I WANT THE LOST!!!

I never really noticed it happening while it was.  I suppose none of us ever really did, but it happened and we were every bit a part of the problem.  For me it wasn't until I found myself deleting phone numbers from my cell phone.  I began to notice the greater number of people in my phone were believers.  In fact, I am not so certain that I had but a handful of people who didn't know Christ.  That grieved me.  Fortunately though God never stops working on us.  

Much of the world of church planting lately, with trends around, behind, and in front of me, rubs me the wrong way.  I find too many church planters are looking for more Christians with whom they can plant a church.  Now I don't mean for a moment to take away from the fact that I don't believe we do well to plant churches with anything less than believers.  However, I am beginning to ask the deeper question, if indeed God wants us to be about church planting in the fashion we have been so engaged in, or if there is the need for emphasis not on a Sunday morning worship service, small groups, and ministry opportunities (and all our other "Christianese" terminology), but a need to start with a team who wants to win souls, and upon winning souls, watch God grow a church. 

I have spoken some of this before, but it is continuing to strike me that we seem a bit wayward in such an approach.  God doesn't call us to plant churches, but He does call us to make disciples (Matt. 28:19-20).  He doesn't call us to have a public launch, but He does call us to mobilize people for the work of ministry (Eph. 4:11-14).  He doesn't call us to count heads every week, but that we present everyone mature in Christ (Col. 1:28).  I say this to shame nobody but myself.  My own presuppositions about how to do all this have been increasingly exposed.  My heart is ever being transformed.  Instead of measuring success by a number, and a growing number, I am seeing it more clearly in terms of how God is conforming me and those around me into the likeness of Christ.

For those out there who feel the need for "social validation" by more numbers, go ahead and take all those who think like you.  For those out there who want to have seats full of bodies on week one, take whomever comes.  I would rather not busy myself with those worries, with those expectations, with that unnecessary weight.  Just give me souls!  I want the lost!  The lost don't know how to "do church."  The lost don't care about our neatly folded bulletins, or our well-planned service structure.  They need to know of their brokenness, their sin and the glories of the all-sufficient Christ who will satisfy them forevermore. So I want Christians to join me in this if their heart will be compelled to activity as regards the GOSPEL.  But if they won't engage a non-believing world actively with the gospel and instead make it about church activities as they have known, I have known, you have known, I would not have them.  My hearts cry continues to cry, "Give me the lost, I want the lost." And I labor in prayer and activity toward making disciples who make disciples who make disciples.  All for the GLORY OF CHRIST.