Perceptions #200310

"The Great Omission!"

Jerry Hodge

How many of you grew up in the church? How many remember the Gospel Meetings? (Make that "revival" if you grew up in a fellowship where different terminology was used). Those were especially scary to me because my dad used the same yell during those lessons as he did when he corrected me. How many remember the sermons on first principles? I grew up in the church at a time when we were evangelistically minded. We knew that one days Jesus was coming back and we needed to be ready. We knew what we should do - and were given ample time - 7 verses of "Just As I Am" to do it. We had door knocking campaigns, evangelism workshops, and mission Sundays. Have you ever wondered what happened to those days?

I think some things changed in the eighties - a ten-year span called, "The Me Decade." The church was also affected or infected by this time of self-absorption. This was a time of fellowship, edification and encouragement. Budgets shifted its money from missions to ministry. The nineties brought a time of prosperity, which ironically helped us to focus more on us. Churches replaced dreams of saving the world - to holding our own. Combine this with a postmodern worldview that all roads lead to heaven and the result was evangelism apathy. You could call it the great omission.

What can we do? We know salvation is what the world needs most. We also know that some of our methods may not work in today's environment. We know there is only one way to God and that is through his Son, Jesus. We realize that baptism into Christ also immerses us into a new community. What I think we have missed is, the world is more ready than we realize. There are many postmodern seekers who are looking for genuine faith. They are looking for hope, life and a community of love. They are looking for what we should be!

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