Where is the Fruit

The other day I was thinking about a church I had attended for several years. I began to reflect on what drew me there and what kept me there. I remember at first the teaching seemed to be so profound and fresh. I heard things taught there that I had never heard before. They all sounded so wonderful and so right. I will admit that I did learn several things there about believing the Bible and faith. However, in the wake of the last few months, many questions have surfaced in me. I was driving in the car the other day and a Bible verse came to me:"by their fruits you will know them".

I began looking at the fruit of this church. I will not even begin to list the bad fruit. If I started the list would go on and on. So I began looking for good fruit. I decided that the most important fruit of a church is reaching the lost.......not just reaching them,but leading them to Christ, people being born again, being discipled, and them in turn learning how to live for Jesus, putting Him first in everything they do, being a witness for Him so that their lives then draw others to Him.

Over the past decade I could not think of more that 1 person that fits that description. Sure people went forward at altar calls but they didn't come back on a regular basis. There was really no discipleship program for them and none to connect them with other believers in the church. I will admit that maybe I missed a few but in more than a decade, I, a regular attendee could only think of one.

This is a church that is supposed to be changing lives all over the world with its message. You would think that there would be some visible fruit.