Why we lose so many

So this is how we did it

I think that sometimes we do not give enough credit to those around us for the incredible anointing and inspiration they bring to our lives. Take my wife, for example, every so often she comes out with a truth that takes me ages to realise. Then it takes a while to sink in and I find myself answering a question I asked earlier. So it is with this remark.

Yesterday, I posted a blog questioning the reason for our churches remaining half empty. I asked how we would account for the fact that the Lord has given us thousands of new Christians, yet what we did with them was that we simply lost them back to the world again. I received one comment that, “I suspect that it is a combination of things, not the least of which is the selfish concern of churches to try to do everything themselves.” I thought, yes, that is the selfishness of only wanting all these new people for themselves. An unwillingness to share anything.

My wife’s comment was this “I find it incredible that Christ would die for the sinner in all their mess yet we're the ones who look at them and scorn.” I found the comment this evening and, as I thought about it, I thought, Yes – another excellent, if damning indictment of the church’s attitude towards unity or any lesser kind of sharing in these times.

Selfishness is perhaps the besetting sin of the Church today. Firstly there is the selfishness of wanting to do it all themselves. This is more a pride issue. Some people can never admit they had help as it would lessen the glory for themselves. The fact that God share glory with no man and, as He said, “they have received their reward in full.”

Second is the selfishness of greed. Greed for keeping all the new people for themselves. Greed of counting all those lovely tithes before the feet are barely over the threshold. All this despite the fact that no program is in place for discipling the new people, no program is in place for teaching the new people, and no program is in place for even welcoming these very tender new Christians – rarely even an Alpha course.

Scorn and contempt is another reason. It puts new people off quicker than anything else to be confronted by snobbery, cliquishness, and plain bad manners and ignorance. If there is no training for new converts then there is even less for present members on how to welcome and absorb new people. How many times has a church found out a little about a new person and promptly shunned them as “not good enough for us”. So many professing Christians today are from generations of previous Christians and they are simply incapable of understanding that another Christian, no matter how new, does not understand any of their buzz-words. Words like ‘sanctification’, ‘redemption’, or ‘atonement’. They cannot comprehend anyone who does not know or understand the relationship between the God-head. Who is the Holy Spirit? What’s the difference between the Holy Spirit and the Holy Ghost?

So we hold such people in contempt and we scorn them as coming from the wrong type of family. Even worse would be someone who was, maybe still is recovering from being a drunkard. Worse still, one who has been to prison. Oh how the Church is capable of scorning such as these whom Jesus died for yet whom we hold in utter contempt.

I even heard that some churches would not join in a joint Alpha course because they wanted to make sure all the attendees stayed with their church only. God help our self-centredness and totally selfish attitude.

So this is how we threw away so many people from God’s Kingdom. How will we possibly answer for this??