GENERAL MOTORS, KROGER AND CHRISTIANITY

Jesus presents the LeSabre Concept Car 

Many times in recent decades whenever church professionals gathered at events, in the inevitable comparing of congregations, one of the main markers as to how successful a congregation was doing was to rate them by the number of baptisms they had over the last year. This was the quantitative way one could measure success. One might call it the American way. In a recent World Religions course, we talked about how Christianity began as a movement in the Middle East, how in Europe it became institutionalized, and how in America Christianity became commercialized.  Jesus with a business model. Of course with the number of persons attending church in free-fall, the quantitative method has been found lacking recently as an appropriate yard stick. Perhaps quantity is more a function of quality than quality a function of quantity. Maybe there needs to be "service" after the "sale."
In this week's interview from The Life of Meaning, we hear the perspective of a past President of the Southern Baptist Convention in 2001-2002, Rev. James Merritt, of Georgia. He is a person who is evangelism personified in all its quantitative manifestations. Jesus is not the best product, he is the only product worth considering. Accept NO substitutes.
Below are some of his comments:

Evangelism is the number one task that God gave to the church.

General Motors is in the transportation business, Kroger...in the food business. The church is in the evangelism business.

We are unapologetic in our belief that Christ is the only way to heaven.

Merritt's raison detre is:  "Go into all the world and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit."

I would die for the right of anyone to believe, or not to believe, in God.