If, as we say, the “Gospel of Jesus Christ” is heaven’s Good News, and if this good news is the answer to mankind’s deepest, biggest, worst problems, and if it’s free and eternal and for everyone, one would think people would be crashing through the church doors to get in on it.
They’re not.
Why not?
Not only are they not breaking down our doors to partake of God’s free offer in Christ, most of our neighbors act as if the church is completely irrelevant to anything that concerns them. And, if and when we do have the opportunity to enlighten them on the good news of Christ’s wonderful blessings of grace, some laugh in our faces or even scoff and dismiss us as nuts.
What’s going on here? Why are people not clamoring to get in on this wonderful thing God has made available for all mankind in Jesus Christ? It’s good news!
Why Isn’t the Good News Connecting With People?
1. Many do not know
My neighboring pastor Mike introduced me to a young man named Bill. “Bill was baptized last Sunday night.” When I said that was such good news, Bill said, “I had a real hunger in my heart.”
Later, Pastor Mike explained that Bill, a carpenter, had mentioned to some of his co-workers about that inward spiritual hunger. One of the men, a believer, invited him to church. He was not prepared for Bill’s response.
“How do I do that?”
The friend said, “How do you go to church? Well, you get in your car and drive down there, you park, and you walk inside.”
Bill said, “You mean just anyone can walk inside a church?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Anyone.”
The next Sunday Bill heard the Gospel of Christ and responded by going forward during the invitation time and giving his hungry heart to the One who alone could fill it.
I said to Mike, “We make such assumptions. We just assume that everyone knows they would be welcome in our church. We assume they know when we meet and what goes on, and so we never tell them.”
Pastor Mike said, “You know my story, don’t you?” I didn’t.
Mike was grown and dating Terri, who would become his wife, when he attended her Methodist church on Easter Sunday. That was how, for the first time in his life, he heard the story of the resurrection. That week he called his dad, a lifelong Baptist.
“Did you know about the resurrection, Dad?” “Oh sure, son,” he said. “Everybody knows that story.”
Mike said, “Dad, I didn’t.”
His father said, “Aw son, everybody in Odessa, Texas, knows that and how to be saved and all.”
Mike said, “Dad, how was I to know that? You never taught me. You never bought me a Bible or read it to us.”
God’s people seem to assume that everyone knows how to be saved and that they would be welcome in our churches. So, we don’t tell them.
I once knew a church that refused to erect a sign out front announcing the times of their worship services. “Everyone knows when we meet,” the leaders protested. “Besides, it would mess up the decor of the church.”
Some people do not come to our churches because they don’t know they would be welcome. Some do not open their hearts to Christ because no one has told them how.
