Archive: One Holy Passion

Restoring the Church’s Business of Soul Winning

by Sandy S. Kirk

“Remember,” said John Wesley to his young preachers, “above all else, you are to be about the business of winning souls.” But what has happened to this vital business of the Church? Are we still winning souls to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, or do we even care?

As issues of abortion, homosexuality, feminism, and changing the address of our mission agency rage hotly into the wee hours of the morning at General Conference, will delegates lose sleep over the lack of conversions, diminished professions of faith, and our need to restore the Wesleyan “business of soul winning?” Or will this most urgent business of the Church be swept under a carpet of distracting political issues?

A Bishop’s Searching Question

One crisp fall afternoon last year in Lubbock, Texas, a group of Methodist heard Bishop Richard Wilke ask this penetrating question: “How long has it been since you’ve seen a person converted to Christ in one of your services?”

A nervous, gaping silence filled the air.

Finally, an elderly gentleman spoke out sadly,” A lo-ng, lo-ng time.”

If souls are not being led to Christ in our services, what about the hundreds of thousands of good United Methodists who attend church every Sunday? How many of them have the absolute assurance of their own salvation? How many have the confidence that if they died tonight they would go to heaven? How many have the deep conviction they are truly born again? Isn’t this the most crucial business of the Church?

Those With Passion

Two young Moravians looked over a stone wall into a leper colony. Tears of compassion tumbled down their cheeks as they saw a man without legs on the back of a man without arms, reaching down to poke seeds in the ground to eke out a living. Their hearts ached as they realized that hundreds of lepers were dying without Christ. Against the pleas of their families, they left their homes to bring the message of salvation to these dying lepers. What caused them to give up everything, knowing they would eventually die of the dreaded disease themselves? They had a burning passion for souls.

What caused John Wesley to rise daily at 4:00 a.m. to pray and then go out in the fields to preach Christ to the dying multitudes? What caused him to preach the gospel even when churches barred their doors to him and crowds hurled rotten vegetables in his face? John Wesley had a passion for souls.

What caused David Brainard, though racked with tuberculosis, to weep in prayer for lost Indians in early America until the snowy ground was stained with his own blood? He had a passion for souls.

What caused John Knox, who led his whole nation to Christ, to rise in the middle of the night and cry, “Give me Scotland or I die!” John Knox had a passion for souls.

Where Is Passion Today?

But what has happened to our passion today?

Where are the altars filled with humble penitents, weeping their way to Christ? What has happened to the all night prayer vigils like Wesley and the early Methodists had? What has happened to the sermons that so lift up Jesus Christ crucified that people are broken at the foot of the Cross?

We are deeply burdened in the United Methodist Church over our loss of members, but what has happened to our burden for souls? Isn’t this the passion that flames the heart of the Church, fires the preachers, and spreads the gospel to bring real church growth?

How Can Passion be Rekindled?

In a beautiful, out-of-print little book entitled, The Passion for Souls, E.F. Hallenbeck asks, “Where shall we find this passion?” Then he answers, “The first kindlings of it are in the presence of the Passion of Christ.”

Indeed, we need to come again to Calvary, the place where our first love for Jesus began. We need to gaze upon our Savior’s dying love until our hearts are set on fire again. We need to look upon His lovely face, gouged with piercing thorns. We need to see the filthy spittle of Jews and Romans caked upon His face, the trembling tears of love rolling down His cheeks. We need to gaze upon His healing hands and precious feet, bored with massive iron nails.

We need to see Jesus spilling out His living blood, bearing our filthy sin, and drinking the horrible cup of God’s holy wrath against our sin. We need to hear Him cry, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” as He drinks the fiery cup to its bitter dregs. We need to see the grinding pain that filled His heart until it broke. We need to look at our bleeding Savior until our own cold, hard hearts begin to soften. We need to see His side plunged with a Roman spear as a crimson tide of love bursts forth—until our own souls are cleft with deep repentance.

For we have neglected His great calling. We have lost our concern for the lost. Apathy and political concerns have spread over the Church like blinding scales. We have lost our passion for souls. We need to gaze upon Christ lifted up on the Cross until the scales are removed and the same passion that drove Him to Calvary begins to fill our hearts.

Jesus came all the way from heaven’s peace to Calvary’s pain and punishment because His heart was filled with an all-consuming desire to save our souls and bring us back to God. “The Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19: 10), He said; and He wants to fill us with the same burning desire. He wants to touch our cold hearts with His fire and fan the flame into a burning passion for souls.

The Cross Restored My Burden

Does this sound too simplistic? Too idealistic?

I can only tell you, this is what restored my own burden for souls. I had come to a place where I no longer even cared about leading people to Jesus. Spiritual pride had filled my heart, and I had drifted away from the Cross. The embers of my heart had grown dull and cold like a person who gradually freezes to death but doesn’t know it is happening.

One day I was sitting in a Sunday school class at the First United Methodist Church in Abilene, Texas, when a man spoke up, “I just don’t see what is the big deal about the crucifixion of Jesus Christ. Lots of people have died on crosses.”

I opened my heart and began sharing with the class about the pain of the scourging, the agony of the nails, the burden of sin, but most of all about the blazing cup of eternal wrath which our Savior drank for us as He was punished in our place. As I talked, to my total amazement, I could feel life flooding through my whole being.

I sat in church that day with tears rushing down my cheeks. My body trembled under the power of God. I could hardly believe what I felt. It was just Like Charles Spurgeon had said, “There is Life in a look at the Lamb.” I had experienced the life of God flooding down upon me as I spoke of the Cross of Jesus Christ.

As I sat there in church, I promised God that for the rest of my life I would study the Cross, teach on the Cross, write about the Cross, and anchor my whole life into the Cross of Jesus Christ.

To my utter joy, I found that as I began to teach and write about the Cross, my heart flamed with a burning new burden for souls. I was so excited about what Jesus did at Calvary, I couldn’t keep from telling others. And I began to find that leading people to Christ is the most thrilling experience on earth. As Charles Spurgeon said, “To be a soul winner is the happiest thing in the world. And with every soul you bring to Jesus Christ, you seem to get a new heaven here upon earth.”

But it was gazing at the Cross of Jesus Christ that truly rekindled the fires of my heart.

Soul Winning Restored in the Church

A black woman stood by the railroad tracks as the flag-draped coffin of Abraham Lincoln passed by on a train. Lifting up her little girl, she said, “Take a long look, honey, at the man who died to set you free.”

We too need to take a long, steady look at the man who died to set us free—until His passion becomes ours. Until our hearts begin to ache and burn to see lost souls set free by the power of the Cross. We need to drink deeply of His compassion until our hearts are filled with an unquenchable passion for souls.

After all, isn’t this really the most crucial business of the Church?

John Wesley thought so.

Sandy S. Kirk is a frequent contributor to Good News. She is a freelance writer, Bible teacher, and the wife of R.L. Kirk, pastor of St. Luke’s UM Church in Lubbock, Texas.