"While working in Yellowstone National Park, I saw a lot of wonderful things, but I also saw some odd things. One of the odd sights I saw regularly was someone fishing for trout on the side of the road in a pond formed by melted snow. To the novice, that looked like a nice little trout pond, but anyone with any experience in northern fishing knows that the only things a small pond on the side of the road will yield is a small trout - and only if the pond is more than a temporary puddle caused by melted snow. The big trout can best be reached by being waist deep in raging, ice-cold water in the heart of the wilderness...."How often are our evangelistic efforts akin to fishing in a puddle of snowmelt? If we evaluated what some churches are spending on reaching the lost and what they are actually doing to reach the lost, it's the equivalent of sticking our heads out of the front doors of our sanctuaries - just beyond the earshot of sinners, whispering the name of Jesus, and then weeping because more lost people aren't responding to the gospel.
"They aren't responding to the gospel because we aren't responding to the gospel.
"Jesus clearly commanded us to go deep 'into all the world and preach the good news to all creation' (Mark 16:15). But like pathetic fishermen standing ankle deep in snowmelt, too many of us have chosen safety and convenience over risk and inconvenience, so - like that poor guy fishing in run-off - we are never going to catch anything... ever, unless we go deeper."- from Eats With Sinners, by Arron Chambers
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