Pastor Brady Boyd has seen his share of adversity within the church. He took over the leadership of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colorado, 12 years ago in the midst of a huge scandal and helped nurse that church back to kingdom health.
But now, Boyd says, the overall church is dealing with a different heartache—indifference to the lost. Many of today’s believers—so-called Christ-followers—simply don’t care about unsaved and the unchurched. Those people have taken notice, and have, for the most part, deemed the church “unimportant.”
“God gave us the Great Commandment to love your neighbor,” Boyd told Dr. Steve Greene on a recent episode of Greenelines on the Charisma Podcast Network. “In the culture, when people who are not attending church look at the lives of those who are attending and following Jesus, they don’t see anything remarkable. They don’t see a big difference. They don’t think the church offers any solutions to their lives. And the reason that has happened is because the people who are considered devoted Christ-followers have lost their sense of witness and being present.”
“We must reflect upon the goodness and glory of God, the power of the Holy Spirit, and put [ourselves] in the position of being a witness. We must love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul and mind, and love our neighbor as ourselves. And what opportunity we have right now during this virus to do just that, to make sure in this time that we have that our hearts have been consecrated to God.
“We must also make sure that our mission focus in on our neighbor. The Great Commandment actually preceded the Great Commission. So, we will never fulfill the Great Commission unless we first become Great Commandment people.”
For more of Pastor Brady Boyd’s thoughts on the Great Commandment, listen to the entire podcast.
