You say a cautious “yes” to what you have been reading in the first section of The Growing Gathering of Jesus, but you aren’t about to rush into making changes. You need a lot of convincing because, when you truly believe that the Lord is speaking to you, you tend to give him everything. That’s a good thing! You aren’t resistant to the idea that your church needs to change, but you do want to make sure that any changes are truly God’s will for you. We commend you for this!

We would love to ask you:

What would it actually take for the Lord to convince you that what you are reading in The Growing Gathering of Jesus is a proper assessment of your situation and that radical change is needed? Unless you tell the Lord what you want him to do to convince you, there is a danger that you will miss his voice and simply carry on with the status quo. See Revelation 2:7.

Are you convinced, at the very least, that the statistics about church decline are accurate? If so, then why do you think the Western Church is haemorrhaging people so rapidly?

We would encourage you to read Isaiah 1:5-8 and to spend some time asking the Lord to reveal to you why the church is shrinking in your nation. What parallels do you see with the kingdom of Judah in Isaiah’s day? What might the Lord want you to do in response to this?

As you read the next section of The Growing Gathering of Jesus, we would encourage you to ask the Lord to speak to you through the Scriptures and through the disciple-makers in Asia and Africa that we will introduce you to in the next section of the book.