Baptisms are great so why does this photo make me so sad?

My friend and Pastor from 25 years ago posted the above photo on facebook today. I have found myself looking at it many times today. It stirs up all sorts of emotion in me.

By the time this photo was taken, in the early 1980's, I had left my village home and headed off to Bible College. I think I see my twin sisters in the foreground.

As I look at this photo I can't help but think that "we" messed up such a great opportunity to impact so many people for Jesus because of our internal arguments. The local paper suggested there were up to 3000 people in this crowd to watch a baptism service. There were only 1500 people living in the villages of Inverallochy & Cairnbulg, with the majority of them turning up to watch people declare their love for Jesus by getting dunked in the North Sea.

What an opportunity. My take is this. We became obsessed with internal politics and arguments instead of focusing on all the people who needed to know Jesus. Shame on us!

The church was already packed out each Sunday and 1000's turning up to here the gospel at these special occasions like this and we decided to argue with each other instead of defeating the Devil! So the result today is that my home church probably has only a handful of attenders. It makes me sad and angry.

So today I have hung my head a shed a tear and vowed again to remember that people that don't know Jesus are our priority.