Empty Seats

By Gary Keith, Lead Pastor 

I just finished watching a new video released by Billy Graham called “The Cross.” Everyone who knows Billy Graham knows that he has singular purpose in life – to see people come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ. Out of all the things that capture our attention on a daily basis, there is nothing more purposeful or life-changing than helping someone come to a saving faith in Jesus Christ.

As I watched this video my mind turned to our church. Our mission is to passionately pursue LIFE in Jesus and to lead our neighbors to do the same. I couldn’t help but ask myself, “How are we doing at that?” and “How am I doing at that?” Then I began to think about our three Sunday services each week. Sunday morning is a prime opportunity to live out both of those parts of our mission.

Anytime I’m on stage I can’t help but notice two things. The first is how wonderful it is to see each of you in church on Sunday. I know you’re there to grow in the knowledge of what it means to passionately pursue LIFE in Jesus. This is important and we will do well to come often to Sunday services. After all, until Jesus comes back, our job is to take every opportunity to learn and then take that learning into our life each day.

The second thing I notice when I’m on stage is all of the empty seats. Each Sunday the total of our three services is only about half of our actual seating capacity. And this causes me to ask a simple question – why? Why do we have so many empty seats?

Knowing that, like Billy Graham, we are to also be about people coming to faith in Jesus, I did a little research. Here’s what I found out. There are 39 different churches in Upland. The estimated population in Upland is nearing 80,000 people. If every church in Upland had attendance of 1,000 people (which it probably doesn’t), that would still leave 41,000 people not in church and quite possibly without a relationship with Jesus. I had to ask myself, “Do I really care about these people and their spiritual eternity?”

As the day went on I couldn’t get this out of my mind. Do I really care that quite possibly 41,000 people could go into eternity without Jesus and they live right here in our city? It wasn’t long before I started saying to myself, “I want to reach these people, they need to know Jesus like I know Jesus!”

I then asked God in prayer, “What do I do? What will it take to reach these people?” And God said to me, “Be an example and then ask the church to be involved.” So that is what I’m doing with this article. I want to see people come to faith in Jesus, especially as we approach this Christmas season with so many opportunities during December.

Would you join me in inviting people you know to church? If each one of us invited just one person who actually came, we would fill up to beyond our capacity. And this would be a good thing, don’t you agree?

We just launched a new teaching series about Christmas. You can read about it in Pastor Dan’s article on page 4. And this is a great time to take the opportunity to invite a friend or family member to church. Would you join me as I do this as well?

Each of those empty seats represents someone who needs to come to faith in Jesus. Let’s love people the way God loves people by partnering with Him and getting people to church. Wouldn’t it be great if each week the place were packed at all three services? That may not cover the 41,000 people out there, but then again, who knows what other things God may have for us as we passionately pursue LIFE in Jesus and lead our neighbors to do the same.