By Ken Blue
Those who criticize programs designed to get the unsaved to attend church services, base their arguments on the idea that the unsaved cannot worship God, therefore the saved and the unsaved cannot worship together.
Now, it may, or may not be true that an unsaved man cannot worship God. (Acts 10:1-4). I am confident God will clarify that question at the judgment. However, there are two or three questions that we must answer before we come to a hasty conclusion. For example, how does the critic define worship? Is singing, giving, and praising worshiping the Lord? If it is, can’t we do that while sinners are in the service?
Secondly, what is meant by “with the unsaved?” Do we mean with the unsaved in the building? I do not see that as an obstacle to our personal worship. If their presence is a problem, perhaps we should dismiss all non-members and then have our own special worship service.
When I pastored, I took two months each year and preached a series of messages on how to worship God. It mattered not that unsaved were present. In fact, many were saved during those services and their attendance was never a problem to the members.
If you have worship in your church services, do you ensure that no lost people are present, or do you make some allowance and conclude that the saved can worship with the lost in their company? This argument about the saved and the lost in the same service is just one more tactic of the Devil to discourage those churches trying to reach the lost.
Get as many lost people as you can to attend your church. Then preach the gospel and get them saved. Their presence will not dampen the spirit of those who truly want to worship God in spirit and truth, and the angels in heaven will rejoice! Let the heathen rage and you keep worshiping God and winning the Lost.
Pastor Ken Blue was born in Boswell, Ark. In 1955 he accepted Christ as his Savior. He and his wife Joyce were married in 1955. They have 5 children. He graduated from Midwestern Baptist Bible College in 1969 and started the Open Door Baptist Church in Lynnwood, Wa. where he pastored for 39 years. Because of health issues (ALS) he was forced to resign as pastor. It is his desire to continue to be used of God to help pastors and believers through this ministry.