4 Approaches to Congregational Outreach

Effective church evangelism is a group effort.

by Eric Reed

The Gallup polling organization reports that 46 percent of Americans identify themselves as evangelical. Researcher George Barna estimates 41 percent are born again based on their answers to basic questions about salvation. But worship attendance, of all faiths, totals only 43 percent on a given week. By any accounting, more than half the people you see every day probably do not have a living relationship with Jesus Christ.

That's far more than the nation's 400,000 pastors can reach by themselves, not that they should. The Great Commission is for all followers of Christ. But equally clear is the disconnect between the Great Commission and the average congregation.

This disconnect is evident even among the more overtly evangelistic churches. In the Southern Baptist Convention, the nation's largest Protestant denomination, the ratio of members to baptisms is 38 to 1. In other words, only one member in 38 led someone to faith in Christ and membership last year. Other church's numbers are no better.

So, what's the answer? How can regular Christians be turned on to evangelism? The search led to five churches and six conclusions.

The pastor's blowtorch

Bill Hybels's passion is bringing lost people to faith in Christ. Since he started Willow Creek Community Church in suburban Chicago in 1975, Hybels has redefined evangelism, giving Christianity a new approach to the unsaved and new language with which to identify them: they are seekers. Hybels estimates in Willow Creek's early years 90 percent of their energy and resources were invested in evangelism; the remaining 10 percent went into discipleship. Over the next decade, the ratios reversed. That is to be expected, Hybels told pastors at his Leadership Summit two years ago. "The shift in the life of believers is always toward less evangelism."

Confronted by this realization, Hybels set out to create what he called "a balanced approach to produce a balanced church." He identified five values, alliterated them (starting with "g," evangelism is "grace") and gave each an equal share of Willow's time, energy, and resources. Again, evangelism was trumped by discipleship and programs aimed at believers.

Willow's new configuration: 40 percent goes to grace (evangelism) and the other g's (growth, groups, gifts, good stewardship) get 15 percent each. "The war is at the point of evangelism," Hybels said. "This is the effort that will have to be blow-torched."

They identified those with the gift of evangelism and commissioned them. Hybels elevated the importance of evangelism in the life of everyday believers, and the church began praying for lost people in their believer-oriented midweek services.

Willow Creek entered what Hybels called "the greatest season of evangelism in our history." In the six months following the renewed emphasis on evangelism, the church baptized 975 people.

From Hybels's book Becoming a Contagious Christian, a study course was published that is used in many hundreds of churches today.

Planned combustion

Evangelism Explosion is the granddaddy of congregational witnessing courses. Now marking its thirtieth anniversary, the E.E. organization founded by D. James Kennedy, pastor of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Coral Gables, Florida, continues to train more than 5,000 people per year in the 45-minute presentation of the gospel. E.E. teams trained leaders with apprentices in a model that has since been used by many courses. In a 1994 survey of Christianity Today readers, E.E. was recognized as the most effective witnessing training program of the major courses available at the time. E.E.'s enduring contribution is its emphasis on teaching large numbers of church members to share their faith and sending them out to do it.

Many have emulated E.E.

Bobby Welch, pastor of First Baptist Church of Daytona Beach, developed a simple witnessing tool for his church members. His FAITH plan gave responsibility for evangelism to an organization that already worked well in his church, Sunday school, and to witnessing it added the goals of baptism and church membership.

"I never thought of myself as an evangelist," said Les Coggin, an early middle-ager who leads the young couples class. "But with FAITH, it's pretty easy to talk with people. I used to take (class members) out visiting, and if no one was home, I really wasn't that disappointed. But now, we know how to discuss their faith, but if they have any other needs, we talk about that too."

Ben and Michelle Maxwell are new to the community, to the church, and to Christ. "We came to church here once because Michelle's aunt goes here," said Ben, in his early twenties and the father of a toddler. "After that, a couple from Sunday school came to visit us several times, telling us about Christ and about the church. They really cared."

Ben accepted Christ. Michelle renewed her commitment. They've been faithful attenders for seven months.

"We found out later that it was because of FAITH that they came," Michelle said. "We want to take the class next time it's offered."

"The change in our lives has been just unbelievable," Ben offered, smiling.

"Ben tells people at his work all the time."

FAITH went national in 1998, when the Southern Baptist Convention began promoting it. To date, 5,700 churches and 26,000 individuals have trained in regional clinics.

"FAITH works in places where people are asking, 'How can I be saved?'" said Sean Doyle, who was part of a team that launched the program at Memphis' Bellevue Baptist Church. FAITH seems to fit the region, steeped in evangelistic church culture. "FAITH addresses how to believe. E.E. addresses what to believe," Doyle summarized.

And a third program, Alpha, addresses why we should believe.

Low-key, high-commitment

Alpha is a ten-week course targeting people with little or no exposure to authentic Christian faith. The program is finding an international following among mainline Protestants and charismatics.

"So many people would be very cross with you if you told them they weren't Christians," said Nicky Gumbel, a tall, dark, and gregarious man who looks more Greek than English, who developed the course with Sandy Millar, his boss and rector at Holy Trinity Brompton, an Anglican church in London. "We take a low-key approach (to evangelism). Rather than telling them how to become a Christian, we ask 'How can you be sure of your faith?'"

Gumbel taught the first courses in 1992. More than 1.5 million people had completed the ten-week course by 1999, the latest year for which totals are available. Alpha operates in 2000 U.S. churches at present.

Church members invite non-Christian friends to attend a weekly dinner. The centerpiece of each meeting is a videotape lecture of Gumbel explaining the basics of orthodox Christianity, who Jesus is, his role in salvation, and the presence of the Holy Spirit in the believer's life. In one session, Gumbel defines repentance and offers to lead participants in what many Christians would call "the sinner's prayer."

"We've had success with Catholics and people from historic denominations who think of themselves as Christians but don't have much of a personal relationship with God," Gumbel said. "We help them take a step forward without confronting them that everything they have believed they must discount.

"All of us can take a step forward, from atheist to agnostic, from no faith to some faith, from committed Episcopalian to committed Christian," Gumbel said.

"I thought it might be more interesting if I taught the course myself in my church the second time around," said Jay Trygstad, pastor of St. Mark Evangelical Lutheran Church in Worth, Illinois, "but Nicky is so good, so engaging—we've used the tapes through three courses now."

Trygstad was one of almost one thousand church leaders attending Gumbel's first Chicago conference. "Response to our first class was great. We had 60; many were church members who wanted to see what Alpha was about. We are completing a course with about a dozen now. Alpha encourages us to run the program at least nine times, because later on we begin to draw non-Christians and agnostics. That's happening now for us."

Trygstad is also requiring the course of new members and couples who want to be married at his church.

A survey commissioned by the Presbyterian Church (USA) showed 58 percent of the denomination's churches that were running Alpha gained new members. More than a quarter reported their church as a whole has experienced a spiritual reawakening. Alpha will conduct 40 training conferences across the U.S. this year.

Homegrown, program-free

Mark Jobe has a vision for reaching Chicago. After 40 days of fasting and prayer, he felt led to ask God for one percent of the city. "One percent didn't sound that bad until I did the math," Jobe said. One percent is 30,000. Jobe wants to lead 30,000 people to Christ by 2010.

The son of American missionaries in Spain, Jobe was called to pastor a dying south side church in 1986. He was in Bible college, completing a degree, so he made a three-year commitment—to a church of 18 people. That church today is 1,500 people meeting in six locations across the city. Two of the services are in Spanish, many attenders at the other services are also Hispanic. Some are black. One congregation is upscale Yuppie in a re-gentrified urban neighborhood.

Jobe's secret: make evangelism the responsibility—and the joy—of every member and attender.

"Every small group knows that part of the reason they exist is to bring people to Jesus," Jobe said. "We had really pushed E.E. We had 40 people participating for several years, and we had a couple hundred people pray a prayer of conversion each semester. But when we looked around, we had to ask, 'Where are they now?' "

That's when Jobe began emphasizing mentoring relationships through small groups. When new attenders begin asking questions about the faith, they are given a mentor and are enrolled in a Bible study that Jobe wrote called "First Steps."

One of the steps is repentance followed by baptism. New Life Community emphasizes baptism as the evidence of commitment to Christ. For their largely Catholic constituency, it works. Jobe's congregation baptized 423 adults and teens in three years. "We're really up front about the gospel. Baptism makes people count the cost."

Baptism, for Jobe's church, is also a group event.

"We made a commitment three years ago to baptize on the last Sunday of every month," Jobe said. For his volunteers setting up the baptistery in rented facilities, that was a big commitment. A couple of crew members told the pastor, "Tell us if there's no one to be baptized, so we won't have to set up."

Jobe refused. "If there's no one, then we'll all get on our knees and pray and repent," he replied. In three years, New Life has never failed to baptize someone on the last Sunday of the month.

At the baptism service, Jobe calls both new believer and mentor forward. The new believer tells how he came to faith in Christ and the mentor performs the baptism. Jobe wants his congregation to hear the stories, because it encourages them to witness. "We had one person tell how a friend at the church led her to Christ, then she pointed to a neighbor she led to Christ, and then a sister, and so on. In all, we had a chain of 20 people present who were saved because one woman shared her faith."

What have we learned?

How can regular Christians be turned on to evangelism? Here are some conclusions from the examples we've seen:

1. Salvation of lost people is the church's top ministry priority.

Evangelism—specifically, sharing the gospel for the purpose of conversion—must be a clearly stated objective. The allocation of time, energy, and resources must match the goal.

2. The pastor leads. Many pastors don't feel that they're good evangelists, and examples such as Bill Hybels and Mark Jobe may only add to that perception.

But the issue is not how many people the pastor leads to Christ each week; rather, how up front the pastor is with his or her efforts. The pastor regularly calls believers, likewise, to share their faith in the marketplace. And the pastor encourages program leaders to assess whether their ministries are outwardly focused, and how they can be made more evangelistic. A church is only as evangelistic as its pastor.

3. Evangelists are identified and unleashed.

In every congregation there is a small percentage who feel especially burdened for those without faith. These are the people who express the urgency of reaching lost people, ignite the congregation, and demonstrate that regular people can share their faith. They lessen the fear factor for others who are just getting started. They become the E-team, the organizers of the program. And they show the congregation that evangelism is not just the pastor's job.

4. Every believer is coached in sharing their faith.

After years of mailings from denominational headquarters and curriculum suppliers, pastors may feel they're drowning in an alphabet soup of witnessing programs. And while pastors may have an aversion to "yet another program," the fact is that most believers won't articulate their faith unless they're taught. Witnesses need a witnessing plan—whether it's homegrown or prepackaged, a personal testimony or a carefully crafted apologetic. Not everyone will memorize and recite a lengthy presentation, but some of what they learn will stick, and that much they'll tell others—if they're taught.

5. The church gets frequent reminders of the importance of sharing their faith.

Baptism services, particularly where the role of others in attendance in leading the person to Christ is told, keep a congregation excited. They see that God uses ordinary people to bring others to faith. At the least, they will be more likely to bring friends to church where they can hear the gospel.