Centrally Located For Residents of Alamo! Why Not?

If you are a member of First Baptist Alamo, why aren't you reaching lost people now?

Several years ago the Southern Baptist Convention got this idea for Baptist churches to become "regional churches" serving a region, as opposed to local or neighborhood churches. Pastors who wanted to move up the corporate ladder and pastors who envisioned evangelical starhood hooked on to that little publicity stunt as a way to reach their carnal dreams.

Some pastors move up the ladder with graduate degrees and books. Some do it with building programs.

One of the members of First Baptist Alamo accurately pegged the idea of a regional church as what it really is...a "Walmart church" for the way they evangelize. A Walmart Church simply steals members from other churches and rarely does any actual evangelism.

Several studies in church growth have already demonstrated this error in the church growth movement by discovering that church growth was more church member movement than evangelism. The vast majority of those flooding the mega-churches or regional churches were NOT new converts, but had actually just moved from the church down the road. First Baptist Alamo recently held a cattle-car evangelixtic rally and followed it up with a cattle-car baptism Sunday, just sign-up and be baptized or re-baptized as is popular with some folks feeling guilty about not living right or something. The web site even promoted people leaving their home church to come join this regional church. That is Walmart Evangelism.

The whole "building program" is driven by this "regional church" idea and nothing more. The web site proclaimed it as a way "to reach lost people" yet nobody realized at the time that nobody was reaching lost people where they were sitting now. So that error was removed from the web site.

So WHAT does the web site say to give away the REAL MOTIVE for moving the church, the "regional church" motive for moving? That is easy to spot. On the "location" page:

"We are centrally located for residents of Crockett, Gibson, Haywood and Madison Counties. "

1) Why would anyone who lives in Humboldt want to drive to church at Alamo?
2) Why would anyone in Brownsville want to drive to Alamo to go to church?
3) Why doesn't the pastor and staff of FBCA reach lost people IN ALAMO first?
4) Why doesn't the web page say something like "We are centrally located for residents of Alamo and Crockett County" and promote the church that way?

Why? Because the pastor is not interested in reaching the people of Alamo. He hasn't done it so far. Because the pastor wants to build a regional church at a more "regional" location.

Why? Because the staff and members of FBCAlamo are not interested in actually reaching lost people in Alamo. Alamo...where the church is located.

Why? Because even with pastors and church staff and, unfortunately with church members, bragging rights come with big Sunday Morning Numbers. Bragging rights come with offers from other churches offering more money to "come to our church and do what you did there." So, when you don't live the "great commission" lifestyle, when you don't reach lost people (for whatever reason,) then you must justify your salary by "APPEARING" to do spiritual things. Thus, the idea to build a new church "to reach lost people."

If you are a member of First Baptist Alamo, why aren't you reaching lost people now? If you are a member of First Baptist Alamo, why are you trying to justify a move to the country under a false motive of "reaching lost people" when you are not doing that already?

Inquiring minds want to know why you are not reaching lost people now?!?

----------------------------------------------------------------------------