The Conversion Investment – the problem with Church economics (Part 2)

How long does conversion take?

An instant?

A week?

Six weeks, after taking a class at a church?

I don’t think that there is an answer, but that it is different for every person. So, some exchange their allegiance for Jesus in an instant and some over a period of years and some somewhere in between.

The issue lies in the fact that in order to determine where people are in their journey we need to hear their story, and sometimes it takes a while before you hear the whole story. We almost just rubber stamp the whole thing as if God really didn’t want to use humans to help other humans come to faith. So, they come, we listen, they pray, we dunk, and they leave unchanged.

We aren’t willing to sit with someone for an hour or two in order to witness the intersection of God’s story with the story teller’s. It’s emotionally exhausting. It’s mentally exhausting. It’s a battle with unseen forces to help people exchange their story for His story, and we’d just rather there be a pill to prescribe.

So, I am convinced that…

there are far more people who prayed a prayer after someone than are actually converted.

there are far more people who are baptized than are actually converted.

there are far too few churches that see this as fraud.

there are far too many of us, especially in the South, who refuse to challenge someone’s “I believe in God” to substitute for a real allegiance to Jesus Christ, King of the Universe.

there are far fewer churches who are trying to change their “five minute, come speak to a pastor and before the song ends pray a prayer invitation approach” into bringing people to Christ so that they might be radically transformed by Him…who die and are raised to new life.

And so there are far less Converted People than we Church people might like to admit.

Part 3