by: Bruce Goddard
Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you to be fishers of men.”
Our Lord did not say, follow me and I will educate you, or I will teach you lots about the Bible. Those things certainly happened, but that is not the real test of Bible leadership and Bible ministry.
In these three plus decades of pastoring I have seen a movement of preachers who are more concerned about the Sunday morning attendance and offering than they are with reproducing themselves.
I started our church with my wife and I knocking on doors. Before our first service, I had a man going with me door to door. I met him during the six weeks of door knocking and searching out prospects. I found someone to train. Over these years my goal has been to create an environment where people were equipped for the work of ministry, Ephesians 4.
Recently we had a big day where our people preached to over 8,000 people, with over 1,700 trusting Christ. We do this every year or so. We simply go into the community and bring church and thanksgiving baskets to the people who would not normally attend any church. The preaching services were done almost entirely by my laymen. The vast majority of the soul winning was done by laymen. Our weekly bus routes are all run by laymen except for one route run by a lady school teacher.
My young men are chomping at the bit to get to preach. I mean my teens and young adult men are excited and prepared to preach. Why is it some of the better known preachers in America have few if any young men wanting to preach? These larger but less productive churches are usually pastored by expository teachers who teach well but reproduce little.
On 9/11 we had a couples retreat planned. Here we were in the mountains with everything prepared, but our guest speaker could not make it due to the airline shutdown. On Thursday I asked several of our laymen to do one session each on marriage or the family. They had less than 24 hours to prepare. It may have been the best couples retreat we ever had, and it didn’t cost me anything. We must create an environment where our people learn to do the work of the ministry.
Someone asked me how a man could be so good at teaching the Bible yet have so few young men wanting to preach. The answer is not hard to see. These churches are seeking to reach the head more than the heart. They speak to educate, not to convict. While they are very attentive to not offending, they are inattentive to holiness, standards and separation from the world.
Bible preaching reproduces the leader. Bible-based ministries reproduce the leadership. Holy Spirit led churches have Holy Spirit called young people seeking to serve the Lord. Don’t get caught up in the nice man in the pulpit or his amazing ability to open the Scriptures, look at the fruit. Just what is being reproduced?
Artificial flavors taste good, but they cannot reproduce themselves. A real peach will have a real seed and that seed can grow more peaches. But those tasty peach rings cannot grow a peach tree, no matter how sweet they are.
Let me show you the short version of our churches today. We start going soul winning. We bring some folks with us and teach them to win souls. As the church grows we focus on keeping a crowd and change our music, soften our standards, bring in sound tracts and praise teams. Some or all of these things are going on while fewer and fewer members go soul winning. We do not want to pressure people. Soon, just the staff go soul winning. Then there are only a few specialty staff members known as “great soul winners” going out. If you want someone to get saved, you send “ol’ Bro. Soul winner,” he just has a gift. No, he is just the only one who is still obedient.
We draw our crowd without the conviction of the Holy Spirit, but a lot of comfort for the flesh. We fail to reproduce ourselves, but as long as the crowd is growing it does not matter. Of course there are folks getting saved for a while, our children, friends who come to attend, and those reached by good ol’ Bro Soul winner. That is not the issue. The issue is, we are not reproducing ourselves. We are not making fishers of men. We are cursing the next generation!Who will be the pastors? Who will be the missionaries? What is sad is how we draw young families to this warm and friendly church. They join our staff in sincerity, but the backslidden preacher ought to tell them, “Your children will have no desire to serve God, your boys will never have a desire to preach, and the divine potential of your children will never be achieved.”
The reason we are not seeing changed lives and challenged lives is that we are not doing the work God’s way. Even little country churches have some young man surrender to preach now and then. As long as there is a preacher doing the work of God the way God directs, the Holy Spirit will change lives and we will reproduce ourselves.
Jesus said, “Follow me and I will make you to be fishers of men.”
Train your members to go out into the harvest field. I was led to Christ by a teenager who was trained to witness by a mechanic attending a small country church. It is not the size of the church, but the perfecting of the saints to do the ministry that truly matters.
Ephesians 4:12 says, “For the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ:”
Dr. Bruce Goddard
Pastor
Faith Baptist Church
Wildomar, CA
http://thepreachersfriend.com