A Widely Cast Net Catches All Fish
I just got home from a fantastic mid-week services. Brother L.J. preached from Luke 5 on the great catch of fish. It got me thinking about a sermon Brother Haney preached several years ago at the Children’s Ministry Convention in Saint Louis. He said when they began their bus routes in Stockton and started really working to bring folks in, he realized that a widely cast net catches all fish- not just ones who are already cleaned up. With the increased growth of the Stockton church, there was also an increase in problems and situations that they had never faced before.
Our church in Mount Vernon is experiencing a similar trend. From the time we moved into our new building three years ago, our average weekly attendance is up around 25-30%. With this, there are a fair amount of growing pains. Allow me to explain. In the first 30 years I was in church, I can’t ever remember a prayer request for children who had been taken away, drug addiction, or folks who were in prison looking at very extended sentences. And yet, we had requests on all three tonight. This is in no way a bad thing but I think it shows two trends. First, these types of problems seem to be more prevalent than they used to be (it could just be that we’re more open now but I don’t think so) and second, the church is doing a significantly better job of reaching out to the world and not being cloistered behind our four walls. Additionally, we have children and young people who come to church now who weren’t raised in church, never regularly attended church and candidly have no idea how to behave in church. Should we turn them away? God forbid! What would we send them home to? At least at church we can control the environment and ensure that they are being presented with the Gospel (don’t really know if it’s being received but it’s being put out there). We do have to patrol the halls more and send the wanderers back to class but it is a small price to pay to reach this next generation.
So our widely cast net has brought in all kinds of fish. Is church WAY different than it was when I was a kid? Absolutely. Would I change it for the world? Absolutely not.
