People come to church primarily for two reasons; for some kind of fellowship with people, or some kind of fellowship with God.  If they are coming seeking God, that is great, but it will not sustain them or keep them in “our” church because, whether they know it or not, they need people.  We all need fellowship.  And without it we ultimately move on.  A lot of people change churches for this very reason and may not even realize it.

If they are coming seeking to make relationships with people, that is actually better in a way.  If we reach out to them and include them then we can probably keep them coming for a while.  There are also potentially two problems with this also.  First, we never introduce them to Jesus, teach them about God, or feed the spiritual hunger in them and they, again, move on.  We can expect this because ultimately someone, maybe even me, will make them mad or hurt their feelings.  Second, we never introduce them to Jesus, teach them about God, or feed the spiritual hunger in them and they do stay, but never mature as Christ followers and may even be in danger of an eternal destination that does not include Him.  Neither of these situations help us grow a healthy church or bring people into the Kingdom.  The first won’t keep them and the second won’t save them.

What is our mission as a church?  It is simple.  It is to make disciples.  But what, exactly is a disciple?

A disciple is one who loves God, loves people, and serves them both.  It is that simple, but yet all too often we mess it all up.  So where are we messing up?  I believe we are dropping the ball right at the start.  We are not properly introducing our Father to them.  Sure, we have preaching, we have worship, we have programs, and we have fellowship; but are we teaching them about a Father in heaven that loved us so much that “He gave His only begotten son, that whoever believe in Him should not perish but have eternal life…” ( John 3:16)  When we speak out to others about our Father and all his love for us, we can help start them down a path of redemption that keeps going and growing.

But we must reach out to them first.  The same people who ask, “Why aren’t we keeping visitors,” are the very ones at fault all too often.  They either see the visitors and don’t care enough, or are too busy, to reach out to them.  We must not wait for the other person to go talk to that visitor.  If we don’t care enough, then we better get to work on our own spiritual health and if we are too busy, we better slow down.

Jesus told us that all we need to do is love God and love people.  The rest of the New Testament writers told us how to serve both.  The whole bible has this simple message at its core.  Yet we have made this whole business of church exactly that, a business.  One church growth program after another is put forward by some great church leader.  There are a wide variety of church marketing strategies that are pushed at any given time.  And they seem to be ever changing, just trying to keep up with perceived changes in seekers needs.  But seekers need only one thing; they need Jesus.  And we introduce them to Him by simply reaching out to them.

Have you welcomed and talked to that couple that has visited for the last month?

Did you truly rejoice and praise God for another brother added to the family when that guy got saved in church last week, or did you just praise God when the pastor quit talking about it so you could get out and miss the lines at a local restaurant?

Are you so busy that you do not even know about either the new couple or that guy getting saved?

All too often we are either too self centered or we have a wrong view of ministry, and we miss the simple fact that we are to reach out and embrace the other.  God created man for a relationship with us.  He sent His Son to show us the way back into that relationship after we abandoned Him.  And He lovingly showed us that we need each other, or we won’t make it.  We must realize that if we want to increase our church membership then we must reach out to people in love and stop trying to determine the best program or the newest strategy.  If we reach out in love, we not only may keep them in our church, we may bring them into the Kingdom and the family of God.

If we do not reach out, we won’t keep them in “our” church and worse, they may not ever be shown that God loves them and simply wants to start the adoption process.

Love you all

Tags: Church, eternal life, Fellowship, Heaven, Kingdom, Love, Relationships, seeking god, Self, spiritual hunger