By Roc Collins
President, TBC
Roc Collins
It seems hardly conceivable that February is almost over. Where did January go? Time is ever passing and the longer I live, the faster it seems to go by. And with the passing of time, there always seems to be the recollection of things I had planned to do, things I had hoped to accomplish. At the center of all this are the things I planned to accomplish for Christ and for His Kingdom. What’s that? Saving the lost! And if we are not careful, all our good plans to accomplish great things — along with time — will quickly pass by.
In Matthew 28:19-20, before leaving this earth, Jesus tasked His followers with a three-pronged mission: to make disciples, to baptize them, and to teach them about the ways of Christ. With that in mind, let me ask some hard questions. How many people have you witnessed to in this new year? How many people have you seen saved in your church? How many people has your church baptized this year? In a time when so many churches have no troubling of their baptismal waters, we need to do our part to stir those waters. We know according to I Timothy 2:4 that God “desires all men to be saved!” In II Peter 3:9 God is “not willing that any should perish.” We know that God’s will is for people to be saved and His desire is for people to get saved in order to be able to enter into eternal fellowship with Him.
So, why are we not seeing people saved? Could it be that we are not faithfully and consistently sharing the gospel to the lost around us? We must begin to feel the burden of people dying and going to hell to be forever separated from our loving Lord.
Statistics tell us that in our beloved state of Tennessee, of the more than six million residents, approximately one-half of those are lost! Who will tell those three million-plus people about the love and grace of Jesus? I believe that Tennessee Baptists should take the lead in that Christ-ordained mission, telling the lost about Christ’s sacrifice on the cross and His resurrection from the dead!
With a state goal of 50,000 baptisms annually by the year 2024, I would like to propose a plan. What if in 2016 each of our 3,200 churches in our beloved state of Tennessee baptized 16 people? You do the math. With everyone working toward this goal we could exceed our target with more than 51,000 baptisms! What an amazing testimony it would be for God to reach our state’s nine-year goal in just one year?!
However, considering that of our 3,200 churches, only about 2,200 participate in the Annual Church Profile (ACP), our overall numbers would be fewer, yet still glorifying to our Lord. Follow along with me. With 2,200 churches baptizing 16 people this year, the kingdom would increase by more than 35,000 souls! If every year between now and 2024 we would simply set as a goal to baptize at least the number that corresponds with the year, then when it’s all said and done, we could witness somewhere in the neighborhood of 396,000 baptisms! Luke 15:10 tells us “there is joy in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” So I can imagine how exhausted those angels are going to be when we’ve done our job down here!
I know, I know. Some will read this and say we shouldn’t worry about numbers. I simply ask you to consider this: numbers are important in this equation because every number represents a soul that Jesus died to save. And if people are so important to Jesus that He died for them, then maybe we who are called by His Name ought to be eager and willing to share that wonderful news with them.
How about it? 16 in 2016.
