Sunday is for Series: Strategic Evangelism
Evangelism is the responsibility of every believer. All Christians have the obligation and privilege to share the gospel. But this glorious task is often fraught with difficulty and at times can be random and aimless. In this series, I want to focus on what you and your church can do to be strategic in your evangelism.
We should always be prepared to “give an answer for the hope” that we have. To some, this means simply waiting for lost people to trip in front of us, or get stuck in our elevator. But the Lord honors strategic thinking, and has given us, in this generation tremendous tools to use for a gospel advantage. So we will in this post look at three blogs which address outreach opportunities, outreach tools, and finally the personal invitation.
3 Effective Outreach Opportunities
What are some of the best times to share the gospel? In my post Strategic Evangelism: 3 Effective Outreach Opportunities, I discuss three valuable times when evangelism can and should occur within your church.
1. Evangelistically Intended Sermon Series: Established churches can use special times to reinforce evangelism and outreach. At Grace Church, we preach about two-thirds of the time at our church through books of the Bible. We are strategic about the other third. For example, every year between Mother's Day and Father's Day, we do a family series to draw attention to an overwhelming need in our community—the need for strong families. It's a time when people bring their friends and is often a time when their friends hear the gospel for the first time.
2. Special days and Holidays: Churches can use Easter, Christmas, Mother's Day, Grandparent's Day, and Super Bowl Sunday, among others as designated times when you have an evangelistic message and service. You must let people know this is the intent and then let them know how they can use these special times and civic holidays to invite unbelievers to attend.
3. Connecting Small Group for Evangelism Emphasis: While much of this is related to the church as a whole, small groups can be especially successful in their outreach attempts and evangelistic emphases. As mentioned before, every fall and spring we create a teaching series about some topic that's going to relate well to both believers and unbelievers.
But what can we do with these opportunities? What tools are there available for us to make the best use of the time we’re provided? This leads me to my second post…
Helpful Outreach Tools
Churches desire to make disciples and they want people to be actively sharing their faith and interacting with un-churched people. That's a good thing. But what tools are available to the congregation and to the individual believer to help make disciples in this modern era?
In my post, Strategic Evangelism: Helpful Outreach Tools, I looked at the ways of the past, and tried to compile a list from the present, with an eye toward the future. I review everything from Billy Graham Crusades to The Story, I am Second, and others.
Many believers would like to be bold about witnessing for Christ, but there is often a disconnect between aspiration and action. Many Christians are aspirational witnessers—always feeling good about wanting to share Christ. My experience is that many Christians can be helped along the way, and that getting them started helps them keep going.
If we acknowledge opportunities, and are given tools, often only one thing remains, who is going to invite the unbelieving to believe? Which leads me to our final post…
The Power of an Invitation
Welcoming people into the local church should be the natural overflow of a local church's faithful ministry. However, many churches find themselves unfruitful in seeing new people to connect with their congregation. So in my post, Strategic Evangelism: The power of an Invitation, I address how and why to connect the unconnected.
Whatever happened to the strategy of simply inviting a friend, co-worker, or neighbor to church? According to our research, an invitation to church is still an effective way to reach the lost. And yet believers often fail to take advantage of this opportunity.
The personal invitation is an effective way to break down any real or perceived barriers one might have to walking into a new church building or being willing to engage in a new circle of people. And the lost are hungering for this kind of genuine fellowship.
So Christians are called to witness, and called to proclaim, and by God’s grace in this country, we have been given opportunities and tools to use to accomplish our task of evangelism. We must take advantage of those opportunities, and be strategic, never forgetting the power of the simple invitation. The experience of true gospel community, true fellowship, is a powerful thing.
Remember, simply introducing people into the relational network of a local church community can be an important aspect of their journey to the faith.
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