“Maximize what advances the kingdom, and minimize what doesn’t,” Jim Goodroe, director of missions for the Spartanburg County Network, urged South Carolina Baptists in the convention sermon during their annual meeting in Columbia, Nov. 15.
Jim Goodroe“God wants to take us ‘king dumb’ people and turn us into kingdom people,” he told the messengers.
Telling how the church where he held his first pastorate was no longer in existence because of a perceived lack of missions- and community ministry-spirit, Goodroe asserted, “Churches don’t have to go out of business; we need to quit doing business as usual, and do the King’s business.”
Using Hebrews 12 as his text, Goodroe, a former trustee chairman of The Baptist Courier, encouraged Baptists to “take heart” and “take hold” of the kingdom of God.
Observing how Hurricane Katrina, the worst natural disaster in U.S. history, has broken the hearts of many who have never before been so receptive to the gospel, Goodroe described the great opportunity that Christians now have as a picture of the American church at the “stormy start” of the 21st century.
The church, too, has been shaken, he asserted. In its outreach, Goodroe maintained, “Church attendance is not growing in percentage of population in any county in the United States, despite all the churches and their ministries.” He observed that if other Baptist associations were like Spartanburg, only a third of the churches were doing well.
“Perhaps the problem is us,” he acknowledged, pointing out that the church’s outcome of making disciples also has been shaken. Although statistics suggest 53 percent of the population is unchurched, he asserted, “The typical church member will die, having never led one soul to Christ. And if we poll church members today, we will find a majority are not currently praying for a specific lost person by name to be reached.”
Bemoaning the church’s waning influence on society, Goodroe declared that the church’s outlook is also being shaken: “It is only going to get worse; the trends are against us.”
Yet, Goodroe said, pastors can take heart, because “the good news is that not everything is shaken.” Drawing a distinction between man-made things, which can be shaken, and the kingdom of God, he urged, “Look unto Jesus for our priority.”
Jesus only used the word for “church” two times, but he used the word for “kingdom” about 200 times, he noted.
“The kingdom and the church are not overlapping circles; they are concentric circles,” he explained, illustrating his point by holding up a gold ring and a blue ring. “There is some kingdom in my church, but there is a lot of kingdom beyond my church,” he added. “And there are some things in my church that are in the kingdom, but there are a lot of things in my church that seem to have no connection whatsoever with the kingdom.”
“Shazam!” Goodroe exclaimed, after reading Matthew 16:18. “Church leaders make a strategic and unbiblical mistake if we try to build the church, which is Jesus’ job,” he said. “Our job is to seek first the kingdom.”
Two ways to tell a kingdom church, according to Goodroe, are if it understands it exists to reach lost people, and if it focuses more on missions than on maintenance.
With all the cultural storms confronting the church, “God is trying to move us outside the walls of the church so that we can meet and love our neighbors in the name of Jesus Christ,” he affirmed.