Churches should ‘believe people are lost,’ says Jones

Do we as Baptist churches still truly believe that people are lost, or is ‘reaching the lost’ just the right theological statement for us to make?”
   
That’s the question Ray Jones, pastor of Ridgecrest Baptist Church in Dothan, posed to convention messengers Tuesday morning, unpacking the meeting’s “Intentional Evangelism” theme on a personal level.
   
“Only 11 percent of our Southern Baptist churches are classified as healthy churches. Why? Churches have forgotten that our business is reaching people, not swapping people,” Jones said.
   
Baptists tend to get bogged down in methodologies and miss obvious opportunities, said Jones, former head of the personal evangelism division of the North American Mission Board.
   
“The secret to effective evangelism is not found in our methodologies, though we surely can use those,” Jones said. It’s about motivation, dedication and determination, he explained. “It’s found in our intentionality.”
He said once while in a restaurant he was focused so intently on an evangelism strategy he was developing that he nearly brushed over a waiter who was trying hard to strike up a conversation with him.
   
“I almost missed an opportunity to be evangelistic while I was sitting there working on an evangelistic strategy,” Jones said.
   
He shared with the waiter, and the young man later received Christ.
   
“We are in the harvest season, but we often miss the obvious,” Jones said. “Jesus knew His purpose and never got sidetracked. We need to keep one eye on heaven and one on the plow.”
   
The harvest is eternally satisfying, Jones said, and “when we understand that, we order our priorities according to it.” The salary, he added, is the eternal investment Baptists are banking together — with the emphasis on the team, not the all-star.
   
“That’s the sequence of harvest — we are all sowing and reaping. Sometimes you sow what others reap, and sometimes others reap what you sow,” Jones said. “But we are all in it together to ‘reach out and reach people.’”
   
It’s going to require planning, planting and persistence, he said, and nothing will shape a person’s evangelism more than a passion placed in believing people really are lost.
   
“Jesus looked on the multitude and had compassion because they were ‘like sheep without a shepherd.’ Perspective affects passion,” he said. “And passion is vital to intentionality.”