Steve Sjogren has participated in launching five churches. Recently he has focused his energy on coaching others who are committed to outward-focused living. Sjogren is author of many books including the best-selling Conspiracy of Kindness.
Most books emphasize one-on-one evangelism. You write more about doing evangelism as a community. Why?
I find it incredibly exciting. I love to do a service project and touch larger numbers of people. It’s exhilarating to get out there and seed the community. Everyone on the team ends up high-fiving each other. You realize, “We just touched five hundred or a thousand people,” And it wasn’t just “Here’s a bottle of water.” We actually got to talk to all those people, even if it was just for a few moments to hand them a card that said, “This is to show you Christ’s love.” There’s an upward spiral effect, an enthusiasm that builds. People start laughing and telling stories and evangelism becomes easy because the courage is contagious.
I think in our day there’s a chronic shortage of joy in evangelism. The whole idea of having fun and high-fiving each other is almost completely foreign to us. But it is out there. We just have to find people that are willing to go out with us and find joy in doing these things together.
You write that “Evangelism is one of those emotionally charged words that sends shivers of guilt running up and down our spine.” Should we retire the word evangelism?
No, I think we need to think about it differently. These days the word evangelist is being used by lots of other people. There are car salesmen that call themselves “BMW evangelists” or “Chevrolet evangelists.” They think, eat, drink, and sleep their product. Because of this marketing usage, it’s actually become a positive word again.
When I’m on a plane now and a churched person asks what I do and I say, “I’m an evangelist,” my response is a turnoff. But if it’s a non-Christian in sales, or in any kind of business, they immediately know what I’m talking about. There’s no negativity at all. They hear it as a synonym for enthusiast. But in the minds of long-term church people, it can be a negative. But I think we need to get over it. Its biblical roots are too important. When the angels announce the birth of Jesus, we see the Greek word from which we get evangelism—euangelion. So we are partners with the angels when we do evangelism. We are doing what the angels do. That’s powerful.
A lot of people are hurting financially, but in hard times they may be more open spiritually. How can church leaders help people fill that void?
We need to redouble our evangelism efforts. We should be thinking less about maintaining and more about reaching out. If we’re not there for people during this very difficult time, we’re not acting as the church. It’s like 9/11 all over again. We will look back in ten years and realize that this was an opportunity to begin relationships with the people in our community. People are scared, and they’re looking for answers, but they don’t know where to turn.
All our internally-focused messages need to become more outward-focused. Every time we bring our garbage cans in we need to bring in the garbage cans for our neighbors on both sides of our houses. We need to be bringing in their papers too. We need to be praying prayers that are too deep for words, as Paul says. This is an amazing time, and these present conditions might be here to stay. I think we’ve prayed too long for relief and we need to start praying for reality to set in for the church.
Resources on Community Based Ministry
Conspiracy of Kindness:A unique approach to sharing the love of Jesus.Steve Sjogren
The Church of Irresistible Influence:Bridge-building stories to help reach your community.by Robert Lewis and Rob Wilkins
Church is a Team Sport:A championship strategy for doing ministry together.by Jim Putman
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