“I baptized 10 people this year!”

I start this off this way because of a great misconception in our churches. The amount of baptisms that you personally have or your ministry has does not equate righteousness before GOD.  “Wow! How unspiritual”, you may say.

Let me explain. What I am not saying is that you don’t have to share your faith. Of course you do. Am I saying we don’t need to work hard for GOD? No. We as a BODY need to “Go make disciples of all nations” – Matt 28:20. However, we need to be used the way GOD designed us to accomplish this mission together. Some of us are very good at cold contact, some are wonderful at hospitality or service or whatever. We all need to use our gifts to fulfill our mission. It is not me against you in competition.

How many of us have had to fight against our sinful nature when we baptized someone and others haven’t or vice versa? 

We need to mature as the people of GOD. We need to fully understand that a person can baptize 20 people per month and still be living a very sinful life. Don’t assume that the baptizer is awesome because they happen to be very good in one (important) area. It’s the whole package of who we are before GOD. Also, don’t assume that because disciple X only baptized someone in 5 years that they are far from GOD.  In 20 years how many will still be faithful?

If we are using our skills to glorify GOD, evangelism included, then HE produces both physical and spiritual fruit in our lives. It is supposed to be for His Glory, never, ever ours.

 Let us look at how Paul felt about being personally fruitful:

1 Corinthians 3:5-7 What, after all, is Apollos? And what is Paul? Only servants, through whom you came to believe—as the Lord has assigned to each his task. I planted the seed, Apollos watered it, but God made it grow. So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow.

1 Corinthians 1:14-16 I am thankful that I did not baptize any of you except Crispus and Gaius, so no one can say that you were baptized into my name. (Yes, I also baptized the household of Stephanas; beyond that, I don't remember if I baptized anyone else.)

Brethren,

We need to give everything of ourselves to GOD for His Glory. Use all of your gifts, skills and abilities to Him for His Glory. Cranking out tons of people when we cannot give the individual the time they need to grow is not good. We in essence are not fulfilling the whole of the Great Commission.

Matthew 28:18-20 Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in  the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

We also need to teach them to obey everything He has commanded us. This takes time and effort. Passing out cards (though a good thing) by itself is not cutting it. It’s easy to pass out cards. It’s harder to love one another as Jesus commanded us (John 13:34-35) by really laying down our lives for one another.

Don’t forget:

Acts 2:46-47 Every day they continued to meet together in the temple courts. They broke bread in their homes and ate together with glad and sincere hearts, praising God and enjoying the favor of all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved.

It simply isn’t about us at all.

We can sin against GOD and one another by marginalizing the servants around us by thinking that only the baptizer is spiritual.

Also a note about “personal fruit”.

Does it really matter who met, studied with or baptized that person? No. It only matters that we work together as a family for GOD’s Glory.  Seriously, what if you meet, study with, baptize and train someone for 10 years and then 20 years later they wander away? Are you now a “Bad Tree”? Of course not.

See how humanistic and silly we can be?

Let us lift up one another in love in whatever gifts GOD has given us.

And to GOD be the Glory.

Harley Girl, thank you for sharing your thoughts and insight.

Speaking from personal experience, I remember as a young disciple about 2yrs in the faith that I began thinking that I wasn't right with God when I didn't bring people out to church every Sunday or meet, study the bible, and baptize someone (even though I was sharing my faith daily). My heart was becoming bitter about many things and (in my heart, even though outwardly I looked spiritually well) I wanted to leave the church because I felt like I couldn't measure up to what I thought was His expectation for me.

Obviously, my thinking was off and spiritually needed to seek God and His truth more and more....and more and be open with the bitternes in my heart. The only reason why I stayed was because I remember my committment to God and His willingness to sacrifice His ONLY son so that I have a chance of eternal life. Have I sinned and compromised in areas that I thought I wouldn't...yes...but I thank God for His mercy and grace which I have been learning to embrace in my life and be changed for His glory and set purpose. 

I agree with your comment that "We need to be used the way God designed us to accomplish the mission together."

I'm reading the book "When People Are Big And God Is Small" by Edward T. Welch...and it is opening my eyes and directing me back to God and His Word to overcome fear of man (people pleasing, etc) which is something I've struggled in past and even sometimes now.  

I pray for my heart and the heart God's people to be willing and humble to LET God's Spirit of Love, His grace, and truth fill us and guide us every day so that we can pour out our lives to others and use the gifts He has blessed us with for His glory and His Purpose. To praise Him for the miracles and yes even the challenges in our life and others.

To the glory of God because He deserves our utmost adoration, reverance and praise!

"You will keep in perfect peace him whose mind is steadfast, because he trusts in you. Trust in the Lord forever, for the Lord, the Lord, is the Rock eternal." Isaiah 26:3-4

So neither he who plants nor he who waters is anything, but only God, who makes things grow. ⁸The man who plants and the man who waters have one purpose, and each will be rewarded according to his own labor. ⁹For we are God's fellow workers; you are God's field, God's building.

I left the church in 2003 and was restored in eary 2008. I can now live the above Scripture where like you said before on the 'personal fruit issue' I also felt like I was in sin if I didn't have a visitor even though I was sharing my faith w/ a lot of people.

and like you said earlier, I too could deceive people by having friends out to church and people would think I was very spiritual while in my heart I was cherishing sin.

Now it is OK if they say no because

1. there should be no 'pressure' on me because God & I are working together. He knows my heart. My responsibility is to plant and/or to water. It has nothing to do w/ my faith if they make to one of our services or study the bible.

2. a seed was planted that God is growing and later on they might become a disciple.

God goes before me

2Cor 2:14 But thanks be to God, who always leads us in triumphal  in Christ and through us spreads everywhere the fragrance of the knowledge of him.

He's doing most of the work. None of the glory belongs to me on the topic of personal fruit

P.S. read the description to the Evangelism Prayer Group.

In Unity w/ Love, Byron

Hmm First of all I didn't know this was still a church wide problem. I bring up stuff like that and many times I get a shaking of the head and a "your still living in the past bro" speech. To me this conflict would still be a personal battle than a church-wide issue. However, I somewhat agree that the numbers don't equate to your status with your relationship with God but it does say a lot about you. Wow 10 baptisms! How many people did you study with to find 10 souls willing to give up their lives for Jesus. If the parable of the sower is true (Mark 4:1-9) then it tells me that your seed fell on the good soil and that you did study with a lot of people. I don't know that everybody in the church would have sacrificed the time to do that. A lot of us have "busy" schedules to maintain. Too busy to be involved in the lives of others.....Even for myself I must admit that I'm currently working with 5 guys (1 is just about to do the church study and counting the cost) and struggle to share my faith for fear that there would be more studies. Its just super difficult for me to juggle all these studies and work full time and there is nobody else to give the studies too. Once again they are just too busy ( I must concede that some are sick and others have wives that are sick. I'm the only single brother in my ministry).... So for you to say you baptized 10 people...It encourages my faith and my soul and call me higher to find more time to do more bible studies and build more friendships and to be the best seed planter/water I can be for God and to let him do the rest.

Thank you Harleygirl for your post. Thank you all for sharing thoughts. I want to share my current experiences in this regard. Lately I do not feel busy evangelizing but rather 'busy' with my own personal biblical study. As the result, I am very happy to talk about it with other people, including with those who study with me. The end of last month we baptize two people plus a number of studies until this day. I do not say this is the one and only pattern of evangelism but again this is a real experience in my life and i am just happy with that. Hopefully inspire you also. God bless!

Hi there, I aplogize for any confusion but, I didn't actually baptise 10 people this year. The heading is simply a tag line to bring focus to the topic I posted.

I would say it was a wonderful insight to understand how important it is to prioritize my personal faithfulness to God than just being hypocritically teaching others without personally changing from repeated sins. Personally convicts me.