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Another growing and influential training program is Faith, administered by Lifeway Christian Resources. Team members visit church visitors, referrals, members, and Sunday school absentees (in the same age range as the member) with a focus on encouraging baptism and church membership.

Faith falls under the guidance and responsibility of the church's Sunday school classes so it does not feel like an extra church commitment and because it helps to then draw people directly into the Sunday School classes.

According to Bobby H. Welch, the pastor of First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, Florida, who developed the strategy, about 8,000 pastors and churches are trained in Faith. As of last summer, 26,000 individuals had trained in New Testament evangelism at Faith regional clinics.

Southern Seminary's Ewert has also developed a similar Sunday school-based visitation program. REACH (Reaching Every Available Community Household) adds a prayer component that makes evangelism a deeper part of church members' lives.

Sunday school members are given names of contacts and given a week to reach them however they choose. But at the same time, Sunday school prayer leaders from each class also call the contacts, who may be referrals or visitors, to ask if the church can pray for them.

"People are more likely to share about their faith after they have spent time praying for the unchurched," Ewert says. "People develop a burden for them. We just show that we care about our neighbors. I don't view them as door number three on my hit list."

The success of EE, Faith, and REACH point to common practices for programs that work: making evangelism a mindset, creating discipleship, training properly, and committing the church to the program. But questions remain.

People are no longer comfortable with visits to their home, Southern Seminary's Beougher says. Not only do they not like it, they resent it. People are less open today, and not just to missionaries. When Americans return to their homes, they do not want to be disturbed. The home is an increasingly isolated place, or as the Chicago Tribune called it, "a cocoon."

Tuvya Zaretsky, Southern California district director for Jews for Jesus, says evangelicals must recognize that the role of the home has changed.

"People are finding new places to sit and converse rather than their homes," he told Christianity Today. "Within two blocks of my office, there are six coffee houses. That creates a perfect opportunity for a place to meet with mutual consent. Going door-to-door seems beyond the pale of American culture now."

However, Beougher doesn't believe the changing face of the home should stop evangelism. "I don't see where the Great Commission says to do it as long as the person is comfortable with it," he told Christianity Today.

Lon Allison, director of the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College, warns that evangelicals should be aware of the effect that cold call evangelism has on residents. "It is like a cannon," he said. "If shot in the right place, it does great things, but in the wrong place it can be devastating."

Some churches have moved away from visitation evangelism, Allison says, because it requires qualities that not everyone possesses. In informal settings, Allison often asks people if they are comfortable evangelizing in such a way. He says the result is always less than 5 percent.

"For those 5 percent, I see it as a level of anointing that they can pop up where people need Jesus," Allison told Christianity Today. "It is for the few and those who do it well. But I don't want it out of the toolbox either. They may err on the side of being too forceful, but far too many of us err on being too reticent."

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April (Web-only) 2002, Vol. 46