"Die a Painful Death, or Live a Painful Change"
SBC: Great Commission Resurgence Interim Report If we do not understand lostness intellectually and theologically, we will not change nor will we do what must be done to penetrate it. I am convinced we have not only forgotten what it is like to be lost, but we act as if lostness does not exist, there is really no hell, and many times conduct ourselves as Universalists. Concerning lostness, it seems we have developed theological amnesia or theological Alzheimer’s disease. In order for this Great Commission Resurgence to occur, each church has to own the responsibility of fulfilling the Great Commission. Each church has to own Matthew 28:19-20 and Acts 1:8.
I want to highlight just one of the major cities in America, New York City. 8.3 million people live in the city itself; however, metropolitan New York City has 18.8 million people. In New York City, there are over 500 different ethnic groups with significant population. Over 60% of New York City residents were born in another country or are children of those born outside of the United States. If we are going to reach a major city like New York City, we need an explosion in church planting to occur. If we could penetrate a city like this with the Gospel, we would penetrate a major international city that exerts powerful influence over global finance, fashion, commerce, culture, politics, and entertainment. Just think what would happen in New York City if we were able to implement an aggressive strategy to mobilize hundreds of our churches to plant gospel churches in this city.I thought this was interesting
Die a Painful Death, or Live a Painful ChangeI’m going to file it away.
[URL=http://www.christianpost.com/article/20100223/so-baptists-called-to-rep…
Church|So. Baptists Called to Repent, Grip Reality of ‘Lostness’[/URL]
Church|So. Baptists Called to Repent, Grip Reality of ‘Lostness’[/URL]
… while the population in the country more than doubled since 1950 and the number of SBC churches grew, the convention still baptized 33,887 less people in 2008 compared to 1950.
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