For those who have been around me, it probably didn’t take more than 10 minutes to realize that I’m a “die hard” Alabama Crimson Tide Football fan. I’ve 
Unfortunately, things haven’t quite panned out in 2010 the way they did in 2009. During the press conference after the LSU loss, Coach Saban made some statements that at first sound odd, but the longer one thinks about them, the more sense they make. Consider the following:
“I think that this whole year everyone around us has been concerned with the results that the team gets in comparison to what was accomplished a year ago and I think that that has not been the best thing for the development of this team. I think they have become too result oriented and we have never really developed to be as good of a team as we can be and to be as good of a team as we are capable of [being]. As the coach I’ve always talked about playing to a standard. I’ve always talked about being the best that you can be, and we’re still going to work hard to try to get this team to be just that. I think it will take a commitment on all the players’ part. It’s not about what you can accomplish and what you can’t accomplish, it’s a matter of being able to answer the question: Did I play as well as I can play? Am I as good a player as I can be? Am I the best competitor that I can be? Did I execute and do my job with the discipline that it takes to play winning football?” – Nick Saban
Take a moment and bring this back into the context of evangelism and the church. Of course we want our respective congregations to grow. But do we sometimes do the same thing that Saban speaks of, except in the context of evangelism? Do we sometimes lose sight of the process because we are focusing on results, or the lack thereof?
I’m afraid that sometimes if we aren’t careful we can get “the cart before the horse” when it comes to evangelism. Instead of “plugging away” in reality and doing what we can, we dream about what “could be”, or bask in the “glory days” when such and such congregation was “booming.” Whilst in the throws of these thoughts, we forget about practicality, and just doing.
Want to put something into practice today? Are you up to this challenge? Try taking the time to concentrate on the PROCESS of evangelizing today. When Paul wrote the following statement, he was speaking of being process oriented instead of results oriented.
“I planted, Apollos watered, but God gave the increase.” – 1 Corinthians 3:6
If I read that correctly, it states that Paul and Apollos concerned themselves with the process of doing the best they could. God handled the results. Today, focus on the process! Will you execute today and do your job with the discipline that it takes to win souls?
~Daniel Howell
Well put. I think you (intentionally or unintentionally) touched on one of the major plagues I see in the church today, which is the idea that it is our responsibility to bring in numbers. Although I believe that Christians should have the same will of our Father in hoping that all men would be saved, at the same time we have to realize that our role is to be faithful to God, not bring in numbers.We pray that our planting and watering brings in increase in our numbers, but we cannot focus on that which is not our responsibility. All we can do is what we have been given the authority of God to do, which is spread the seed.Good Word!
ReplyDeleteGreat stuff, Daniel. Keeping these thoughts in mind as we prepare to do long-term missions work in a place like Ireland will be important. In a country where 50 members might be considered a "mega-church," we simply CANNOT be hung-up on numbers. It will NEVER work.
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