Psychologists talk about regret in two ways―regrets
of action and regrets of inaction. In church, you may have heard this called
sins of commission and sins of omission. I am concerned believers have focused
on the sins of commission for so long we have become defensive. To those
outside the church, we seem negative and passive.
Recently Barna Group reported half (51%) of churchgoers do
not know what the Great Commission is. Jesus spelled it out in Matthew
28:19-20, “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.” For the 51%, I think of this as the sin of no mission.
Recently I asked Alexa (Amazon’s voice-activated system on
an Amazon Echo smart speaker), how many people are there in the world? She
answered 7.4 billion. That is a lot of mission. All of us need to be involved
to reach over 7 billion for Christ. There are plenty of positive proactive
things to be done. Christians need to be recognized as people of action and
answers.
