When you were in ministry as a pastor in a traditional church, did you have unsaved friends? Do you feel like you had to work harder than you do now?
Oh yeah, I had to work a lot harder because of responsibilities at the church: visiting, counseling people with their own issues. So I had to work harder at building relationships with people outside the church. It might be neighbors or people at the gym. I would just have to look for more opportunities. It’s a lot more work because the church wasn’t built around evangelism and discipleship. You end up running a lot of programs versus going out and really building relationships to evangelize and disciple and to bring other people along to watch you do it. So now, church is really centered around we’ve got to get to these people one way or another; let’s figure out how to do it. Follow me, and I’ll make you a fisher of men because that’s what I’m doing right now. We have rules in our office. There’s this thing called the 30-minute limit. I don’t want you in the office for more than 30 minutes without either being in prayer or going out and sharing your faith with someone and trying to make a disciple. Otherwise, it’s going to become like your typical church office environment where everyone’s just sitting around talking.
Once you get out of the typical church model – you’re just stuck in so many meetings and discussions with other believers over methodology, practical things, trying talk people into repenting that really don’t want to. We just lose our hearts for the lost because we’re just buried in the problems of the church.
Are there any parting words you would give to leaders and pastors? What would you say to them to really encourage them to stay on mission?
I’m excited again. When I was in high school, I used to cry for my friends when I would think about spending eternity apart from them. When I was working in the restaurant, I used to cry over the other waiters and waitresses and pray, “God, you’ve got to save these people.” Working in the church, I didn’t weep a whole lot for the lost. It was just kind of sporadic here and there. Now that I’m spending so much more time building relationships with unbelievers and loving on them, there are a lot more tears, a lot more sadness, a lot more urgency. It is painful and can get depressing, and yet there’s this peace about finally going out and fishing for men. At the same time, even though I’m crying, it’s a good sadness. I think it’s what Paul felt in Romans 9, of that unceasing anguish, the great sorrow and unceasing anguish. While it hurts, there’s also this peace that this is what I’m supposed to be doing. It’s great that I hurt for people again. It’s great that I actually weep for the lost. I’m not just this zombie, going about doing a job. It feels good to care so much and even hurt so much at times. So I would just really encourage people to not get too caught up in methodology or whatever else because once your heart breaks enough for people, you’ll find a way to get the message to them.