When I was in Atlanta , we split into three groups and led small backyard bible club meetings for a majority Hispanic group. Most of the kids understood English, and in my group, Kevin, the student minister, led the bible study time, and then led an invitation. During Kevin’s little message, the kids ignored him and played their games, but during the invitation, all were silent. About seven or eight kids prayed the magic prayer and raised their hands when asked if they prayed.
I was talking to my roommate Mark tonight about that, in light of Bobby Welsh’s “baptize one million in a year” campaign. We both see it as asinine. I said, “There are three problems with that whole deal. One, nobody was paying attention. Two, they prayed a ridiculous prayer that didn’t do any good because they didn’t know what they were doing. And now we’re going to go back and tell the church that seven kids came to Christ. Give me a break.”
Mark responded, “And four, we’ve inoculated them. Like when you give someone an inoculation for a disease, you usually give them a dead or very mild version of the same virus. That allows them to be immune to the real disease when it comes.”
It’s amazing to me that often we refer to the old story, “if someone had the cure for cancer, wouldn’t you want to share the cure for it with them?” in response to evangelism. And here what we offer is a mild and often dead version of a very live Christianity, which immunizes them from the real thing later in life. And one day, someone will say, “did you pray this prayer?” because evangelistic styles will never change in the SBC, and those kids will say, “yes, we did.” And likely, they will die without knowing their Creator.
Just something to reflect on.