for the 5th Sunday after Epiphany
David Sellnow
Christ calls us to reach out to others, even when it seems an impossible task
If you are a church member, you recently became part of a minority in America. For the first time, the percentage of Americans who belong to a church or synagogue or mosque fell below 50%. When Gallup did its first poll about church membership in 1937, 73% of Americans said they belonged to a church. That number remained consistently around 70% up to 1999. Since then, the numbers have dropped precipitously, down to 60% by 2010, down to 47% as of 2020. (1) Meanwhile, the percentage of Americans who do not identify with any religion has grown from 8% in 2000 to 13% in 2010 to 21% by 2020. In the United States overall, persons who attend church regularly represent 24% of the population, compared to 29% who never attend religious services at all. (2)
In broader terms, youâre not a minority yet, but your majority status is shrinking. Apart from church membership or attendance, how do people see themselves? Fifteen years ago, for every person in this country saying they were non-religious, there were five persons who professed to be Christians. Today, for each non-religious person, there are maybe two Christians as their neighbors in the community. (3)

Jacopo Bassano, The Miraculous Draught of Fishes, National Gallery of Art, via Wikimedia Commons
I hope such news doesnât make you uncomfortable. I hope, rather, that it makes you feel like going fishing. I donât mean giving up on your religious life and spending all your time at the lake. Quite the oppositeâI mean that we devote ourselves to living the faith in the way Jesus called us to be âfishersâ of men and women. We learn something about our calling from way Jesus called his first disciplesâfishermen by tradeâto come follow him (cf. Luke 5:1-11). After a long night out on the lake, catching nothing, Jesus told Simon Peter and his colleagues to go out again and let down their netsâin deep water and in broad daylight. This was not how Galilean fishermen approached their work. They used trammel nets near the surface. In deep water, the fish would typically not be within their reach. (4)  Also, until the introduction of transparent nylon nets in the 20th century, âtrammel net fishing was done only at night. In the daytime, the fish could see the nets and avoid them.â (5)
So, when the fishing partners caught so many fish that their nets began to break (Luke 5:6), with loads of fish so heavy they barely could keep their boats afloat, this clearly was a miracle of Jesusâ doing. It also was an object lesson in what âfishingâ is like for us in a spiritual sense. Fishing isnât easy. It takes great patience and persistence. Sometimes you can fish and fish and fish and catch nothing. Sometimes the fish just arenât biting, no matter what lure or bait or method youâre using. Bringing others into the family of Jesus is like that. You can do outreach effort after outreach effort, and nobody seems to respond. You try every traditional method you know to do ministry and evangelism, but people from the community arenât interested. On that day at Lake Gennesaret, it took a miracle by Jesus to bring fish into the nets of Peter and the other fishermen. On any day that we seek to bring a personâs soul into the arms of our Savior, it takes a miracle of Godâs Spirit to make that change happen. After all, âno one can say, âJesus is Lord,â except by the Holy Spiritâ (1 Corinthians 12:3).
Perhaps many decades of cultural dominance by Christianity in America have made us think ministry should be easy. Historically and globally, that has not been the usual situation for witnesses of the gospel. In the present day, the world watch list details the fifty countries around the world where being a Christian is the most difficult and dangerous. Relatively speaking, here in the United States, while things are changing for us, we still have a much easier path for faith and ministry. Back in the first years of the Christian mission, times were enormously challenging. Persecution and opposition were common. For the most part, the apostles died as martyrs for the faith. (6) The early Christians had no church buildings or public presence. They met together in each otherâs homes. They met wherever they could meet, sometimes in secret. They encouraged each other, but they were going against the flow of the society around them.
It was during those same years, though, that the Christian faith grew exponentially. One prominent sociologist has estimated that during the 300 years following Jesusâ death and resurrection, the number of Christians increased by about 40% per decadeâcontinuing at that rate decade after decade until the Christian church came to be dominant in the Mediterranean world. (7) What enabled the early Christians to have such a steady, growing influence on the people around them, so that people wanted to know more about them and more and more people began to join with them? Â
One thing those early Christians had was a powerful story that they shared, âa better story than their neighbors. ⊠Christians told their neighbors a story about a big God who was deeply good and who loved human beings ⊠who out of love for humanity, stepped down into humanity to lift human beings up to himself.â (8) That story transforms the way we live our lives. Let me share an example. Some years ago, there was a woman in my congregation in Texas, just a regular person, someone like you. At her workplace, there was another woman, a single mom, who was struggling to get through the day most days. The women frequently took breaks and lunchtime together and talked about life. One day, the younger woman said to her older friend, âHow do you do it? You seem to have such a sense of calm about you. Somehow you always are pleasant, even when I keep dumping my problems on you because Iâm so tired and stressed and frustrated. Whatâs your secret? Where do you get your strength?â Â

Image via depositphotos.com
âOh, dear,â her friend replied, âI donât feel like Iâm all that well put together. I have plenty of days when Iâm frazzled and at my wits end. But the thing that gets me through is faith. I just keep hanging onto Jesus, because I know that when I am weak, he is strong. I go to church to get strengthened, because I need the comfort and forgiveness and encouragement I get there.â
The two hadnât talked about faith before, but they began to talk about faith and the gospel quite a bit from that day on. Thatâs how relationships of faith begin. You have the same strength of faith at work in your hearts and lives, the power that God âput to work in Christ when he raised him from the deadâ (Ephesians 1:19,20). Our lives have been resurrected with Christâalready now in the hope that we have, and knowing that through the resurrection that is to come, âwe will be with the Lord foreverâ (1 Thessalonians 4:17,18). So we encourage one another with these words, and we can encourage our friends and neighbors too.
When the early church was constantly growing and influencing people, âpeople were drawn into Christianity because of an experience of the resurrected Jesus.â (9) The knowledge and confidence and joy of the resurrection radiated in people’s lives. Remember why it was that Christians chose Sunday as their day for gathering to commune together. If anyone ever asks you, âWhy do you go to church on Sundays?â you have a powerful answer. Every Sunday is a reminder that Jesus came back from the dead, alive again. That miraculous truth is the center of our hope as Christians. We âknow Christ and the power of his resurrectionâ (Philippians 3:10). âChrist died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, he was buried, and he was raised on the third dayâ (1 Corinthians 15:3,4). That truth is of primary importance, for if Christ did not rise from death, our faith would be futile and meaningless (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:17). âBut in fact, Christ has been raised from the dead. ⊠God gives us victory through our Lord Jesus Christâ (1 Corinthians 15:20, 57). So, as believers of that truth, we can be âsteadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord,â because we know that in the Lord our labor is not in vain (1 Corinthians 15:58).Â
You may feel like laboring for the Lord is too much for you, like the call to be an evangelist is too hard a thing to do. Youâre in good company if you feel that way. Every faithful servant called to go and speak for God has had similar misgivings. Moses said, âO my Lord, I have never been eloquent ⊠I am slow of speech and slow of tongueâ (Exodus 4:10). When Isaiah was called, he said, âWoe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lipsâ (Isaiah 6:6). When Jesus filled Peterâs nets, preparing to send him as someone who would fish for people, Peter said, âGo away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!â (Luke 5:8). When Paul was called by Jesus, he was stunned and for three days didnât eat or drink anything (Acts 9:9). So if you donât feel up to the task, thatâs understandable. But remember what God showed Isaiah. His mercy had touched Isaiahâs lips. All Isaiahâs guilt was gone, all sins and shortcomings forgiven (Isaiah 6:7). Paul felt that he was unfit to be called an apostle, because he previously had persecuted the church of God. âBut by the grace of God I am what I am,â Paul said. He realized that Godâs grace toward him was given to him for a reason (1 Corinthians 15:9,10). Godâs grace has been given to you for a reason too. Each of you has a story to tell. You have a message to share.
Maybe, though, you feel like your opportunities to reach out are limited. Around the region where I live, there are many rural churches facing declining numbers in both congregation and in community. When we think of our congregations in rural America, the weaknesses and challenges tend to be the only things we see. But one ministry advisor has focused on a key strength of small congregations in small communities. ââPeople in rural churches share common experiences,â he said. âThatâs certainly a strength of these churches. [They understand that] people are more important than programs. âŠÂ Relationships are key. Everything in a small church, a rural church, revolves around relationships.â (10) I might add that relationships are key for all Christian congregations, in urban and suburban settings too.
Perhaps in the past weâve had the mindset about our churches that if we have a building, they will come. If we have church services, they will come. If we have programs and activities, they will come. But thatâs not generally true. The mission of the church is not to figure out what strategies to use to get people to come. Rather, our mission is to see what opportunities exist for us to go into all the world and speak the good news to every person (Mark 16:15). That doesnât mean buttonholing everyone you meet and saying, âAre you saved? If you were to die tonight, where would you be?â Conversations donât start that way. Relationships built on trust donât start that way. The strength of your witness for Jesus is in how you relate to others, human person to human personâlike the story I shared about the woman and her work friend in Texas. Itâs about how you extend hope and healing and heartfelt caring to people in daily life. The first followers of Jesus âinitiated the largest movement in the history of the world, and they did it without an invite card.â (11) They didnât even have church buildings to invite people to. You can share the faith simply by a willingness to live in faith and talk about your faith.
So, keep fishing. Keep putting your nets out in the water in the community around you. Drop a line to someone you know who needs good news. Christ calls us to reach out to others, even when it seems an impossible task. Jesus also promises to work miracles of his Spirit as we do what he calls us to do, just as he demonstrated that he could bring all sorts of fish into the boats that day on the Sea of Galilee. Keep fishing, my friends ⊠knowing that when Jesus told us to go and make disciples of all nations, in the very next breath he said, âAnd remember, I am with you always, to the end of the ageâ (Matthew 28:20). He is with you, and you will be his witnesses (Acts 1:8).Â
(1) Jeffrey Jones, âU.S. Church Membership Falls Below Majority for First Time,â Gallup, March 29, 2021.
(2) Church Attendance of Americans 2020,â Statista, January 15, 2021.
(3) Gregory A. Smith, âAbout Three-in-Ten U.S. Adults Are Now Religiously Unaffiliated,â Pew Research Center, December 14, 2021.
(4) Cf. âFishers of Fish,â by Gary M. Burge, Christian History Institute.
(5) David Bivin, âMiracle on the Sea of Galilee,â En Gedi Resource Center, June 14, 2019.
(6) Â Cf. Ken Curtis, PhD., âWhatever Happened to the Twelve Apostles,â Christianity.com, April 28, 2010.
(7) Cf. The Rise of Christianity: A Sociologist Reconsiders History, by Rodney Stark, PhD, Princeton University Press, 1996. Review available in the American Journal of Sociology, January 1997.
(8) Cabe Matthews, âEvangelism in the Early Church and Today,â Firebrand, October 21, 2021.
(9) Cabe Matthews, âEvangelism in the Early Church and Today,â Firebrand, October 21, 2021.
(10) Dennis Bickers, quoted in âRural Churches Struggle as Resources Flow to Urban Churches,â by Brian Kaylor, Center for Congregational Health, HealthyChurch.org.
(11) Preston Ulmer, âStop Inviting People to Church,â Relevant, August 5, 2021.
Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright © 1989 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.