The Gospel Your Own People Need
A pastor I know decided to try something different for his fall sermon series. Instead of picking every topic himself, he asked his congregation to submit questions and ideas they wanted addressed from the stage.
He expected the usual requests. Parenting. Marriage. Finances. Maybe a series on the book of James.
What he got instead stopped him cold.
Question after question revealed something he had not fully reckoned with. Longtime members, people who showed up every Sunday, served on committees, and sang in the worship set, were asking questions like “how do I know if I’m really saved” and “what happens when I die.” Some admitted they had never actually surrendered their life to Christ. They had grown up in church. They knew the songs, the language, the rhythms of a Sunday morning. But they had never crossed the line of faith.
He had been preaching to people he assumed already believed. And some of them did not.
The Church Is Not Automatically the Redeemed
It is easy for pastors to assume that anyone sitting in the pews on Sunday has already made a decision for Christ. But Jesus never let that assumption stand unchallenged. He looked at religious insiders, people who knew the law and kept the rituals, and told them plainly that knowledge was not the same as new life.
In John 3, a Pharisee named Nicodemus, a man who studied Scripture for a living, came to Jesus at night. Jesus did not compliment his religious credentials. He told him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God” (John 3:3, ESV).
Nicodemus knew the temple. He knew the law. He was not born again.
Your church is full of Nicodemuses. People who know the building, the routine, and the vocabulary, but who have never actually met Jesus.
Familiarity Can Hide the Need
Paul warned about this same danger in Romans. He wrote, “For I bear them witness that they have a zeal for God, but not according to knowledge” (Romans 10:2, ESV). Zeal is not the same as salvation. Attendance is not the same as regeneration. A person can love the church as an institution and still be a stranger to the gospel.
This is not a call to doubt every member’s faith. It is a call to stop assuming. The pastor who ran that sermon series did not lose confidence in his congregation. He gained clarity about what they actually needed to hear.
The Challenge for Pastors
You spend so much energy thinking about reaching your community, your neighborhood, your city. That work matters. But do not walk past the mission field sitting in your own sanctuary.
Ask your people what they are wrestling with. Give them a way to be honest without shame. You may find, like this pastor did, that some of your most faithful attenders have never actually said yes to Jesus.
Preach the gospel clearly and often, not just for the visitor in the back row, but for the deacon in the front pew who has been nodding along for twenty years without ever truly believing.
The harvest is not always far away. Sometimes it is closer than you think.
About the Author
Derek Harsch has spent over a decade working at the intersection of ministry and leadership development. As a contributor to MinistryJobs.com, he writes on church hiring, ministry culture, and the qualities that make leaders effective in local church contexts. His work helps ministry teams think more clearly about who they hire and why it matters for the long-term health of the church.
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