Today I was in the men’s changing room at the gym towelling down and I got talking to a young guy about the gym, his training etc etc. Then, in order to turn the conversation onto spiritual things I said ‘I am also training myself spiritually.  I go to church which is a big part of my life. Have you had any church background?’  He replied ‘I am a Christian. I used to go to a church about three years ago.  I went to the youth group there for quite a few years.’  I said ‘Oh great. Are you still going anywhere? He say ‘Nah. But I am a Christian.’  Rather than get into a debate about ‘how do you know you are a Christian’ etc I thought I would let the gospel do the talking. So I then said ’We have just developed a video which summarises the whole Bible in 11 minutes. Would you like to see it?’  ‘How do I do that?’ he asked. ‘It’s on my iphone. Here, have a look and tell me what you think.’  He was already dressed so he promptly sat down and began to watch. I was still dressing so I carried on doing that and when I was finished, I sat beside him, and watched the presentation, even though I have seen it hundreds of times before. My watching it eagerly would help him stay focused.  All the while he was watching I was praying for him. At the end I said ‘What did you think?’  He said ‘I was awesome’.  I said ‘Can I ask you a couple of questions?’  ’No worries’ he said.  (By the way, there was no one else in the changing room, in case you were wondering!).  ‘If you died tonight, where would you go?’  ‘I am not sure now, eh’ came the reply.  ‘Well’ I said ‘have you turned and surrendered to Jesus?’. Again he wasn’t sure. I said ”I have a little booklet in my car which is called ‘How to be sure of going to heaven after death’.  Would you like one?” and he said he would. So we went out into the car park and I gave him a booklet. And here is the punchline, the point of the story.  I felt to warn him and said ‘You know, not being absolutely sure of where you stand with God is a very dangerous place to be. Jesus said ’what does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul’” He said ‘Does it really say that in the Bible?’  I said ‘Yes it does.  I am surprised you didn’t know this from your youth group days.’  He said ‘Oh, we never read the Bible at youth group or talked about stuff like this. We just did fun stuff.’ 

Oh my goodness!  I hope every youth leader in the world reads this blog. How can someone be going to youth group for  ’quite a few years’ and never read their Bible and never be challenged about their salvation through hearing the gospel?!  The church he went to was a well known Pentecostal church in Auckland.  This is why we must relentlessly proclaim the gospel to everyone everywhere, whether in church or out of it!  This young guy might have been lost eternally if I hadn’t got to him in the gym changing room.  How many others are out there like this I wonder? Knowing only 2% of the Church engages in evangelism, the chances of rescuing the false converts is tragically small.  Guys, this is a sad sad situation, and so many of us seem drugged and in a stupor. Where is has our urgency gone? Where is our zeal? How have we lost sight of the purpose of the Church? How have we got to this point of being just so apathetic and lethargic about the lost and the Great Commission? We have become busy with the trivial and the peripheral. The more I think about this, the more I feel a righteous anger welling up within me.  Our prayer meetings, singing, worship, giving, community projects, cafe experiences after church, home group meetings and endless conferences are absolutely eternally worthless if they don’t end in full participation in THE mission of Jesus  - which is the evangelisation of the world! I will say it again – THE mission of the church is to evangelise the world. If you and your church have not signed up to do my EVANGELISM DISCIPLESHIP DVD course, then I urge you, before God, to get urgent about it.  Please – pick up the phone and ring your pastor NOW!

God is working powerfully through these resources and my book to mobilise whole churches back into evangelism.

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