What Kind of Bait are you Using?
From: Chapter 19 of “Something to Ponder”
In March 2000 a great friend of mine and former employer Ceylon Plemmons let me borrow his timeshare at Big Canoe in the mountains of North Georgia. I wanted to take my parents on a vacation and I knew that they had a couple of lakes and that would be right up my Dad’s alley and it was in the mountains and that is my Mothers favorite place to be.
So off I went to prepare the Villa for my parents’ arrival, I went up on Saturday and stocked the cabinets and the fridge, and returned on Sunday afternoon and picked up my Mother and Father. At first, we just road around the lake and up and down the mountains and took in the scenery because my Dad wouldn’t fish on Sundays.
We rode around and got our bearings, learned our way in and out of the resort, from the main gate to the north gate. We saw deer, turkeys, and a number of other animals as we rode around. The mountains were beautiful, and the lake was beyond our expectations. We were told that they had just the week before stocked the lake with a fresh batch of Rainbow Trout, we could hardly wait to try out our skills trying to catch some of those trout.
The next day came and off to the lake my Dad and I went. We were used to catching stream trout stocked by the state about 10 to 12-inch-long, but we were about to get a surprise. We talked over or options that we had to try to land a trout, and my Dad finally settled on a yellow doll fly, because it resembled corn. After a few casts My Dad said there he is, which meant he had one on the line, and boy did he, he worked and fought for a few minutes and landed a two and a half pound and around twenty-something inch long beautiful rainbow trout. He then looked at me and said “are all the trout in here this big”? And my reply was “that’s the first fish I have ever seen come out of this lake; I really don’t know”.
Within the hour we had our limit of four fish a piece around a pound and a half to two and a half pounds. After my Mother saw our catch we went back to the lake, and within 30 minutes we were back at the Villa with her limit cleaning and freezing our trout. It was a great day, and we went exploring the rest of the day. My Dad ask if he could stay another day and I told him we were there till Saturday if he wanted to stay, and the reason I got the Villa was for Him and Mother, I got no complaints about him staying.
The next day back to the lake we all three went, but this time we cast and cast and cast and cast and no luck. There was a man about fifty feet down the dam from us, and he didn’t seem to have any problem getting his limit that day, so as he was headed back to his car, he stopped and talked with us for a while. My Dad ask him how he managed to get his limit, and we were not, and here is the question the man ask. “What kind of bait are you using”?
My Dad was the best Bass fisherman I had ever seen, he could catch a boat load of bluegill bream with ease and I have seen him about fill up our old boat with crappie, when no one else on the lake was catching anything, but he had not yet mastered this elusive fish my brother Charles got him fishing for called trout.
Our new friend talked for a while and told us he was from Alabama, and has been fishing here for a few years and that we were using the wrong bait and that we needed some “Power Bait” for trout. I love that name “Power Bait”, then he went on to tell us how to rig up our line and even went as far as giving us a jar of the “Power Bait”. We finished listening to him teach us how to fish with this bait, and he then went on his way.
Within the hour my Dad and Mother had their limit then a little while longer I had mine (I was busy helping them land their fish is the reason they were ahead of me). Then off to The Bargain Barn Sporting Goods store we went and bought us some new hooks, some new sinkers, and of course, some “Power Bait”.
We caught our limit every day that year, and we have learned how to catch trout over the years, but the lesson is, when one bait didn’t work, we quickly changed bait.
Ceylon gave us that timeshare a few years later and every March since we make the trip to Big Canoe. Over the years we have had a number of family members come up that week, and we always enjoy a week of getting together telling stories about the one that got away and reminiscing about the things that happened while we were there.
When you cast and cast and cast and cast, and don’t catch anything it’s time to change your bait. We knew that fish were there, we were told that they had just stocked the lake. But we were fishing with the wrong bait at that time.
Jesus said in John 4:35 that the fields are white and ready to harvest, then why are people not being harvested? Why are they not coming to church anymore?
I have heard some pastors saying “people just don’t go to Church anymore” They want to make sure it’s not their fault people are not coming; they just don’t go anywhere is their thinking. The very week I heard that statement in a church running about 25 people on a good week I went into a Church the next week that had about 1200 people in the early service that I was in, and they still had 2 more services left to do.
Well then, they do go somewhere, they just don’t go to your church, then why are you not getting people to come to your Sunday services, and the question is “What kind of bait are you using”?
Don’t get me wrong I know that there are numerous folks that don’t attend a Church at all on Sundays, and my heart is breaking for Churches that I love, and I am watching them dwindling down to nothing because they are too stubborn to change,
Albert Einstein is widely credited with saying, “The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
But that is exactly what a lot of Churches are doing and not accepting the responsibility of their actions by saying Gods word will draw them to Jesus, and they are right God’s word will draw them to Jesus,
Paul said in 1 Corinthians 9 to preach the Gospel of Jesus.
The message never, and I mean never changes but the method must change. The message is Jesus and Him crucified, and dying for our sins. The message is Jesus’ resurrection from the grave and ascending to the right hand of our heavenly Father. The message is Jesus’ interceding for us and being the, “propitiation for the sins of the people.” (Heb 2:17) That is the message, not your legalisms, not your bias, and not your opinion.
God cannot draw people to the altar or to the conviction of the Holy Spirit if they are not there. If you don’t get them into the Church then how on earth do you expect them to hear the word? Paul said in Romans 10:17 that faith “accepting and believing” comes by the hearing of the Word, but they have to hear the Word to get the Word, and they have to be where the Word is being presented.
But we can’t get people to come! And again “What kind of bait are you using?”
I heard a preacher say years ago, “If you can bring them in with a hot dog, I can take them out with a hamburger.” Maybe so, but while they are there eating that hot dog, they’re going to get a lot more than a hot dog, they are going to be under the Word of God.
My dear friend and brother in the faith and prayer partner Tim Croft, works with a ministry called “Truth In Nature” They mentor fatherless boys, and teach them how to fish, and hunt, and to enjoy the great outdoors, they teach them gun safety, how to hunt and track deer, how to turkey hunt, squirrel hunt, and how to plant a garden and reap the rewards of the said garden and the rewards of the hunts and fishing trips that they go on.
Just a few weeks before this writing, Tim said that Truth In Nature had a fishing class to teach the young men how to tie different lures and hooks on their lines, and then they took them fishing for a while, but every Truth In Nature outing has a devotion, and on this particular weekend two young men made a profession of faith. Not bad for a fishing knot tying class.
Tim said he asked the young men if they would show up, because they do have a choice, if all they did was read the Bible and preached and prayed the whole time, they were together. And their response was NO! but they get together play games, eat dinner, hear the word of God then go to bed, the next morning they have breakfast, learn to tie fishing knots, and have a devotion, and go fishing. See what’s happening? These guys get under the word and enjoy Gods creation at the same time. The fishing and hunting, they are just a bait.
Are you getting this?
So, what kind of bait are you using?
My services are starting to dwindle, Change your bait!
My youth group is getting smaller and smaller, Change your bait!
We can’t get visitors to come back after one visit, Change your bait!
There are not as many people coming for midweek Bible study as they were, Change your bait!
I was the interim Pastor for a while at a little Church and the Wednesday night service was down to about 5 or 6 people. My brother Charles and I went to the Church and sat on the steps and prayed. We asked God what to do, and the answer came while sitting on the steps. I said, “I wish it was like the Journey Group I teach on Thursday nights,” and my brother said, “Why can’t it be?” He said, “Why don’t you just meet in the fellowship hall and have a “Fill Your Cup” service?”
A “Fill Your Cup” service (that is what my brother named it), is to bring a coffee cup and some snacks and enjoy each other’s company (We as Baptist call this fellowship) and sit and listen to the lesson and have some cake and coffee at the same time, and it worked.
So, the next week, we met in the fellowship hall of the Church with about 10 people. They came to see what was going to happen. We had coffee, cokes, and hot cocoa, whatever they wanted to put in their physical cup. Someone brought a cake, and we were off. I taught out of the book of Acts starting with the first verse and did the kind of teaching I love most, Expository teaching, by going verse by verse and poured out my cup for them. I love what Pastor Andy Stanley once said “It’s not my job to fill your cup but to empty mine.” It’s up to you to bring a cup and fill your own.”
The next week more people and more snacks more coffee and brownies and cakes and more teaching the word, an open forum formed, they had the freedom to ask questions and to give their prospective on the scripture, and we all were enjoying the Wednesday night classes, the attendance grew each week. We had to sit up more tables, bring more coffee, and cakes and more of the Word of God. At the last gathering had over 35 people, and God was truly blessing the “Fill Your Cup” services.
See, the coffee and snacks were just bait, and it was working.
So, what kind of bait are you using?
In the early 1990s I have mentioned I helped a ministry called Sweet Spirit Band, we would go into the Youth Detention Centers or YDC and preform and the leader Eddie Rogers would speak to them and tell them about the Love of Jesus and how much He cared for them. Over the years the local Churches around us would tell us we were doing it wrong because we had a full band with two keyboard players, a bass player, a guitar player, a drummer on a drum rise, backup singers, a smoke machine, a light bar with flashing lights and a sound board and sound man and some big honking speakers.
The young people in the YDC’s had a choice to come hear the band or go to the rec room or stay in their cells, so we needed something to get them out to hear the message. That something was the Band, “BAIT” and it worked, hundreds of young souls was saved as a result of that ministry, I was told one day by a preacher that did not like us even a little that we would answer for doing all the wrong we were doing at the time, my response was I like the results of us doing it wrong better than the way he wasn’t doing anything at all. The last year of that ministry we saw over 500 young people make a profession of faith. Pretty good bait, wouldn’t you say.
Those Churches have a band and loud music. Bait.
They have a worship leader instead of a song leader, Same thing, but Bait.
They have a parking lot crew that tells you where to park, greeters that open your doors and give you this week’s bulletin, people that help you find a seat, Bait, Bait and Bait.
They greet you with a smile and make you feel welcome to be there. Bait.
Don’t get me wrong, these people are there because they love the Lord, and this is their way to serve, so they hold doors open on stormy days and on freezing days to show you God’s love, they don’t see it as bait they see it as service and that is exactly what it is.
The Church that I attend and teach a small group, has a parkway that brings you down to the Church building where you turn to get to the parking lot. There is a little lady there every Sunday, just pointing out the way to go and smiling and waving to everyone as they come by, She makes my day every time I see her, I have seen her in the pouring rain, manning her post, I have seen her with snow piled up on her shoulder and the hood of her coat, and no matter what the weather she is there, smiling and waving, and no matter how bad of a mood I was in when I saw her I could see the Love of Christ and it cheered me up right then and there. This is showing God’s love, and Bait to get people back.
See I don’t want you to fake it till you make it; I just want you to go a little further in showing the Love of our Lord and Savior.
That’s why they send their youth group to Florida, or to the mountains on ski trips, or play basketball in the gym before the services. Again Bait, Bait, and Bait.
My dear friend Rick Stephens inspired this chapter. He said if you are hunting for deer, you use a different baited field and style of hunting than when hunting turkey. You use a different weapon for hunting squirrels than deer. So, we need to apply that same principal to the church.
You can’t expect the youth and the older adults to like the same kind of service, so give them what they like. Change the method not the message.
There is nothing wrong with having a strong youth program, by having games, and snacks and then presenting the word. And having a more contemporary music for them than what the older adults are listening to, after all they are different. And it’s just Bait.
Having an open forum Bible study for the older folks, and allow them to ask their questions and concerns. Have a “Small Group” Bible study for couples and a singles small group, a new families and newlywed small group whatever the case may be. It’s all Bait to get them involved. But we get them under the word.
So how can we Preach to them, or teach them, or counsel them and lead them down the right path if they are not here. And how do we get them here. We need Bait.
But what if they still don’t come? Change your bait until we find what works. It’s different at times in different Churches, sometimes what works in one church may not work in another, you just have to keep on changing bait until you find the one that works.
First start with prayer, and then pray about it. after a while I think you need to lift it up in prayer, and then maybe spend some time praying and seeking God’s response, and if that doesn’t work, I would just pray about it. Because you don’t want to use your bait but you want to use His, His “Power Bait.” The reason is that without His power we have nothing.
Are you getting this, it must be God’s plan or it will not work?
Church not growing? What kind of Bait are you using?
Paul said to the Church in Corinth that he became all things to all Men,
1 Corinthians 9:22-24 Though I am free and belong to no one, I have made myself a slave to everyone, to win as many as possible. To the Jews I became like a Jew, to win the Jews. To those under the law I became like one under the law (Though I myself am not under the law), so as to win those under the law. To those not having the law (though I am not free from God’s law but under Christ’s law), so as to win those not under the law. To the weak I became weak, to win the weak. I have become all things to all people so that by all possible means I might save some. I do all this for the sake of the gospel, that I may share in its blessings. Do you not know that in a race all runners run, but only one gets the prize? Run in such a way as to get the prize. (NIV)
Paul was saying if you want to win people to the Lord you sometimes must change your Bait to suit the people you are addressing.
So, your church not growing, people not coming as often as they use to, the young people not wanting to come to the youth services?
What kind of bait are you using?
If it is not working, I have one thing to say:
CHANGE YOUR BAIT!!!
And keep changing it till you find one that works, and after a while when it stops working, and it will stop after a while, my advice is again:
CHANGE YOUR BAIT!!!
Good fishing advice, better Church advice. After all, are the lost not worth it. Jesus thought so as I have mentioned Jesus treat us all different because we are all different, what bait that doesn’t work on one group may work on another.
Don’t give up, don’t throw in the towel, it’s not over until God says it’s over.
The little Church that I was raised in went from six to eight people to running over one hundred in Sunday School in just a few years, from meeting in a gutted little house to a Church building in the same few years, and then to a larger Church building a few years later. And every note paid off, God blessed us then because we were doing it His way, and I believe that he can do it again. They just have to change what is not working to what God wants that is working. In other words, CHANGE YOUR BAIT, and use GODS POWER BAIT. Guaranteed to work every time.
After all, did Jesus not say “Follow me, and I will make you fishers of men.” Matthew 4:19 ESV
Gods will Gods way works every time so:
So, What Kind of Bait Are You Using?