Making Your Church a Rescue Station

I often challenge pastors and Christian leaders to think of a local church as a “life-saving station.” I recently met with Christian leaders and spoke about “rescue.”

I began by sharing the strategy of the former United States Life-Saving Service. I explained that they were heroes in every sense of the word. When a ship was in distress near their assigned area, they’d go out into the surf, or the storm, even the hurricane to try to rescue the people on board. They lived their motto: “You have to go out. You don’t have to come back.” They saved countless lives who otherwise would have been lost.

Does this describe your church? Is spiritual rescue part of the foundational DNA of your church and life?

I described the world we live in today, filled with lost people. In fact, there are more lost people alive today than at any other point in human history.

The bad news is, “Lost people have never known less about Jesus, or have been farther from Jesus.” There is so much hurt, pain and suffering because of sin in this world.

The good news is, what has made people so lost, has made them so ready for Jesus.

Breakthroughs begin when the central passion of Jesus’ heart becomes the central passion of ours: rescue. The mission statement of Jesus is found in Luke 19:10, “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”

Here are five imperatives for a life-saving church. These five imperatives are modeled by Jesus in John 4, where Jesus met the woman at the well. Read More