No Turning Back

Often during the invitation of a service an old hymn will be played. The lyrics are as follows: "I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, I have decided to follow Jesus, no turning back, no turning back." Yet for many who claim the name Christian, they seem to be in full retreat when it comes to following Jesus. As denominations and church leaders struggle to find the answer to this problem, the symptoms are easy to identify. It's the solutions that seem to be avoiding us.

You've seen me cite statistics on this blog regarding my denomination, the Southern Baptist Convention. How of the people we baptized and supposedly led to Christ 10 years ago, we can find exactly 2 of 10, 20%. Another major denomination several years ago baptized 294,000 people. Of those they baptized, they could find 14,000 when they researched their church rolls. Apparently, their has been alot of turning back.

It's often easy to identify a problem, but far more difficult to implement a solution to correct the problem. I honestly don't believe their is a denominational answer to a problem such as this. What we are dealing with, are individual hearts. I believe when we look at this as a group problem we miss the point, and the supposed solutions we come up with will produce little fruit.

I wrote earlier this month how these statistics appear to point out with little ambiguity that many if not most of the people we are baptizing are false converts. They have decided to try Jesus, or they have decided to follow a Jesus that it has been promised them will give them joy and peace. Then, when what the bible promises that the Christian will endure; persecution, suffering, trials, tribulations, hatred from the world occur, they abandon Jesus as just another thing that didn't work out for them. I honestly don't know how else to explain why so many who at one time come forward and profess to decide to follow Jesus, are no longer following Him.

When dealing with someones heart, honesty is a required attribute. My denomination has set an ambitious goal of baptizing 1 million people in the year 2012. Since we baptized a total of 350,000 in 2009 we are speaking of almost a threefold increase. But what good does it do to set such an ambitious goal if between 80-90 percent are simply going to fall away. Doesn't it first make sense to try to address the fall away rate before we focus on baptizing a far larger number of people than we have at any point in our history? Why are we trying to fill the bucket with water before we've patched the hole?

This has to begin with individuals. It has to begin with members of our congregations actually leading someone to Christ in a biblical way, by showing them from the Law their sin and need for a Savior before introducing them to the one who can save them. And then that person must be taken under someones wing to be discipled and supported when the challenges of following Christ will surely come. This must happen on a 1-on-1 level, so in order for this to happen biblically, we as churches need to be sure that when someone does trust Christ and become a blood bought, born again, new creation in Jesus Christ, they will have instruction. We must invest in people 1-on-1 and in very small groups to begin with to insure they are instructed and supported as they need to be. To focus on growth without this infrastructure in place is to be a people simply chasing our tails.

And church members, this means you will have to do this. A pastor cannot and should not be the only person in a church giving instruction or leading someone to Christ. A lost truth of the bible is that it's the pastor's job to equip the saints to do these things, not handle them all himself. The question in so many of our churches is; how many church members actually want to be equipped? If we go by our fruit, the answer is not many.

I'm not a young man but I am a young pastor, and I have to tell you I'm already tired of this method or that new latest book that will make us an effective holy army in the world making disciples. In order to do this we must deny ourselves and put Jesus first, not have a denominational or church focus on nickles and noses. And sadly, far to many self professing Christians are self centered, carnal Christians concerned only with what their church can do for and give to them, and not what they should be doing for Jesus. Jesus said of these, they were unworthy to follow Him. I was unworthy of my salvation as I had no right to expect God, Jesus, to die for me. But since I claim to have trusted Christ and pledged to follow Him, because of His sacrifice, He does have a right to expect me to surrender all to Him. Until we have this heart set, the words to that hymn; "no turning back, no turning back," will ring hollow and hypocritically in our churches across this land. And we'll continue to rehash the same issues we have been the last 100 years.