by Alan Rathbun
I went to Bible College not knowing that God was setting me up. Seriously.
A lot of people in my church were telling me I should go to Bible College, but I would have preferred to go somewhere else for a major in communications. I couldn’t play music on an instrument, but I loved playing it on the radio and I saw myself thriving on the other side of the microphone.
I was kind of a “good” guy before I went to Bible College. At least I thought I was. I attended three different churches with my mom during my growing up years and these churches were happy to provide me with all the rules I needed to follow to be a good Christian. I dutifully followed the rules they provided. Most of them. Well… at least the ones that made me look good on the outside.
Then God set me up. As I discovered the freedom of going away to college, I also discovered the freedom to break rules I previously followed. I made bad decisions that brought pain into my life and it wasn’t long before I also discovered I wasn’t such a good guy. I thought my newfound freedom was a great opportunity find the real me, but God used my freedom to help me discover I constantly needed Jesus as my Savior.
I had gone forward at a youth conference to make a profession of faith in Christ when I was 14 and I still think my profession was sincere. Yet God knew He had more work to do in my heart so I could learn to live in the true freedom of Jesus. He mercifully let me feel the pain of my sin and then showed me the goodness of His love.
My life was revolutionized. For the first time, I understood what it meant to know God. For the first time, I noticed God’s presence in every moment of life. For the first time, I was motivated to obey God because of His unending love for me, instead of following the rules I thought would impress others.
It was also the first time I felt compelled to show compassion to people who were still lost from Jesus. Nearly overnight I started sharing my faith, not to fulfill some Christian service project requirement, but because I truly wanted people to know the love of Jesus. The words of the Apostle Paul resonated in my heart,
For Christ’s love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. 15 And He died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for Him who died for them and was raised again. (2 Cor. 5:14-15)
Along the way I learned that this compassion for lost people needed to be cultivated. It’s easy to get distracted from sharing the gospel. It’s easy to get discouraged when people are slow to respond to the good news. It’s easy to become cynical and unintentionally lose confidence in the power of the gospel to change lives.
Over the years I’ve come to believe that for believers to maintain compassion for the lost, pastors must intentionally cultivate it in their congregations. In his book Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus, J. Mack Stiles writes that in churches that are fruitful in reaching the lost, its leaders do three things:
They motivate the hearts of their people with the love of Christ for them so it overflows to others.
They equip the minds of their people with the knowledge of the gospel and how to share it.
They constantly encourage their people to be available and on the lookout for opportunities to share the gospel.
When Jesus looked at the crowds, He had compassion on them because He saw that they were harassed and helpless like sheep without a shepherd. (Matthew 9:36) What do the people of your church feel when they look at their friends, neighbors and coworkers? Are they compelled with compassion?
This is our motivation for our multiplication development area tracks. We long to see churches filled with people who are compelled by the love of Christ. We want to see to churches with great confidence in the power of God through the gospel.
In 2021, we will offer tracks in evangelism, so pastors can be better equipped to help their people share the good of Jesus, and in multiplication, so that disciples who share the good news of Jesus are made and multiplied. For more information about either of these tracks, reach out to me. I would love to chat with you about the compelling compassion of Jesus and the impact it can have on you and your church.