You might say I don’t have the right to write what I am writing, but if you feel that way, then you are my targeted audience.
I’m new to Griffin; only been here since March. I’ve visited before because my family lives here. I was born into the family of God here, married here and have visited much, but now I am a resident, and rightly so.
As my pastor preached on John chapter 10, I told him of my desire to preach verse 3 to all the preachers of Griffin. You see the verse states, it the porter’s job to open the door for the sheep so they can get to their master. The door being the Lord Jesus Christ and the sheep being the people of God. We’ve created this idea of super Christians and big names in the church, we’ve created mega-churches with big programs and buildings, we’ve even done a few things to help people in their day to day lives, but we’ve forgotten our job.
Griffin is home to hundreds of churches, at least 70 of which are of the Baptist faith like myself. The people of Griffin are honest, hard-working folks, yet they have been duped by these charlatans posing as porters. The porter’s job is to open the door, to explain Jesus Christ and give Him to the people. We have teenage pregnancy, drugs, murder and more running rampant. People are in desperate need of the Savior, and we the porters, are failing to point them to Christ. Girls walk around in their skimpiest clothes and boys everywhere gawk and stare and drool. And the girls who should be scared to death of what’s going on in those boys’ young minds are eating it up. The churches are interested in the purpose-driven life instead of the life of His purpose. Christ is grieved with Griffin, and we the preachers have failed miserably at our job of opening the door to Christ. In every place I’ve ever visited (and there have been a few) no place has ever been so hard to turn hearts as Griffin. It seems as if every person here attends church but they all have a beer in their hand on Saturday night and cigarette in the other. They’re concerned with their particular doctrine, dogma or dance. Heaven help us.
I challenge every preacher in Griffin (as well as anyone else who reads to challenge their pastor) to spend 30 days of praying specifically over the issue. If we as preachers would get serious about preaching Christ instead of fattening our wallets, our churches might not be as full, but they’d be pleasing to Christ. It’s high time we admitted our sin before God and got on our face and decided we weren’t going to continue, that we were going to change and walk in truth and light and point others to Christ, or in other words open the door.
I challenge you, are you a porter or a reporter, simply commenting on what has happened?
Would to God every preacher in Griffin would be so serious about serving God, they’d lay down all the “Christian rock” concerts, get out of their studies and spend time on their knees and with a contrite heart with the God of the Bible instead of just being complacent with things happening the way they are.
May God have mercy on Griffin and may we all be the porters we ought to be.
Bill Brannon
GRIFFIN
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