GPS: God's Plan for Sharing

Every believer sharing, every person hearing

By Mark Kelly

My GPS unit reveals exactly where I live:

36 degrees, 23 minutes, 43.38 seconds North, 86 degrees, 29 minutes, 58.08 seconds West.

That’s very specific. No one else on earth has those exact coordinates.

Twelve other families live on my block. No one else on earth has those same neighbors.

What if that’s no accident? What if God put me in this exact spot on earth and placed those specific neighbors around me so they would have someone to tell them what He has done for them through Jesus Christ? What if I asked God to help me lead just one of my neighbors to Christ in the next 12 months?

What if every Southern Baptist did the same thing?

That’s the vision behind “GPS: God’s Plan for Sharing,” a new national evangelism initiative being launched at the Southern Baptist Convention annual meeting, June 10-11, in Indianapolis. For 12 years, church members across the United States and Canada will be challenged to accept a mission of praying for the lost people around them, engaging them in relationships, sowing the gospel into their lives, and harvesting the ones Christ draws to Himself.

Imagine

“Southern Baptist churches have 16.3 million members on the books,” says Jerry Pipes, team leader of Prayer and Church Renewal for the North American Mission Board (NAMB). “Imagine what would happen if even 25 percent of them took stewardship of their block and began to sow the gospel into the lives of the people around them? What would happen if their churches provided creative ways to invest in people and invite them to come to Christ?

“Almost every Sunday, in almost every church, someone would be walking a friend or neighbor down the aisle, not so the pastor could lead the person to Christ, but because the person had already come to Christ through the neighbor.”

If one in four Southern Baptists led just one person to Christ in the next 12 months, we would see 4 million baptisms—an increase of more than 4,400 percent over 2006. If only four church members out of 100 accomplished the goal, baptisms across the Southern Baptist Convention would double.

“Can you imagine what would happen in your church if your people caught that vision and got passionate about sharing Christ with their neighbors?” asks NAMB President Geoff Hammond. “God’s plan is that the world would be saturated with the gospel by the total mobilization of the church. In its simplest form, that is what the GPS national evangelism initiative is—God’s plan for every believer sharing, every person hearing.”

A shared vision

Like a GPS unit guides its user to a specific destination, “GPS: God’s Plan for Sharing” is intended to guide Southern Baptists toward the fulfillment of Acts 1:8 in North America by 2020—in the power of the Holy Spirit, being Christ’s witnesses in “Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and to the ends of the earth,” Pipes says.

“Acts 1:8 is personal for everyone,” he says. “It all comes right down to the individual. When Southern Baptists in the pews take stewardship of their Jerusalem, of their street, we will get the gospel to every man, woman, and child in North America. I can’t win Atlanta for Jesus, but God is going to hold me accountable for my block, for my circle of influence.”

GPS gives Southern Baptists a shared focus to rally around but, more important, it gives pastors a simple way to mobilize their people, says David Burton, director of evangelism for the Florida Baptist Convention.

“The GPS vision is something any pastor can use to challenge his people,” Burton says. “The four biblical markers—praying, engaging, sowing, and harvesting—are simple, yet profound words that can become verbs in His people’s lives.”

GPS won’t drop a big box of materials on a pastor’s desk and expect him to wade through it, Burton notes.

Rather, there will be a menu of plug-and-play options under each of the biblical markers with lists of specific ideas to mobilize their people.

The practical simplicity of GPS will help church members overcome their fear of engaging others with the gospel, Pipes says.

“Most Southern Baptists are petrified to share the gospel,” he says. “Only a very small percentage of us ever even try to lead anybody to Christ, but almost everybody would be willing to hang a bag of information from their church on the doors of 15 homes.

“You just have to give people baby steps to start with. God will take it from there.”

Reaching North America and the world

“We can reach North America for Christ if every church member accepts responsibility for reaching one person in the next year,” says Don Cass, director of evangelism for the Southern Baptists of Texas Convention.

“God didn’t give us an impossible assignment,” he says. “Reaching the world with the gospel isn’t possible in our strength, but ours is a supernatural God who has a plan to seek and to save those who are lost.

“GPS is a simple plan for every believer sharing, every person hearing. That’s God’s will; it’s why Jesus came. If we set a simple goal of each one of us reaching one other person each year, we could, in our lifetimes, see everyone in the world have an opportunity to say ‘yes’ to Jesus.”

A new study from LifeWay Research reveals that 71 percent of unchurched Americans believe Jesus “makes a positive difference” in a person’s life and 78 percent would be willing to listen if someone wanted to tell them about Christ. An amazing 89 percent said they have close friends who are Christians.

“A lot of people’s reluctance to share the gospel is based on a misunderstanding about the attitudes of people outside the church,” Pipes said. “We think people aren’t going to be interested, but overwhelmingly they want to have the conversation.

“GPS will give us simple ways to help our people get those conversations started and give God an opportunity to work in their hearts.”

A simple plan to engage every church member in intentional evangelism has never been needed more than it is today, Cass says.

“Vance Havner said years ago that the great tragedy of our day is that the situation is desperate but the saints are not,” Cass says. “Desperate situations always move us to take desperate measures.

“You can’t look at our nation without understanding that we’re falling further and further behind in evangelizing America, but it’s going to take a plan for us to get the job done.

“If Southern Baptists will take to heart the GPS vision of every believer sharing, every person hearing, God can, through us, change this culture and change the world.”

Mark Kelly is a writer living in Gallatin, Tennessee. He attends Peace Community Church in Goodlettsville.