An Evangelism Equation for Non-Evangelists

Charles Dickens’ famous opening to A Tale of Two Cities describes the state of evangelism today in North America.

It is the best of times as we rediscover Jesus’ call for discipleship and rely on God’s supernatural power to open the doors for planting new movements that multiply Christian disciples across the nation. The flourishing of organizations and conferences that train, encourage and provide resources for new church planters is evidence of this.

It is the worst of times for those of us who serve in mainline denominations. A consistent drumbeat of downward numbers weighs heavily on us. We watch as our congregations grow older and smaller year after year, reminding us of the “death tsunami” that Lovett Weems predicted in 2011 (go to MinistryMatters.com and search “tsunami”). Our long-suffering members have often given generously of their time, effort and money so our congregations could thrive, but they are now anxious that their work will amount to nothing. All the talk of multiplication and movements seems alien to them. What good is it to have so many resources going into these new ventures when decaying buildings, changing demographics and death are sweeping away 100-plus-year-old congregations?

Mainline denominational officials know about this problem. Their response has been to double down on tracking numbers and teaching evangelistic techniques. Their logic is: If congregations just counted the right things, they would be more self-aware and would work harder to improve their numbers. Likewise, if they used the right techniques, they would attract and retain more people.

While it is easy to lay the reason for these problems at the feet of a lack of evangelistic technique, failing to focus on the right outcomes or the antiquated structures of mainline denominations—and all of these do play a role—the problem goes much deeper than this. Before all else, congregations are plagued by the inability to claim, articulate and embody the gospel.

Leaders Lacking a Personal Faith

“There is a low level of catechesis.” Those were the words the president of my seminary used to describe the students I would encounter when I first came on board to teach evangelism almost a decade ago. Over the years since, I have found just how true his comment was. Prior to arriving at seminary, most students had never been asked to think through who God is or how God acts in the world. As such, they came to class with a jumble of vague ideas and beliefs, but no clear Christian testimony.

Many of the students could share how they had felt called into the ministry, likely due to the denominational emphasis on ordination candidates presenting a convincing “call story” to pass muster when facing various committees. However, that story was seen as a stand-alone experience, disconnected from a student’s larger faith in God.

This lack of ability to claim and articulate the gospel by seminarians has had a direct impact on the leadership of mainline congregations. Heather Heinzman Lear, director of evangelism for The United Methodist Church, demonstrated this in a study she conducted in 2014. Interviewing the lay and clergy leaders of six congregations that the UMC deemed highly effective because of their high attendance numbers and large variety of programs, she concluded:

1. The overwhelming majority of the participants were unable to articulate why Jesus is important in their lives and how offering Christ to another person would benefit the other person’s life.

2. Five of the congregations did not create intentional space for people to practice sharing their faith or foster an environment of authenticity where members felt they could be vulnerable and express struggles.

3. The majority of participants could not differentiate good works done by the church from those of a civic organization or non-Christian individual.

4. The majority of participants indicated that their congregations were not known in their community, and that mission opportunities were developed based on member preferences instead of community needs.

While Lear only looked at a small sample of churches, her results are suggestive. As helpful as techniques are, they may only be attracting people to an organization rather than making disciples of Jesus Christ. If those of us in the mainline denominations are to halt our decline, we will need to stop putting the cart before the horse and address the primary reason we do not evangelize well: Those of us within the denominations are not formed well by the Christian faith.

Formula for a Comeback?

At the outset, let me defuse the blame game. Trying to decide who is at fault for this situation is acrimonious and divisive. Moreover, most of our church members neither sought nor want to keep this state of affairs. They are ready to grow in their faith as well as share that faith. They just feel unequipped to do so.

Training in evangelism seems like a logical way to address this problem, but in doing that we discover another challenge: Many mainline Christians are skittish about evangelism because it has so many negative stereotypes attached to it. Visions of judgmental preachers or of charlatans trying to scam people float through their minds. As Stephen Gunter, research professor of evangelism and Methodist studies at Duke Divinity School has said, for many people evangelism is “that which we did not like being done unto us which we feel compelled to do unto others.”

My book Evangelism for Non-Evangelists: Sharing the Gospel Authentically is an attempt at dealing with both of these issues. It provides Christians the tools they need to learn and articulate their faith while avoiding the negative stereotypes of evangelism. It does this by helping Christians engage their faith through their personal experiences of God. It then guides them in connecting the dots between their experience, Christian theology and their context.

The goal is for people to articulate the gospel in a way that is authentic to their own experiences while also informed by Christian teaching. From this articulation, they develop creative practices for sharing the gospel with others. These practices are also contextually meaningful for those they are evangelizing.

I put all of this together in an equation:

Starting Point + Theological Reflection + Contextual Awareness = Creative Practices.

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