Where Are The People?

Even a little reading of Scripture reveals that God is looking for men. Ezekiel 22:30 says, "I searched for a man among them who would build up the wall and stand in the gap before Me for the land that I might not destroy it, but I found no one." How many times do you think God calls on us to prepare for His service? A sand in a seashore!! But, often, we're standing on the sidelines looking at each other thinking, "Not me, today, I am busy. Hey, there's a potential." Can you hear yourself thinking this? Lesson after lesson, most of us are still sitting at home and going about our "own" business.

God is looking for people with humble hearts; people who will sacrifice anything for Christ and the advancement of His Kingdom, His church. It all started by Jesus calling a few men to follow Him... His concern was not with programs to reach the multitudes, but with Christians like you and me whom the multitudes (people) would follow ... People were to be His method of winning the world to God. Why are there so few godly people? Why does every church I know of have a leadership problem?

One of the reasons is a lack of an intentional strategy.
This was the case at His church in Fairfax six years ago. We've developed a men's and women's ministry, a sports ministry and a prayer ministry, Visiting Angels and several other ministries. Obviously, this is a God-thing! But in seeking God, we have followed an intentional strategy.

The first principle is a bottom-line dependence on prayer. A couple years ago, I gathered about eight of us to seek God's vision for His ministries. I told them that if God was going to do miracles, then we were going to have to ask Him. We agreed to meet every week and pray for an hour to ask God for His direction on this ministry.

Sometimes all eight of us showed up, sometimes it was just me, but for a year or so, we prayed every week. We asked God for miracles. We prayed for people's salvation. We prayed for people's marriages. We prayed that His children be spiritual leaders. What we need to do is open with a Scripture reading and then we pray. We don't talk about prayer; we pray! There are alot of ways to do prayer meetings and each one of them is unique. However, God does love a variety of prayer approaches. Every church ought to have prayer meetings. I must admit that Satan has placed a spiritual lock on the "prayer meeting" door because I received several complaints about how the prayer meeting is done. They say one thing while another say another. Their focus are on themselves, not on others in dire need for God's answer. I have given the task to one who ought to lead but I pray that he will be encouraged to bring the "lock" on the anvil and break it away paving the way for us to the throne room of God to pray!

What do we do? We don't share prayer requests; we pray them. We spend time in praise and thanksgiving; we pray for our small groups, our leaders, specific men in need and we pray every week!

The second principle of His ministry is that - without apology - we challenge people to become authentic spiritual leaders.

Our mission is "to connect people with God and to other people, so that they become authentic spiritual leaders in their families, in the church, in the community and in the world."
What this means is that we do ministry with the end in mind of discipling people into mature reproducing leaders. Paul said in Col. 1:28-29, "We proclaim Christ, admonishing every man and teaching every man with all wisdom, that we may present every man complete in Christ and for this purpose also I labor, striving according to His power, which mightily works within me."
Our outreach events, our Bible studies, our discipleship groups, our prayer meetings and especially our retreats, are all prayed for and programmed for challenging people to be spiritual leaders.

"As iron sharpens iron, so one man sharpens another." (Prov. 27:17)

"And the things you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, these entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also." (2 Tim. 2:2)

"One another's" presence will allow us to send more people as ambassadors for Christ. God wants your church to be filled with people who love Him more than anything else; people who will pay any price and serve in any capacity to bring Jesus Christ glory. Those people are sitting in the pews. They are at the gym. They are in your neighborhood.

And they are waiting for the church to pray for them, to welcome them, to encourage them and to train them to be men of God. So, where are you, today? Where are the people that God has called?