Twenty four hour-a-day cable news networks remind us hourly of some unfortunate set of circumstances somewhere in the world.  They tell of a person in a coma for ten years and we enter a national moral debate over the value of that person's continued existence. No amount of negotiations is too much to save a news reporter captured in a war zone. A few people die from tainted produce and we have a first class tragedy and a continental scare. The news that evil has befallen some innocent child breaks hearts on a routine basis. Every auto and plane crash is taken to be an awful thing. All of this is true because we value human life and despise seeing even one life lost. I would submit to you that all of the above speaks well of us, newscaster and politician histrionics notwithstanding. What about a human soul?

I covet for us a healthy concern for human souls. As Jesus found people wandering as sheep without a shepherd, lost in aimlessness and sin, two thousand years ago, so it would be today. He had compassion on them. Might not we do the same? It used to be commonplace enough for Christians to worry about such things. The prospect of people being somehow eternally lost was viewed as a bad thing. It concerned people enough that they gave of their means, even their lives, to do something about it. Behind the quaint, homely and, ever so politically incorrect missionary movement at the beginning of the last century, was a deeply felt concern that somehow, somewhere some soul might be lost. Today we might spend a fortune to extend someone's earthly life for a few weeks but balk at even modest giving to make a difference of eternal significance.

Look around your own congregations. A lot of times we get caught up in a concern for the future of our churches that amounts to nothing more dignified or consequential than institutional survival. I believe God has bigger issues and so should we. Every vacant Sunday school room and every empty pew, are a statement about how much we value the eternal future of the people who aren't there. Every person God calls, but who we do not provide with proper tools for ministry, is a statement about how much we care if a life is lost to God. Or, we might look at our congregation and discover a lot of energy goes into providing things that entertain us and pass the time, but do precious little to help us give honor and reverence to God, make mature decisions or act in deep faith. If we actually valued the human soul, even one, we would see this as a bad bargain.

Just  ahead of us is a new year. New years are great for making resolutions. Sometimes we make them and keep them. New Years is a good time to become a tither. It's a good time to make sacrificial offerings and significant gifts to build up the ministry of our church at home and far beyond. Can we do that as though someone's life was at stake? It is.

Glad to be with you in Christian mission,

—The Rev. Arnold C. Nelson Jr., president of Disciples Home Missions, is a native of Clarksville, Tenn., and is a member of Southport Christian Church, Indianapolis.