|
|
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Location:
6425 Jefferson Rd. For
directions, click here.
Although
John Wesley loved God prior to his
"heart-warming experience," although he
loved the Scriptures and even loved to
pray, he didn't really have a love for
people, especially lost
people. But
during that Bible study, a radical
transformation took place. At last
knowing for sure that God loved him
without measure and had forgiven his
sins, Wesley's heart began to overflow
with love for others. He
began reaching out to multitudes of
people who weren't being reached by the
church of his day -- immigrants, the
poor, coal miners, field workers. God
gave him a passion for the
unchurched. Who
do we have a passion for? Who are the
unchurched in our day? Ninety
percent of my generation -- I'm 55
years old -- received some kind of
spiritual nurture when they were
children or teenagers. Today, only
about 25 to 30 percent of young people
are getting any kind of spiritual
foundation in their homes! In
other words, the great mass of
unchurched today are the
young.
Our task is clear: we must reach out to
them with the good news of Jesus
Christ! If I
could promise that your children, your
grandchildren and your
great-grandchildren would have the same
deep, abiding faith in Jesus Christ
that you have, what would you be
willing to give for that? What would
you be willing to do? Shouldn't
we be the kind of people who are
willing to do whatever it takes to
reach people for Christ? If we
want today's young, and future
generations, to know Jesus, we must be
willing to alter our style of worship
and find ways to plug young people into
the structures of the church. And, yes,
sometimes we'll have to listen to music
we don't like! The
question for your church, and for our
denomination, is this: Do we really
love people enough to make whatever
adjustments are necessary so that we
have an opportunity to love the lost of
our day into the Kingdom? What
are you willing to give -- or to give
up?
Gateway
Church gathers
for worship
Sundays
at 10:30 a.m.
(Hwy. 129) in Athens,
Georgia.
Ministry
of the
Word:
Recent
sermons
Our quarterly e-magazine
Gateway
Today
For the Gateway family
The
Gateway
Blog
(online
newsletter)
FROM
THE BISHOP
From
Gateway
Today
The
e-magazine of
Gateway Church
FALL
2003
Following
in Wesley's
footsteps
What will it take to reach today's
unchurched?
At
a small Bible study in London, on May
24, 1738, Anglican preacher John Wesley
felt his heart "strangely warmed" by an
experience of God's grace. This event
transformed Wesley into a different
man.
Today's
unchurched
What
will it take?
Perhaps a better question is this:
What are you willing to give up? Are
you willing to give up some of your
comfort or your traditions? I'm not
talking about giving up the core values
of the faith, but about those
peripheral things that aren't really at
the heart of the gospel at
all.
Bishop G. Lindsey Davis
North Georgia Conference
The United Methodist
Church
This
column was adapted from a presentation
made during
the 2003 Session of the North Georgia
Annual Conference.