When I have both the Church and satan giving me the same critique there’s a problem, especially when it is in direct conflict with how I am certain God sees me.  I cannot tithe enough, give enough, clean enough, serve enough, be silent enough, have had too many wives or too few, cannot spell, smell and dress funny, don’t have the right temperament, don’t have the right social skills, interrupt like a Berean, pray incorrectly and have this odd practice of wanting to maximize the utilization of all that God has given me.  Look I see and believe that we are currently smack dab in the middle of the great apostasy.  Every where we look there are churches dwindled in population to the elect, mostly elderly trying desperately to hold on, remaining soluble.  I see that any challenge to that attempt appears to be from the enemy, but I am the guy that is out on the street funding my own ministry and I have to tell you, this is where you find the lost.  That is if you want to tell them about Christ so that they too might be saved and perhaps join the ranks of a local church.

We cannot sit in the church and expect that the lost are going to show up to be saved from coming judgment that they don’t even know about.  They view the church in a number of ways but none will cause them to come and join the ranks of our dwindling facilities.  Sure they will ask for cash to continue their unwise, sinful practices or play upon our emotions to convince us that they need help, but there are very few true, honest conversions going to come from sitting in the church catering to the few who happen to darken our doorstep.  The answer is not in new programs, better music, lighting, preaching or comfort.  The lost are out in the world, that is why Jesus showed us the example of going into the world to find them.  And as we get closer to the rapture the pool of minds that have yet to make a decision for Christ is smaller, meaning the hunt is going to be more difficult.  We must be willing to scour the territory until that last heart may be found.  That is our entire purpose for being.  Counting on age old strategy of sprucing up a nice building, having better dinners, inviting a friend from work, may provide a few folks from whom we might find a convert or two, but is never going to produce a significant body of people for testimony.  Unless having a few converts is your churches’ collective success.

There are so many lost, I do not have enough time to properly love them and tell them effectively about Jesus.  They all know that they need something, heck they are aware that something is coming in the near future and they are willing to listen, but we don’t have enough voices out there telling them.  I love being with Christians, but I cannot sit in the church for 5 hours a week, as is required for members, if that is the only time I have to go and spread the Gospel.  You want me to work so I can bring in tithe’s and offerings to the church but the church is not organized and out on the street like I am to spread the Good News.  I am sorry I have decided to serve Jesus and if he wants me on the street, using my cash to spread the good news with a piece of pizza, a coke, a sleeping bag and a smile then that is where I must be.  Your rituals have forced this decision that breaks my heart because it means that I will never be good enough to be a member of your club.  I love you folks but I must serve Jesus and your way just won’t produce the results I believe he is requiring of me.

I love you and hope that you forgive my review and critique of your business model.  I am following Jesus into the street, up to the hills and down in the valleys where the lepers skulk, in hopes of finding that last person yet to hear the Gospel, so that we might go home.  If you must ridicule me, I guess I get it.  In some way I am glad that I don’t have to be good enough, because the lost people I talk to have satan telling them that every day, so it really aides my delivery when I tell them how valuable they have always been.  In Jesus Name.