Isolation

I just read an article in Baptist Press (click here) that says baptism in the year 2005 actually declined over 2004. This is an indication that fewer people are coming to a life-changing knowledge of Jesus. Why is that?

I think it may be partially the church's fault. I am a pastor and I love spending time with my church family. But are we so busy doing things with our church family that we never get the opportunity to engage a lost world? What would happen if we made an appointment to deliberately spend some time getting to know some lost people? I don't mean beating them over the head with the gospel, I just mean talking to them and becoming friends. We might find that they are not so bad after all. And we might actually start to feel like they are precious. And we might get to where Jesus was when He looked down over Jerusalem in Matthew 23:37.

"Jerusalem , Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling. Behold, your house is being left to you desolate! For I say to you, from now on you will not see Me until you say, `BLESSED IS HE WHO COMES IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!' "

His heart was broken for those who would not repent. Are you broken for the lost? Do you really comprehend what it means to be lost? If you do, I believe you would be more deliberate in seeing them come to Jesus.