They Moved

                I have been in churches long enough to go through a time where people came to a local church because there was a building there. It was like the movie, Field of Dreams where he kept hearing, “if you build it, they will come.” Churches have historically carried this mindset that we are here, and they can come anytime. Now it feels like the fact that a church is there does not matter to the average person passing by. It is more like the adage that says, “they do not care what you know, until they know that you care.” People are walking around every day and there are lost all around them. One of the problems is that people in years past did not need to share Jesus Christ, because people were coming to their churches and getting saved. Why should I do something that is already happening at my church? This mindset will be the death of the local church. We must adopt a mindset that partners with God in searching for people that are lost and going to hell. If we do not, we are ultimately saying we do not care.

                In a podcast I was listening to recently, they shared that 72% of people around us are open to talk about spiritual conversations, but less than 1% of pastors said their church was doing a good job of reaching people. We have gotten so comfortable not talking to people, that we do not even think to talk to people. We can all come up with a variety of excuses, but ultimately it comes down to us believing the Gospel and sharing the Gospel. We were all told the Gospel message by someone, and we cannot allow that message to stop with us. If you watch the television today, you will mostly likely conclude that no one wants to hear about Jesus. We are shocked when we see or hear anything on television that mentions or speaks about Jesus. Our comfort can be okay with someone going to hell because we said nothing.

                In the post COVID world, things are different. Many people have changed the way they consume information because we were quarantined and all we had was the television and the internet. We binge watch shows. We watch Reels for hours on our phone. We see political, economic, and social divides all around us and we assume that is the norm. I am convinced that if my church or any other church will collectively grow in wanting to share the message of Jesus Christ, we will see changes happening all around us. I recently heard that one of the primary reasons that people stopped coming to church post-COVID is that they moved. They went to church before and when they moved, they stopped. There are several contributing factors to that but think about how easy it would be to invite someone to your church that is new to the community. Asking someone where they go to church is not that hard and is part of the invitation that Jesus extended to “Come and see.” Are you willing and wanting to invite someone to your church? I think that if we can start by asking someone to come to your church, we can grow into sharing the Gospel more frequently. We are mostly likely not doing anything, so let’s start by inviting people to “come and see.”