The Initiative God Expects

God has entrusted us with the greatest message in human history, and He has given us more tools, more means, and more ways to share it than any generation before us. So why do so many congregations grow quiet — and then go dark altogether? The answer is not a lack of motivation, and it is not a lack of knowledge. The answer is a lack of initiative.

The Problem Is Not What We Think

A national survey of church members across the United States turned up a sobering picture: 95% of those who claim membership in a church have never led a single soul to God — yet 100% of them expect to go to heaven. That gap between expectation and action is the crisis. We know the Bible. We have the equipment. We have every reason to go. What we often lack is the will to take the first step and do it.

Initiative means doing what is right because it is right, and doing it quickly. Isaiah, when the Lord asked "Whom shall I send?" did not hesitate. He threw up his hands and said, "Here am I. Send me." History records that he was willing to die for that answer — tradition holds he was sawn in two. That is initiative.

What the Judgment Parables Are Telling Us

Jesus told story after story that ends the same way: with judgment. The ten virgins — some were ready, some were not, and the door was shut. The parable of the talents — the servant who buried what he was given heard some of the harshest words Jesus ever spoke: "You wicked and lazy servant." The good Samaritan — the very people the crowd expected to help walked right past the man bleeding on the road, while the one nobody expected stopped and served. Jesus made up these stories on purpose, and He made them end in judgment on purpose. He wants us to learn that it will not turn out well if we do not show initiative to do what is right with what He has put in our hands.

Love, Not Fear, Is the Engine

Fear motivates us for a moment — like a snake on the doorstep. Once the snake is gone, we go right back to our routine. But love motivates us for a lifetime. God loves us more than any person who has ever lived on this earth, and that love is the only engine strong enough to keep us going out, week after week, to share the good news.

Paul wrote to the Philippians asking what his joy and his crown were (Phil 4:1). His answer was the people themselves — seeing them standing firm in the Lord, seeing them welcomed home. That is a motivating love. The thought of one day hearing "Well done — welcome home" as someone we reached enters the presence of Christ — that is worth every awkward conversation, every door knocked, every text that asks, "Would you like to study the Bible?"

In Closing

The rich man in the account of the rich man and Lazarus, from his place of torment, became an evangelist. He begged Abraham to send someone to his brothers. What will it take for us to have that same urgency — while we still have the chance to do something about it? We have a choice: we can sit and be amused, or we can stand and be amazed at what God can do through each of us. The work is not complicated. It is as simple as saying, "I know someone who would love to open a Bible and answer your questions." Will we allow God to move us to do it?