Part one of Tony Wright’s series on evangelistic strategies. See part 2 here
When visiting our shores the other year David Robertson (Scottish Presbyterian minister and sometimes Dawkins debater) was asked about the weaknesses of Sydney Anglicans. His response, “in my limited experience I’m not convinced that evangelism is a strong point amongst Sydney Anglicans (or indeed some other Christians).” David suggested that, alongside gifted individual evangelists, “most of all, we need churches that have evangelism in their DNA … We need to rediscover the practice of church-based evangelism.”
The wounds of a friend are faithful, and in this instance sparked a conversation amongst (at least some) Sydney Anglicans about how we really were going in regards to evangelism. A conversation that led to the 2019 Nexus and Sydney Gospel Coalition conferences combining and focusing exclusively on evangelism.[1]
In this article I want to continue that conversation by drawing our attention to one particular aspect of evangelism—personal evangelism. I’m not going to focus on those people who make and take opportunities to share Christ as and when is appropriate—either as a result of gifting or conviction or some combination of the two.[2] Rather, I want us to focus on the matter of how our churches approach personal evangelism. I’ll be suggesting that this is a much neglected area, will be looking at some of the reasons for that, and making some tentative suggestions as to ways in which we can improve. My next article I’ll be looking to help us think at a strategic level about our overall approach to evangelism.
What’s your church’s approach to evangelism?
I’ve asked this question of over 100 pastors and ministry practitioners in the past 18 months. Invariably I get one of two answers:
Answer 1: We run an evangelistic course that works well for us (with surrounding events / activities that funnel people towards the course).
Answer 2: We do different things (including courses), often without much success. But we keep doing them to make sure evangelism stays on the agenda.
Both answers reflect a desire, concern and commitment to evangelism.
Why the emphasis on courses?
In regards to both answers, the popularity of a course-based evangelism is easy to see. They come well-packaged and presented; easy to use; you can find the course that works for you. They work well—as people gather together to think and chat (often over food). All of this, sometimes, comes together to see people make decisions for Christ! What’s not to like?
However, an unintended consequence has been, to quote David Mansfield (former director of Evangelism Ministries), “when the courses came in, we stopped training people in personal evangelism”. This might surprise you, as it did me when I started asking church-leaders about their approach to evangelism. But very, very rarely does a church talk to me about their systematic approach to personal evangelism. No one is against personal evangelism. Everyone loves the personal evangelists in their midst. But, by and large, as far as churches go—they have put all their eggs into the basket of events and courses.
No one is against personal evangelism. Everyone loves the personal evangelists in their midst. But, by and large, as far as churches go—they have put all their eggs into the basket of events and courses.
This was driven home to me earlier this year when I attended one large ministry conference. At this conference the key-note speaker told of how their church had deliberately chosen a course-based approach to evangelism as it was deemed to be a quicker way to reach an area with the gospel than personal evangelism. Personal evangelism was likened to deep-drill mining where you hope to hit a seam, whereas course-based evangelism was open-cut mining—where you blow the side off the hill and sort through the pieces.
Now, as the conference went on, we heard more about the details of how this actually works out in practice. Their missions pastor acknowledged two key things.
- That it can in fact take quite some time between the church’s initial contact with a person and that individual being willing to join a course. The suggested solution was to run a number of engaging but non-threatening events that maintain contact until they are ready to join a course.
- That many (if not most) don’t actually become Christians on the evangelistic course, it’s not until the follow-up course that people make some sort of commitment.
This indicates that the dichotomy between open-cut and drill-down mining was not as sharp or clear as we might like. Courses are a great way to efficiently reach people with the gospel who are already willing to join a course (and then find themselves interested enough to do a second course).
Back to the Future
It also takes us back to the way many youth groups were run back in the 1980’s and 1990’s. Back then, many of us organised our weekly youth groups on the assumption that the vast majority of youth weren’t ready or interested enough for anything too heavy in terms of gospel-content. We majored in engaging but non-threatening events: a band night; a progressive dinner; an outing to laser-tag and so on. Some weeks there’d be no gospel-message; other times it would be awkwardly shoe-horned into the evening. Finally we’d include a significant gospel message when the most people would be in attendance (bait-and-switch anyone?).
What changed the game for many of us was the seminal youth ministry book No Guts No Glory, in which the various authors argued that youth ministry should focus on teaching the Bible to the Christian kids in our midst—training them in evangelism—and then sending them out amongst their peers to stand and speak for Jesus. In short, discipleship with a missional edge. The No Guts No Glory approach was:
- better for the Christian kids;
- better for the leaders;
- better in terms of evangelism;
- better because it reflected biblical priorities and convictions and made the Word of God central
But the emphasis on course evangelism feels like a return to 1980’s youth group style.
Is there an alternative?
Let me draw your attention to two similar approaches.
1. Uncover
The first approach is that of the Australian Fellowship of Evangelical Students. Over the last few years many AFES campus groups have been using Uncover—essentially an evangelistic set of Bible studies from the gospels.
Structurally, this approach often comes in an A-B-C setup—where an A is a confident and competent Christian student leader; B is the less confident/experienced trainee; and a C is non-Christian. Often it’s B who has invited C to meet up with their pal (A) to look at the Bible together. In an ideal scenario, at the end of the six or so studies, C has become a Christian (and is now a B) and B has now seen enough to grow into an A.
AFES has seen this work on a variety of campuses across Australia and have seen a marked uptick in the amount of evangelism as the focus has shifted away from the “experts” (i.e. staff) to a broader base (i.e. students).
2. Swedish Style
The second approach is that taken from another conference I attended this year (they too shall remain nameless, suffice it to say they were keen on helping your church build a discipleship culture). The keynote speaker’s church seemed to have grown no less rapidly or largely than that of the previous conference—but through training and congregants in personal evangelism. Quite simply, their approach was to get Christians to invite non-Christians they knew to read the Bible with them (their approach can be found here). For my mind it’s a very similar to the Swedish Bible Study Method. Nor is it a million miles away from Word One to One.
Straight to Scripture
Behind all of these approaches and their relative success lies three key factors:
- A relatively rapid deployment (i.e. minimal classroom training).
- A recognition that there exist a range of people fall between a cold-contact and someone who’s ready to join a course—and some of these people (because they are our friends and acquaintances)—might like to have a look at the Bible with someone they know.
- A confidence in the both the clarity and comprehensibility of the Scriptures and its power to save (as God works by his Spirit).
This is a decentralised approach to evangelism makes it harder to track and measure when compared to a course. People might convert but never make it to your church. It’s out of your hands and (to some degree) out of control! With these approaches, it’s almost like you’d need to trust your people to do the work of evangelism and God to work by his word and Spirit.
This is a decentralised approach to evangelism makes it harder to track. It’s out of your hands. With these approaches, it’s almost like you’d need to trust your people to do the work of evangelism and God to work by his word and Spirit.
In my next article I want us to think at the strategic level about our approach to evangelism: that is, the when and why of adopting different methodologies—and indeed how they might work together. And to do this we will consider the work of one of the greatest military minds ever.
[1] Another response to these comments was that David was offered and accepted a role here in Australia to come and encourage/help us do the very things he had encouraged us to do—such that he is now my co-worker.
[2] The sort of evangelism written about by another colleague McAlpine here.
