Michigan Camp Meeting 2018: As a Witness, Matthew 24:14

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Michigan Conference of Seventh-day Adventists

Amazing Disciples

Mark Howard

4. It’s Not My Gift

Kameron DeVasher

1. Orientation

2. What is a Disciple?

3. Your Gift or Mine?

5. As a Witness

Marshall McKenzie

7. Friendship Evangelism, Part 1

8. Friendship Evangelism, Part 2

Wes Peppers

9. How to Reach the Atheistic Mind, Part 1

10. How to Reach the Atheistic Mind, Part 2

Jean Ross

11. Divine Commission

12. Cycle of Evangelism

Jim Howard

13. Grow Your Church, Part 1

14. Grow Your Church, Part 2

15. Giving Bible Studies

16. Missing Members

Doug Batchelor

17. Christ-Centered Doctrine, Part 1

18. Preparing for Baptism

19. Discipleship

20. Gospel Presentation, Part 1

21. Gospel Presentation, Part 2

22. Christ-Centered Doctrine, Part 2

23. Outreach Lab

24. Keys to Success!

25. Nurturing New Believers

26. Fishnet Demonstration

27. Caveman Theology

6. Christ’s Method Alone

Dear Father in heaven, we thank you once again that we have the opportunity to spend a few moments together opening up your Word and looking at some practical principles that will help us in our soul winning efforts.

Bless our time today in Jesus' name, Amen.

If you're following along in your book, we're going to be looking at lesson number 13, Reclaiming Missing Members.

We're going to look at some of the high points there.

As I said, we don't have a whole lot of time to cover this morning, but I think we'll lay a good foundation that you can build on when you look at the book.

Luke chapter 15 verse 4 says, What man of you, having a hundred sheep, if he loses 1 of them, does not leave the 90 and 9 in the wilderness, and goes after the 1 which is lost until he finds it?

Now in this parable that Jesus told, who is the Good Shepherd?

Jesus is the Good Shepherd and Jesus left 99 sinless worlds.

I don't know if there's 99, but he left the sinless worlds and he came in search of the 1 that was lost, planet Earth.

That was Christ's example, and of course that needs to be our example.

Romans chapter 5 verse 8, but God demonstrated His love towards us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.

Who made the first step in man's salvation?

He didn't wait for us to be perfect, but He provided a sacrifice that we can receive by faith.

Matthew chapter 10 tells us, 10 verse 5, when Jesus sent out His disciples, where did He first tell them to go?

These 12 Jesus sent out and commanded them, saying, Do not go into the way of the Gentiles, and do not enter into the Samaritans, the city of the Samaritans, but rather go unto the sheep, the lost sheep of the house of Israel." So where were the disciples to begin when it came to their evangelistic outreach?

They were to begin those who were once, or those who were familiar with the message or with the truth.

Acts 1 verse 8 says, But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me, starting in Jerusalem, and then in Samaria, and then to the uttermost ends of the earth, starting with those who are closest to us, and then we expand from that when it comes to evangelism.

In the book Evangelism, page 693, we have this statement, Yet how often in our ministry endeavors we begin in the uttermost parts of the earth while bypassing the lost sheep right beside us.

The Holy Spirit is convicting former members of your church to return.

These non-attending members are ripe for an invitation to come home.

When the storm of persecution really breaks upon us, the true sheep will hear the true shepherd's voice.

Self-denying effort will be put forth to save the lost, and many who have strayed from the fold will come back to follow the great shepherd." So an important area of evangelism is connecting with those inactive members, those folks who were once fellowshipping with us in church and we haven't seen them for a while.

You're preparing for your evangelistic meeting, start with those people.

Why is it that Seventh-day Adventists might leave the church?

There are several reasons, but here are probably the 3 most dominant reasons why people leave an Adventist church, And it's not necessarily listed in order, but 1 of the reasons is a conflict with a pastor or a church member.

That sometimes results in a person getting frustrated and so they stop attending church.

Another 1, which I think is the main reason why people leave, is this second 1, discouragement over personal problems and or discouragement with themselves over failure to live in harmony with Bible standards.

Another way, just the cares of the world and the deceitfulness of riches, and they get discouraged and they lose their connection with Christ, and they just feel like, you know what, it's a waste of time.

There's no way I can live up to everything I need to.

Well, they need to understand the gospel and the good news, But that's 1 of the reasons why people leave.

And then another 1 would be deep personal tragedy that leads to questioning of God and frustration or a lack of support from the church.

So somebody might be going through a difficult circumstance in their family or their health or work.

And because they're not connected with a support group at the church or friends, they're not part of a small group type of ministry, it's easy for them to get discouraged.

And if somebody misses church 1 week and nobody contacts them and they miss the next and they don't hear anything from the church, it begins to form a habit and it becomes easier just to stay home than to actually get up and go to church and fellowship and connect with the people.

So if we see someone who's missing church, we need to be right there to encourage them to come back and work with them, right?

So there's 3 types of loss that we find in the Bible.

Did the lost sheep know that it was lost?

Found himself alone, cold in the wilderness, and he began to cry.

And of course, there are people that realize that they are lost.

It sort of just got lost and didn't quite know it until it was found, if you can put it that way.

And then of course the lost son, he was aware.

He actually made an effort to reach out, to come back, and the father met him.

And so we need to be looking for all of those kinds of people, people who don't really sense a need.

They might not think that they are lost, but they are.

Those who recognize that they are lost, those who have wandered away, and those who are reaching back, trying to connect, trying to learn, trying to come back.

So there are 3 basic steps in reclaiming lost members.

The first is to get the names and find out why the people left.

The next is to visit these former members, seeking to reclaim them, listening to them, and inviting them to come to different church events.

Evangelism is a very good thing to invite them to come to.

So if you have an evangelistic meeting that is soon to start, start with those inactive members, visit them, connect with them, and then you can invite them to come out to the Evangelistic series.

Thirdly, nurture these new believers into a renewed commitment to Christ and to His church.

We're going to look at each of these phases.

First of all, how do we get the names of those non-attending members.

You've got the church records, which is probably the obvious starting point.

If your church is like most Adventist churches, you probably have more people on your church books than you actually have in attendance.

On average, about 60% of the names on the church books actually show up.

Some cases it can be a little less or a little more depending upon how old the church is.

If it's a newer church plant, usually there's more people in the attendance than actually on the books.

But if the church has been there for a while, usually things kind of go the other way.

So you want to start with the names of the church members.

Find out have they moved, are they still living in the area.

Sometimes it's the children of church members that were baptized when they were younger, went off to college, got busy with a career, and never reconnected with the church when they came back.

And then of course, referrals of Adventist relatives and friends.

Someone in the church might say, well, you know, we used to have that person.

We haven't seen him for a year or 2, well, there's a lead.

Write down the name and you want to follow up on that.

Church school records, if the church is connected with the school, often the young people will go through the church school, they'll get Bible studies, they'll be baptized, and then they go on and they get disconnected from the church.

That's another area that you can work with.

Now in large congregations, many of the names in the church books might not be recognized by the board members.

Probably the easiest way or simplest way to discover who these people are is to distribute a list of unfamiliar names to the church members, asking them to fill in any information they might have about the names on the list.

Now you want to be careful in the way you do this.

So if you're going to be handing out a list of names of church members, especially Sabbath morning, you want to kind of lead into that by saying, here at this church we're really concerned about every single 1 of our members.

And as time goes on people might move or maybe they just get busy with something else, maybe they're attending a different church and we're not aware of it.

But we want to connect with all of those who are members of the church.

So we have some names that we're going to be distributing today.

Series

Amazing Disciples

16. Missing Members

Transcript

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

The Great Exchange

53m

ACM: 4 The Mystery of God

51m

To Be Like Jesus

38m

Making Your Campus Ministry Thrive

3. Capturing the Decisive Moment

58m

GYC 2012 Seminar: Conversion - My Own, Around Me and On the Go

Sensitive Seekers

58m

Seminars

Beholding Christ in the Least of These: Serving in Practical Ministry

43m

Lost

02 The Lost Coin

58m

Closing the Back Door

Closing the Back Door - Part 1

48m

Plenary

Who Fed the 5,000?

1h 45m

Sleeping Near the Window

21m

Eric Walsh: The Dragon's War on the Remnant

The Dragon’s War on the Remnant Part 4

52m

The Lost Sheep

42m

Sound Doctrine