December, 2019 Carolina's 10,000 P5, part 3

6. Remembering and Keeping in Focus Our 2020 Vision

VISION V: FOSTER A CULTURE OF SOUL WINNING

PRAY AND COMMIT to leading at least 1000 new souls every year to embrace Christ and His truth as members of God’s remnant church. To accomplish this, every pastor will receive encouragement and support to:

Develop, communicate and implement an annual plan for kingdom growth in each church. This plan should intentionally include and involve the youth and young adults of the church.
Host or personally hold at least one evangelistic/reaping effort annually in their church district. Opportunities should be explored to involve students who have participated in a ShareHim series of meetings.
Follow with an extended plan of discipleship that includes an intentional involvement in the life and ministry of the church including that of being an actively engaged disciple-maker.

We hold the conviction that the Holy Spirit will bring people into the church by the power of proclaiming the truths of God’s Word. However, only the power of compassionate love will keep them connected to Christ and the mission of His church.

Churches that are not growing have sadly placed themselves in a state of decline. Churches who have become complacent with decline have become experts on only one doctrine of the church – The State of the Dead! Friends, let me be very clear about this. Jesus had one mission, and that must be the mission of His end-time church. That one mission is embodied in His recorded words of Luke 19:10 – “For the Son of Man came to seek and save the lost.”

Our prayer is to commit our energies to leading at least 1000 new souls every year to embrace Christ and His truth as members of God’s remnant church. Some may say this is just a focus on numbers. But those churches who have no prayerful commitment to a faith goal for reaching souls are likely going to remain stagnant. They can best be compared to the man in Jesus’ parable who simply buried his one talent. This must never be for our glory and always only for God’s glory. Every one of those numbers represents a life that Christ shed His blood for on Calvary.

2 Peter 3:9 underscores the value of every soul in these words – “The Lord isn’t willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”

The good news is that overall, we have grown God’s church in the Carolinas with a net gain of 427 members – increasing our total membership from 23,806 in 2018 to 24,233 as of the end of October, 2019.

The not so good news is that as of the end of October, our kingdom growth numbers are about 66 less than the 801 baptisms and professions of faith that we had last year (2018). I praise God for the pastors and lay leaders of our churches who have faithfully dedicated their energies to evangelism and soul winning – which is the true mission of God’s remnant church. Let’s pray for an outpouring of Holy Spirit power in reaching more hearts for Heaven as we near the close of 2019.