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In the early days of the city of Chicago, some bold engineers succeeded in an amazing feat. They actually reversed the flow of the Chicago River. Instead of dirty water flowing into Lake Michigan, the river was dredged and channeled to flow out of Lake Michigan to a canal that eventually connected to the river system that would flow into the Mississippi River.
A similar challenge awaits every pastor who takes the Great Commission seriously. The natural flow of most churches is not toward evangelism. The reasons are many: a culture increasingly hostile to the message of Christ, fear of rejection, an inward focus on our own needs.
Even so, some pastoral "engineers" have succeeded at reversing attitudes in their congregations and are seeing notable results. Leadership invited three such leaders to discuss the task.
Jerry Cline has served nine years as pastor of Upland Evangelical Mennonite Church in Upland, Indiana. Before that he served for eight years with Overseas Crusades, six in Indonesia.
Mark Mittelberg is executive vice president of the Willow Creek Association and co-author of Becoming a Contagious Christian, book and training course (Zondervan, 1994 & 1995). Prior to joining the staff of the Association, Mark served for seven years as the director of evangelism at Willow Creek Community Church, where he continues to be evangelism trainer and a frequent speaker at seeker-oriented events.
Mike Slaughter has, for nearly two decades, pastored Ginghamsburg United Methodist Church in Tipp City, Ohio. He is author of Out on the Edge (Abingdon, 1998) and Spiritual Entrepreneurs (Abingdon, 1995).

How do you shift people's attitude from "I should evangelize" to "I want to evangelize"?

Mike Slaughter: Renewal is God-breathed, not programed or planned. Pastors come to conferences wanting methodology and technology. We do media and all that, but when we started using media I began an hour to two hours of prayer every morning.
God chooses to act in certain times and places. People in that place have a passion for God and a passion for people. From the pulpit you see those people who are taking notes and nodding their heads. They exemplify fruits of openness and love. My strategy has been to get that group together. I say to these people, "Carolyn and I are starting a group in our home on Wednesday evenings. The only requirement of those who come is that in six months to a year they begin to invest in the lives of others." I call it the "sanctified Amway plan."
Mark Mittelberg: You begin with your own heart. If it's not what it ought to be, admit that to God and then to the people around you. Tell others, "I want to be a person who values lost people and reaches them for Christ more than I do now. I also want our church to do that, and I'm going to pray to that end. Hebrews 10 says we are to spur each other on to love and good deeds. Let's commit together to fulfilling the purpose Christ gave for this church."
You can then gather a team that agrees this is what their lives and ministry will be about. You instill evangelistic values into more and more people around you. What happens then is you will attract other like-minded leaders into your church and repel those who are not. Many people are looking for a church that's alive evangelistically.
Contagious churches put the work of evangelism into the hands of all their people. But pollster George Barna has shown that only one in three churches intentionally train their people in evangelism. We not only have to raise the value, model it, and teach on it, we have to get all our people through a training course where they don't just hear about evangelism but they practice it.
Friends listen to friends. If we train individuals to naturally communicate their faith, we will see people come to Christ.
Jerry Cline: If I as pastor don't say to others in the church, "Hey, there's something missing here," evangelism is probably not going to happen. I may need to say to the elder board, "I'm not seeing many conversions of late. Let's list the names of people we're rubbing shoulders with, and each time we meet, we'll pray for them."
When the church is preparing the budget, I have had to say on occasion, "There's not much money in this budget for evangelism." My leaders have always responded to that. People are looking for us to take the lead.
Last year, for example, we allocated several thousand dollars to bus unchurched kids to Chicago for ballgames as a way to build relationships with them. We're trying to break out of our standard approaches.

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