The Battle for the Begotten

There is a funny thing that you see happen if you've been in Christian ministry long enough - it's a battle for the Great Begotten. Those who are already in churches, or youth groups, or small groups - connected already to some ministry - seem to be the targets of other churches, groups or ministries. You hear it all the time - "Hey, so-and-so is leaving that church, or going to this church, or maybe we can get them to come to our church." I don't understand this mentality. Why are we trying to get people who have already been gotten?

What seems to be forgotten in all this is the Great Forgotten. Trust me, there are plenty of them out there, people not connected in anyway to anything. They should be the targets. I have a Young Adults ministry that meets at my home, and I don't want those who are already in place somewhere else simply shifting over here. There are enough out there for a hundred more ministries like we have - there's no need to try to seek the unlost, to find the found, to get the gotten - fishing for those who are already in the tank.

I was talking to someone at a local church who was bothered: he said that their church had over 200 new people come for various reasons in the past couple of years giving them the reputation of an exploding church. But of that number, less than five (!) were new salvations. It was a regathering of the gathered. I don't want to call it a useless exercise, but in a sense it is.

The harvest is white - we need workers out there in the fields, not just reshuffling what's already in the barn. We can't simply "Begettin the Begotten."