Here’s the continuation of my post from yesterday. These are the additional thoughts I shared with Lindy, the editor of Outreach Magazine:

Ideally, there should be a healthy tension between trying to reach new people and then helping people take steps in their faith. But, I would make the case that the healthiest churches tend to lean more towards outreach than helping people go deeper. And, with that, I think it’s a dangerous path to focus on “closing the back door.” Look at the Great Commission. We’re called to go. Make disciples. Baptize them. All of that is focused on reaching people who aren’t believers. Then we’re supposed to teach the new disciples. Then those new disciples are supposed to go, make disciples and baptize them.

The problem is that most churches are focused on that last part–teaching the disciples. They do that for some new disciples, but they’re primarily focusing on teaching the old disciples. Those churches rarely experience the “go, make disciples and baptize them” part of the Great Commission.

Yes, I’m both about outreach and discipleship. But, when push comes to shove, I will always lean towards outreach because I see so few churches (or people) that are bearing any fruit when it comes to making disciples and baptizing them.

The church in America is in decline. I know you’ll get other opinions on this, but I believe that’s an outreach problem. That’s not a “closing the back door” problem. If a Christian decides they need to go to another church to grow spiritually, that saddens me. If my friend down the street dies without becoming a Christ-follower, that will grieve me.

Maybe it’s just semantics. I’m afraid, though, that this is one of the core issues leading to the decline of the American church. And, if “closing the back door” is the #1 challenge that your readers perceive they’re facing, I think that explains part of the reason why the church is America is failing.

We’re trying to fix the wrong problem.

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