Go, See, Do!!!
By Alex Cummings
Burke County
Go, see, do was our theme in motorsports to take on an adventure. We were traveling months on end and seeing the backroads of America and on off days, we would always pursue an adventure. When you’re hundreds if not thousands of miles from home and you have an off day, what are you going to do? Lay around in a hotel room?
This same motto has now trickled over into my everyday life 10 years later but in a much different context. Instead of traveling the country on my next adventure, I’m spreading the word of Jesus on every avenue. After traveling the country for nearly a decade, I have come to realize the US is not the powerhouse Christian nation it once was and I feel it’s our calling to change that, TODAY!
“Don’t look out only for your own interests, but take an interest in others, too”. (Philippians 2:4)
The US is No Longer a Christian Nation
In a 2019 Pew Research study, 65% of adults said they were Christian whereas 26% said they were unaffiliated. When you look back at the same study but from 2009, you see that 77% of American’s identified as Christian and only 17% unaffiliated.
Some may read that and say “WOW”, 65% is still a large number but let’s also consider the false pretense that many people consider themselves Christians but are not practicing it daily. One can simply open their eyes and see how people are treated, manipulated, used, and so on to see that America is not what it says it is.
If you have children, the scariest thought is the future of Christianity in America. In 2019, a Gallup poll found that 33% of 20-year-olds in the US identified as nonreligious which is drastically up from 13% in 2002. At the same time, Gallup also found that weekly church attendance is dramatically down by 22-year-olds with 39% attendance in 2002 and now only 26% in 2019. This trend of Church attendance actually goes down with only 19% of 24-year-olds attending weekly Church in 2019 before it starts to upward trend again.
Luke and the Lost Sheep
Luke 15:1-7 is a parable in which Jesus tells us of a lost sheep to express how the Kingdom of God is accessible to all, even those who stray away from God’s path. In this parable, God is a shepherd who has 100 sheep but one goes astray. In Luke 15:4 Jesus asks “What will he do? Won’t he leave the 99 others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it?”
Then in Luke 15:5-6 Jesus states “and when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.”
In the same way, God will rejoice when a sinner returns to him. It is our duty, fellow brothers and sisters, as Christians to obey His word and do the same. It is our duty, to share the word of God with others who may have strayed away or were never introduced to His word in the first place.
The US is our NEW Mission Field
Jesus when teaching, typically used parables to help teach people as much as He could. One that stands out the most right now is the parable of the growing seed, Mark 4:26-29.
In this parable, Mark 4:26, Jesus says “The Kingdom of God is like a farmer who scatters seed on the ground”. Seeds grow silently night and day; God works relentlessly to prepare people to be transformed by His grace. Even though we can’t physically see this transition, we must know that God is working diligently to bring them to a place where they realize their need for Him.
Just as a farmer casts out seeds to grow their garden, we as Christians need to do the same with the word of God to grow our ministries. The more seeds we cast, the more roots that are developed, the more harvest God can reap. He has the power to grant new life and spiritual growth.
With the statistics pointed out earlier, the new mission field has changed from international missions to domestic missions. Before we can change the world, we need to change right here at home.
A Glimmer of Hope
On September 23, 2021, the Baptist Press published an article titled “’ Fill the Tanks’ Brings in 1,600 Baptisms in North Carolina”. 700 NC Baptist Churches committed to ‘Fill the Tank’ from the coast to the mountains to celebrate new life in Christ.
Hopefully, this is just the beginning and together, we can bring Christianity back to not just NC but the entire US. So, the next time you’re out, make it a mission to spread the word of God to just one person, if you do this every day for an entire year, you will have touched 365 people and if just 100 of us do this, we’ll touch 36,500 people in one year. So go out into your community, see those who may need to hear about Jesus, and do by spreading the word of God as He intended!
“So, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31)
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Alex Cummings is an NC transplant from the northern woods of Upstate NY and has lived in NC for the last 13 years with the love of his life Krista and two beautiful daughters. The Cummings Clan resides in beautiful Morganton, NC, and attends Pleasant Hill Baptist Church. Alex is the marketing manager for a SaaS technology company – HPA, A Cognizant Company.
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