The Lost Child

Yesterday I listened to a podcast by Steve Furtick of Elevation Church. It is a 3 part series called "Come Home" - and this blog is inspired by Part 1, which you can watch here. All 3 are brilliant, and I believe essential listening as we sharpen our focus to reach our neighbourhood for God.


Imagine that your entire family is shopping at your local shopping centre, and after a while, every parent's worst fear happens, you realise that one of your kids is no longer with you.. he or she is missing.

What will you do at that point?

Will we keep shopping?

Will we huddle together and say "Thank God the rest of us are still here"?

What we will probably do is start a frantic search.. an unrelenting driven search.. that won't stop until you find that child.

I think about Bruce and Denise Morcombe - parents that we all feel for after their son went missing in 2003.

Here are some snippets that describe their search for their lost child:

"It was all consuming. It was 24 hours a day seven days a week. There was no getting away from it."

"back and forth from town in the fading Sunday light, desperately searching the side of the road for their son walking home"

"The couple yesterday sold their investment property for $350,000, which will be directed into a radio, print and television campaign"

"Mrs Morcombe and her husband, Bruce, are still working full-time to find their beloved son"

"We will never give up!"

Now look at Luke 15:3-7

"Which of you men, if you had one hundred sheep, and lost one of them, wouldn’t leave the ninety-nine in the wilderness, and go after the one that was lost, until he found it?

When he has found it, he carries it on his shoulders, rejoicing. When he comes home, he calls together his friends and his neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost!’

I tell you that even so there will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents, than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance."


Steve Furtick says that each ordinary life has extraordinary value to God, and he will leave the 99 to find that one lost ordinary life.

There is a pursuit, a continual searching and a desperation in finding the lost child - the lost soul.

When one of our neighbours, our family, our friends is lost, what will our response be?

Will we stay focussed on the things we "need" to get done first? David in Psalm 119:36 says "turn my heart toward your statutes and not towards selfish gain. Turn my eyes away from worthless things"

Will we keep huddle together in our church and be thankful for those that are still with us?

Or will we start the search party, investing all we have and all we are to finding the lost child and bringing them home... because that's what Christ did for us.