Where Did They Go?

What Do I Want Them to Know (The Mind - Hook)?

Let’s get some fact straight. Roughly 165,000,000 people in the United States ( half of the US population) are members of some church. (3,300,000/state)

119,000,000 of those are members/regular attenders of their church.

Another 41,250,000 attend regularly but aren’t members.

Overall, churched adults say they leave worship services feeling inspired (37%), encouraged (37%), forgiven (34%), as though they have connected with God or experienced his presence (33%) and challenged to change something in their life (26%), every time. Some do report negative feelings too (guilt), (discouraged).

American are deeply interested in Spiritual matters!

The Kabballah Centre (https://www.kabbalah.com/en/?_vkey=b)

Spiritually Hungry (Podcast 82 episodes)

Ava Lee Scott, an actress and theater-maker in New York, doesn’t practice an organized religion. Raised in both Catholic and Jewish traditions, Scott’s own spiritual life is far more eclectic. She studies ancient languages, from the Aramaic of Christ to Hebrew to Arabic. She reads Tarot cards, runes, and cowrie shells. She believes in a higher power — something some people might call God — but believes that such a power transcends individual traditions’ dogmas. “Whatever name you call your higher power,” she told Vox, “we are all connected.” The study found that the single greatest spiritual experience for this group was not prayer or meditation but music: A full 71 percent of spiritual Americans reported having been inspired or touched by listening to a piece of music in the past week.

33,000,000 Americans are spiritually minded but but not religious.

THAT GREAT NEWS FOR US!

What Do I want The to Feel (The Ill. Book/Took)?

We’ve all heard this statement or something like it, “Belief in God is dying in America. We are becoming a secular society. We are no longer a Judeo/Christian nation.”

A parallel idea is that telling people about Christ is harder than it used to be. Witnessing about Christ’s work in a believers life is harder/nearly impossible. I don’t believe this. People are more interested in spiritual maters that they have ever been!

Readers poll found in the website Spinditty.com “64 Songs About Searching and Seeking”

Jesus was never intimidated or distressed over the spiritual temperature or condition of the world around him.

Turn to Luke 19:1-10

Luke 19:1–10 NLT

Jesus entered Jericho and made his way through the town. There was a man there named Zacchaeus. He was the chief tax collector in the region, and he had become very rich. He tried to get a look at Jesus, but he was too short to see over the crowd. So he ran ahead and climbed a sycamore-fig tree beside the road, for Jesus was going to pass that way. When Jesus came by, he looked up at Zacchaeus and called him by name. “Zacchaeus!” he said. “Quick, come down! I must be a guest in your home today.” Zacchaeus quickly climbed down and took Jesus to his house in great excitement and joy. But the people were displeased. “He has gone to be the guest of a notorious sinner,” they grumbled. Meanwhile, Zacchaeus stood before the Lord and said, “I will give half my wealth to the poor, Lord, and if I have cheated people on their taxes, I will give them back four times as much!” Jesus responded, “Salvation has come to this home today, for this man has shown himself to be a true son of Abraham. For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost.”

Were people anymore interested in eternal life - the message of Jesus when Jesus was alive? John records two people a religious man named Nicodemus in John 3 and a woman probably a housewife at a well in John 4.

Modern day Samaritans (Roughly 1000 are left)

Jesus goes through Samaria.

He is tired. He’s alone and he’s thirsty.

A woman comes to get water, and he asks her , “Please give me a drink.”

She is surprised. He’s a Jew and she is a Samaritan, but he’s talking with her.

He takes the conversation and begins to talk with her about spiritual things. (Living, water, the messiah, eternal life… Then he asks her about her husband, and he engages her in a conversation about divorce and who she is living with now.) She tries to shift the conversation, but he’s now zeroing in on the real subject - worshipping God and ultimately about the messiah, and he tells her that he is that messiah.

She runs away and gets the town’s people to come and Jesus spends two days sharing the gospel - answering their questions. Many more hear the message of the messiah and they believe. Wow witnessing 101. Be available. Tell what you know. Meet people, lost, unchurched people where they are and answer their questions. Go where the lost people are.

These people represent an interesting thought. When Jesus dies after spending time with all his disciples and then on Pentecost when 3000 people believed, there were roughly 4000 believers out of a population 65,000,000 in the Roman empire. That is .006% of the population. Talk about living in a secular/unbelieving society.

This my mother Ruby Kathryn Smith (age 25-26)

This is my father Raymond Frank Smith (18-19

This my family in Spring of 1965

When my mother died, my father went on a quest, searching for a spiritual answer to deal with the pain of my mother’s death. He never found it. He turned his back on Christ, and died at the age of 59 a pagan, alcoholic, broken man. He looked, like most people, he looked. He was searching...

People around us, everywhere around us are searching for answers to spiritual questions. A large percent of nonbelievers are willing to have a conversation about faith with a friend. What are we waiting for? (88,000,000 people)

What Do I Want The to Do (The Will - Took)?

This thinking can turn our world upside down.

Nora Louise has turned Travis’ and Maddie’s life upside down.

What is this thought? Unchurched people are more than willing to talk with us about Christ. They are interested in spiritual things. What is more spiritual than Jesus, who loved us. Jesus, who is willing to connect with anyone through us. Jesus says, “Come to me and give your life to me, let me be your Lord. I will give you eternal life!”

Here is an example. The musical group Florence + the Machine have a song titled “Hunger”

Here are some of the lyrics: At seventeen, I started to starve myself I thought that love was a kind of emptiness And at least I understood then, the hunger I felt And I didn't have to call it loneliness: I thought that love was in the drugs But the more I took, the more it took away And I could never get enough I thought that love was on the stage You give yourself to strangers You don't have to be afraid And then it tries to find a home with people, or when I'm alone Picking it apart and staring at your phone

The Gospel must be focused on how to engage people on issues that are relevant and compelling in their lives.

Write a testimony

My life before Christ

How I came to know Christ (include scripture here)

My life after Christ.