When Jesus started his ministry, he quoted Isaiah 61:1-2:

• Preach good news to the poor.
• Bind up the brokenhearted.
• Proclaim freedom for captives.
• Comfort all who mourn.

A few questions:  How is your church at understanding what the world needs? Do they understand our mandate in Isaiah 61? Does your congregation do anything with the Sunday morning message? Does anything really change?

A lot of churches where I live in the Bible belt believe that every sermon should have elements of a gospel tract. Congregations are only ever allowed to splash around in the shallow part of the missional pool. They want to go into the deep end - they want to know how to do the stuff that Jesus did. But they leave the church still hungry for something more.

The writer of Hebrews tells us  "Let us leave the elementary teachings about Christ and go on to maturity, not laying again the foundation of repentance..." (Heb. 6:1) It's time for "Bible-believing" churches to start preaching more sermons that do just that.

Jesus never asked us to get people to pray salvation prayers. That was a 20th century invention. He asked us to make disciples. And wouldn't you know, it's the very thing that the world needs most. Jesus showed us the way of hope, of abundant life. To follow him is not to embrace a list of things to do - it's to discover the key to living a hope-filled life of victory.

This video from Katie Rowland illustrates this point.