A Tragic End to a Successful Search

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things . . . by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross. Colossians 1:19-20

Lostology Law #22

Successful searches do not always have happy endings.

It was a sad story in slow motion. A ranching family in a small community was moving their herd of cattle to the winter grazing area. Working with his father and other cowboys was a teenage boy; we'll call him Joe. One afternoon, Joe headed back to camp alone on his horse. It was the last time anyone saw him.

After initial efforts to find Joe were unsuccessful, the family, through the local media, appealed for volunteers to help them search the wooded hills and canyons of the area. Many did. For days the evening news reported on their search effort. But Joe remained lost without a trace.

As days slipped into a week, the family's sense of urgency rose. Winter was coming. If Joe was alive, he must be found soon or he would not be found at all. The search continued. One week became two. No Joe. The weather worsened. Volunteers slipped away, sensing they were no longer looking for a boy; they were looking for a body.

Winter came. The snows fell. Still the family searched. The media carried their story a while longer. The father said they could not stop until they knew what had happened to their son. Their lonely search continued.

When the snows made additional searching impossible, the family gave up, but said they would begin again in the spring. They did. Months later a report filtered out to all who remembered the original story that a body had been found. It was Joe.

Evaluating a Search Effort

How would you evaluate the search for Joe? A success? Hardly. A family lost a son. Nothing could erase their pain nor change their sense of loss. They had searched, but they did not find their son alive. They failed. The search was unsuccessful. Or was it? Some facts challenge a simplistic assessment:

• A family's love for a lost son launched a massive search.
• Friends and volunteers joined the extensive search effort.
• Through the media, thousands shared one family's concern for a lost son.
• A core of people continued to search in spite of discouragement.
• The family's love compelled them to search when all hope was gone.

What a tribute to Joe. True, they did not find him alive. But they loved him and they searched. That search had intrinsic value that defied the outcome.

Things Vs. People

How do you evaluate your personal search efforts?

With lost objects, success is clear-cut: you either find the object or you don't. Find it and you are successful; fail to find it and you are unsuccessful. Everything fits into tidy categories.

With lost people, a simplistic assessment is inadequate. There is something inherently significant about a search for a lost person. It communicates love and value. Searching simultaneously becomes a process and an accomplishment. The fact that you search stands as a monument of love, and nothing can tear down that monument.

Value the Process

Successful searches do not always have happy endings--that is the truth we find in Lostology Law #22. Joe's tragic story illustrates this law. Other searches affirm the truth.

As lostologists, we value the search process. We celebrate the love, the emotion, the human spirit that compels people to sacrifice and search for lost ones. In a sense, they are successful the moment they begin. No ending can erase the love that prompts the search.

Up for Evaluation

At His death, what did Jesus have to show for three years of intensive searching for the lost? Not much. As He hung naked, nailed to a cross, all but a handful of followers had deserted Him. The crowds that had begged to crown Him king had later cried, "Crucify Him." Objective assessment would have declared His search efforts a failure.

Jesus was the first lostologist to shatter simplistic search evaluations. Jesus' cross demanded that searches be assessed on the basis of total effort--not a one-day snapshot and headcount. Jesus' life and death proved that love goes to extraordinary lengths to look for the lost. To focus on who got found was appropriate, but shortsighted. The cross proclaimed that God searched for the lost. The cross declared that love was offered, even if rejected.

No one lost could ever, from that point on, doubt God's love or His willingness to launch a rescue mission. The cross stood as a landmark for lost people throughout time. No matter how many were ultimately found, Jesus' search was successful.

The Search for a New Church

We had grand goals when we planned our spiritual search and rescue mission in Portland. At that time, churches were being started in other parts of the country with unprecedented results. Using an innovative telemarketing and direct mail strategy developed by a businessman named Norm Whan, new churches were beginning with first Sunday attendance of 300 to 500.11 Our goal was to go beyond that level.

We set out to contact 80,000 homes. If the statistics held, we would have up to 800 people at our first service. Sustaining an 80,000 dial-up long-distance telemarketing campaign proved too ambitious. In the end, we struggled to reach the 47,000 mark. Still, I told the volunteers to expect between 450 and 500 people at our first service. For that we worked and prayed.

On the first Sunday, of those who received calls and mail from us, around 160 true prospects showed up (209 if we counted everyone who attended, including our volunteers). We never did find the rest of the 47,000 families. A successful search? No way. Or was it?

Our massive search effort did have intrinsic value. Whether people in Portland realized it or not, the fact remained that a spiritual search and rescue operation had been mounted on their behalf. In this project, everyday Christians did a very hard thing: they became "telemarketers for Jesus"--not the culmination of anyone's lifelong dream. Teenagers and adults, young people through grandparents joined the search team. They invested time. The long-distance callers invested money. Volunteers addressed mailing labels and prepared bulk mailings. No one could have asked a group to do more than these people did. They searched thoroughly. They searched faithfully. They searched well.

On Sunday night, March 13, 1988, the mother church in Garland, Texas, gathered for their evening service. As arranged, the pastor, Roger McDonald, called me from a phone at the pulpit connected to a speaker so all in the congregation could hear our conversation.

"John," he said, "tell us how it went today." Fearing the people would be disappointed, I paused, then said with a degree of reluctance, "We had 209 in our service this morning."

For the next few moments, I heard nothing but the sound of long-distance applause. The people in the congregation, those dear friends, recognized what I had not understood. Yes, they spontaneously celebrated the results--the people who came. But they also celebrated the search process--the fact that they and others had done a hard thing, a good thing, and reached across America to begin a new church. No one could rob them of their accomplishment. They were true lostologists.

New Score Cards

Traditionally, evangelism has focused on results. Unless people pray the prayer and sign the card, we tend to classify the event as unsuccessful. As lostologists, we must expand that narrow concept of evangelism.

As we search for the lost, we will not always find them. Often when we share our faith, our efforts go nowhere. Seekers reject our attempts to tell them about Christ. We return defeated and discouraged.

We must learn to value the search itself. Here are a few marks of success we can celebrate whenever Christians share their faith in any way:

We can celebrate that Christians took a stand for Christ in a lost world. In a world that lacks conviction and questions if anything is ultimately true, Christians share the good news about the truth that sets people free.

We can celebrate that Christians stopped talking about how much they believed in evangelism and actually talked to lost people about Jesus. There was a victory of obedience over hypocrisy.

We can celebrate that Christians demonstrated their love for Christ and for lost people by explaining God's love for them. They refused to stay at church and talk about love. These Christians moved into the world and told lost people that God loved them enough to die for them.

We can celebrate that Christians confronted lost people with the claims of Christ on their lives. Never again can these non-Christians offer the excuse that they didn't know what God offered to them and demanded from them. Never again can these lost people say that no one cared enough for them to tell them how to be saved.

We can celebrate that Christians actively participated in Jesus' Great Commission. They went into the world seeking to make disciples. In doing so, they fulfilled their responsibility and prepared to stand before God with the confidence obedience brings.

The fact that we go, that we try, that we attempt to tell others about Christ has intrinsic value. We want to find the lost, but we must never forget the basic principle of lostology: successful searches do not always have happy endings. A search begun is cause for celebration. Every search is a victory.

The Final Evaluation

Ultimately, God will not hold us accountable for the number of people who respond to our witness. Salvation is an individual responsibility and each person is accountable to God for how they respond to Him.

Yet we as Christians are also accountable to God. When we stand before God, He will look at us and say, "Did you search for My lost ones?"

"Yes, Lord," we will respond. "We searched. We didn't find all we hoped to find. Still we searched."

Then our heavenly Father will say, "Well done, My good and faithful searchers. Well done."

The Lostology Lab

1. By what criteria do most Christians and churches evaluate the success of an evangelistic effort? Do you think this criteria is appropriate or adequate? Why or why not?
2. When you have talked to lost friends or loved ones about Christ, how did you evaluate your efforts? What criteria did you use for success? Has this portion of your study of lostology changed your criteria? If so, how? If not, why?
3. If you had been at Calvary on the day Jesus died on the cross, how would you have assessed the impact of His ministry if all you knew was what you observed that day?
4. Imagine that a Christian friend has just returned from church visitation. He talked to a fellow who was not a Christian, but the man was not ready to commit his life to Christ. Your Christian friend is discouraged and feels he has failed in his efforts. Based on your understanding of lostology, how could you encourage your friend to view his evening as a success rather than as a failure?

5. If you were to stand before God right now and give an account for the way you have been involved in sharing your faith, what would you say to God? How do you think God would respond to you? Would God affirm that you have been faithful in this area of your Christian life?

Coming Next: Just Be There

Often, the most important part of a search is being there. Good things happen if we are in the right place at the right time. Our next study will help us learn about this dimension of lostology.