PDL author Rick Warren had a harrowing...let me re-phrase that: he had a life-changing experience when his dad was dying. In the last year of his dad's life, the illness kept his dad in a semi-conscious state almost 24/7. When Rick sat by his dad, he could hear what his dad was dreaming about, because his dad would utter what was going on. Many of those dreams were one church building project (going overseas with a group to build a church building for a small congregation) after another. In his dreams he was reliving some of the work he did for the kingdom of God. One day his dad was trying frantically to get up out of bed. Everyone tried to settle him down, but he insisted, saying, "Gotta save one more for Jesus, save one more for Jesus." Rick sat by his bed, bowed his head, cried, and thanked God for his dad's ministry. Then his dad patted him on the knees and told him, "go save one more for Jesus."
Isn't that cool? His dad understood that he could pass a torch on -- that the work of the kingdom wasn't his alone, but he was part of a team. The mission of the church (of every believer) is to share the message of forgiveness, reconciliation (which is salvation). That mission is serious. When Jesus was about to ascend into Heaven after spending several weeks post-resurrection with His disciples, they asked him when he would return. Like many a wise pastor today, he re-focused their thoughts away from prophecy and onto evangelism. That e-word has seemingly become an ugly word or one we don't want to hear, but that's mostly because of the methods we've seen used in evangelism. Invent your own method! Seek the Word, try to distill it down to a method that you know is right. It's what Jesus told His followers (us) to do. Grapling with our own sinful state and being grateful to our Savior is the first step and in some ways we do stay there forever, but in other ways we move on in obedience to Him.
Posted by Doug Van Pelt at May 19, 2004 09:02 AM