Revolution

Is Our Biggest Missions Target Already In The Church?

We just returned from camp with our students a little over a week ago. One of the great things that God did during our week at camp was to reveal himself to many of our students as well as reveal to them that while they had "walked an aisle & prayed a prayer", they did not understand the Gospel. I heard this phrase over & over: "I got baptized because I knew I was supposed to." Thankfully, God got the attention of these students & helped them really understand the Gospel & their desperate need for a Savior.

That got me thinking though. I wonder how many people are in our churches who are in the same boat as these teenagers were. How many adults sit in our churches & serve in our churches, yet they are not believers? Yes, they've been baptized but they have not been saved. This reminded me of what Perry Noble has said many times. Perry reminds us that a big target of Jesus' teaching ministry was the "church crowd". I'm afraid Perry is more accurate than he even knows. I'm afraid that many of our church members are not members of the body of Christ. And like the Pharisees & other religious people of Jesus' day, they are too proud or embarrassed to admit it to themselves, to God, or anybody else. I'm thankful that these teenagers were humble enough to admit their need & to run to Christ with it. It's my prayer that they will be a witness to the ones who fill our churches each week who do not know Christ.

What can we do in our ministries to address this problem within our churches?