Simple Evangelism Series

The Great Commission is all about obedience and submission to Jesus as the Lord of your life! If you profess Christ as Savior, this commission from Him is meant for YOU!

We are called to bring the Good News of Jesus Christ to the world around us and allowing the Holy Spirit to move and when people accept Christ we are called to train them up as Jesus trained and taught His disciples!

The 'church growth' movement over the past 30 yrs has NOT had any lasting effect the growth of churches. We see churches explode in numbers only to see them either dwindle or simply disappear within a short while...

I believe this happens because the focus of the church growth movement IS largely short sighted in its approach to 'building' a church. It focuses mainly on being an attractive church and attracting people! Now don't get me wrong, we should do all in our power to appeal to the people of our community... BUT that cannot be our focus!

The true and faithful way to grow a church is also the hardest and usually takes the longest, but in the end it LASTS and the product is MUCH more stable and the believers of that congregation are far more spiritually mature! This true and faithful way stems from this commission given by Jesus!

Jesus has called us to share our faith and to share His love, but He has also called us to teach/train those new believers who have accepted Christ and instill all of His teachings within their hearts! This method teaches and trains these new believers to become believers who are willing to share their faith and train others who have accepted Christ to follow the teachings of Jesus.

Our local situation here has been quite grim since late 2005 and Hurricane Katrina, but we need to face the fact that this church had been declining for several years...even before Hurricane Katrina!

After Katrina this body was down to about 40 members who looked around and did not like what they saw. They saw a church that at one time made an impact on their community, but it no longer could. They saw a church that was floundering in membership and attendance.

They saw a church that needed MORE members. Well today, about 4½ yrs later... we stand here a church with about 100 in attendance on any given Sunday, but a church that has NOT had any significant growth in many years.

Many are looking fwd to Federal City coming to Algiers and the fact that it is going to bring people to our community and these people NEED a church to go to and so they see 'church growth' happening!

There is nothing wrong with people moving into neighborhood and then becoming involved in our church... we encourage that for sure! However, what I am saying this morning is that if that is YOUR idea of church growth, you are missing the point!

Our mission is the LOST! Not making sure we have an attractive church so that we can snare some sheep who want to change pastures! WE are called to reach the LOST and that is exactly what we are missing! This is what the church has been overlooking for years, but I NO longer want our fellowship to overlook it!