only should this shame us to no end, but it should also cause us to tremble, for if we are not trying to make disciples, then we are in blatant violation of our Lord’s command! The last words our Lord spoke before ascending to the right hand of the throne on high were to take the gospel to the world (Mark 16:15; Matt.28:18; Luke 24:47). The church has to move beyond the “Field of Dreams” mentality (“If you build it, they will come”). The field of souls lies beyond the walls of the church building, and it’s time for us to lift up our eyes, and look upon the fields which are ripe for the harvest (John 4:35)!
-Patrick Morrison
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