It’s No Wonder

I'll start off this post by saying you can get mad all you want to. You can write all the comments you want. You can say all the nasty things you want anonymously. But the fact will remain that if you'll truly examine your life, you'll be guilty. You ready for the challenge:

Name three people in your life right now that don't walk with Jesus that you have a personally vibrant relationship with and that you are helping to walk down the road to an encounter with God.

Guess what, most of you, in fact 98% of you aren't even going to have one. Not a single one. You don't have a single lost friend. You may be able to name lost people left and right. You can throw out their names. But you can't tell me one thing about their lives. You can't tell me one thing about the hours you've spent with them just hanging out and building a relationship with them. You can't share stories of God working through you because you haven't put yourself in a position where God can do anything except watch the game with you.

And I hear a lot of people talk about evangelism. I mean a lot. Mega-Church pastors, Para-church presidents, Seminary professors, etc. You name it and everybody's talking about it. The problem is nobody's doing it. And nobody's admitting they're not doing it. It's easy to preach it. It's a whole 'nother thing to do it. And I bet if you peered inside the lives of the biggest evangelism proponents, what you would see are people who are passing the buck to their followers and leaving true evangelism up to the other folks.

Let's be clear on something. I phrased my challenge the way I did for a reason. Anyone, and I mean anyone, can do the 3 minute Gospel presentations, but it takes a whole different kind of person to build a relationship with lost people. I want to know if you're building relationships, not giving pre-canned presentations to an audience you're trying to sell something to. You don't win this challenge if all you ever try to do is "lead people to the Lord on airplanes" because they are people you'll never see again and you can feel good that you somehow did your spiritual duty. Never mind you'll never have to invest in that person again so you could care less whether or not you actually loved that person or not.

And you want to know the people who are the most guilty of not building relationships with lost. People in ministry! Pastors, para-church ministry employees, church leadership etc. It's amazing how busy people get with "ministry" stuff that they forget that all the crapola they are wasting so much time on is pointless compared to the eternal souls that lie desolate just doors down from them.

I'll take it a step further and say that I would venture most Christian ministry people don't even know their own neighbors. Ooohh…we're doing big things for Jesus but those people on our street can take a flying leap. I'll let some other schmuck reach them. I got things to do. I got a booming ministry that needs tending to. I got speaking engagements. I got places to go, people to see. I'm in the ministry. Yea…and you know what. You're impotent for the cause of Christ as well because you are living a lie. You're preaching to choirs but not preaching to lost. You're rapping with Pharisees but shunning the poor.

And you find a nice way to justify it every day you continue to do it. This week, we'll look at the natural results of this attitude within Christianity. It should be an interesting week.