Ninety and Nine The angels are rejoicing in Heaven over this brother coming to the Lord! the pastor shouts with all the enthusiasm of a hallelujah breakdown. We tore one from the grips of hell tonight, the song leader proclaims, but silence is the word three weeks later when the newborn is no longer around. Evangelists have left the field because of returning year after year and seldom finding converts from the previous year. In fact the statistics are frightening. It is not at all uncommon for a church to only have one out of four converts water baptized. Nor is it too rare to find a Pentecostal church with only one out often Spirit filled. I was about nine years old and helping my father take in loose hay on his West Virginia farm. As a reward for tromping the hay down in the truck, I rode the hay back to the barn. Easing across the edge of the field, - the truck leaned over shifting the load. I and about a third of the load of hay tumbled off the truck into a creek running alongside the field. Somewhat at a loss for words, I yelled, Hey, wait for me! How is it we can cut the grain, but it falls off the wagon before it gets to the barn? Unfortunately, spiritual hay seldom shouts, Wait for me! There is a natural tendency to meet the personal and spiritual needs of the established membership more often than meeting the needs of the new converts. This is particularly the case when evangelism carries a low profile in the life of the congregation. How often has my father yelled out the screen door to a young animal lover, Dont feed that stray, hell just keep coming back? Much like a stray, a new convert will return if fed. Does it bring glory to God to claim a new convert on our reports only to have them in a few months to suffer, strangle, and die from lack of spiritual nourishment? I dont believe so. Every church should be a nursery, not only for physical newborns, but also for spiritual newborns. It is now known that 60% of everything a person learns is learned before the age of three. Is it any different with spiritual babies? In the book of Acts, there are at least 32 instances of follow-up and 18 instances of other occasions where encouragement is displayed. Personal contacts, personal prayer, personal representation, and personal correspondence were all important parts of the early churchs method of encouraging and incorporating new believers. The old proverb says, Never shake hands with a friend until youve shaken hands with a stranger. Is it possible that we have devoted all too much time caring for the ninety-nine sheep in our fold only to forget the one who should be there? In addition to growth through regular worship and biblical preaching, the Christian will need personal attention. This is done best when someone in the church is personally responsible for the convert. In some churches, the pastor realizes this and recruits a person with like interests or occupation to encourage the new Christian, and help make sure he gets to prayer meeting and other church activities. That may not seem possible for your church, but the fact is, all the Bible we can ram down his throat those first few weeks will never be effective unless he develops relationship within the church. There are few exceptions. James Kennedy points out with new converts, fellowship is as important as the Word, meaning the lack of friends prevents spiritual growth. Paul himself, experienced the need for a spiritual parent. When he reached Jerusalem he tried to join a body of disciples there, but they were all afraid of him and didnt really trust him as a believer. Barnabas, however; took him by the hand and introduced him to the apostles. Next, the new converts need to be trained. I believe we have missed a great opportunity here. We try to make the new convert just like us. That is good except we normally do not associate with sinners, and its hard to win sinners you dont know. Joe has mostly sinners as friends. But once we get Joe into a new converts class that stresses doctrine, as important as that may be, we may be missing an opportunity. Studies prove that new convert classes, that present evangelism as the chief goal of the believer, send Joe back out to win his friends before he ceases to be their friend, since he has now adopted a new life-style. Can we do this? We must! The ninety and nine and one stray is never an acceptable position. While the church growth movement has been described as a numbers game, that can only come from a misunderstanding of what church growth is all about. Can we afford any goal less than disciple making? Can we accept any theme less than to present every man perfect in Christ Jesus? The test of church growth and any evangelistic program is not how many are born, but how many are still living. The mind of Christ constrains us to seek the lost and to feed the strays. How are we doing? - CMH, The Bridegrooms Messenger, - Jan/Feb, 1988
Posted on: Fri, 18 Oct 2013 12:05:13 +0000
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