Not many years ago, the U.S. Department of Transportation estimated that there were 19,000 accidents and as many as 6,000 deaths on America’s roadways due to “blind spots” in a driver’s vision. Simply put, a blind spot is an area that drivers think they can see, when in reality they cannot. Blind spots are dangerous on the road, but even more dangerous in a church.
All too often, a local church will have a serious blind spot when it comes to the community surrounding it, causing a glaring omission in that church’s present and future plans. These churches frequently wonder why they don’t encounter more visitors and why those who do visit choose not to stay. They wrongly assume that the community will know about and appreciate their church’s existence because it has an attractive facility, or a nice sign, an appealing web site, or even a Yellow Pages advertisement – but that simply isn’t the case. These churches may feel that they are doing everything they can to encourage evangelism, but they have a blind spot. They just can’t see what they are missing.
It may well be that few, if any members of such churches are actively opposed to evangelism and bringing in new faces, but at the same time there may be few members actively trying to engage the community. That’s a blind spot. Even worse, such churches are usually inward-focused, so whatever light does shine from their activities and actions only illuminates the inside of the church, leaving those outside with no idea that the light even exists!
Therefore, churches with a blind spot must reorganize their approach to the community and must do so using the examples of those who got it right. For example, in Acts 2, after the Spirit of God came upon the church at Pentecost, the followers of Jesus were emboldened to take the message of Jesus Christ to the streets and homes of their community. They did not care if they were made fun of or ignored by some; they only cared that they were noticed, were given an opportunity to proclaim the Gospel, and were used by God to impact the lost folks around them. They had no blind spot.
Peter and John preached in the temple the “wonderful words of life.” Paul made tents and preached in the synagogues, and “they that were scattered abroad went everywhere preaching the Word” (Acts 8:4). The common denominator between each of these examples is that being noticed was a prerequisite of being useful, and the same is true of churches today, There is a fate far worse than being hated or persecuted; it’s being ignored.
Grace Bible Baptist Church must not have a blind spot. We must reorganize our approach to the community so that people know we are there and that we care about the community. If that doesn’t happen, our community will not care about us!