Alex D. Montoya
Since evangelism constitutes one of the church’s main purposes, the pastor must play a key role in leading his church to fulfill this responsibility. The New Testament mandates for evangelism specifically command the church to reach out. Among them, Matthew 28:18–20 indicates that evangelism entails going out to the lost, gospel preaching, teaching obedience, and an ongoing discipleship. Various ways to accomplish the task of outreach include personal evangelism, public evangelism, and the planting of churches. The main motivations for a pastor to do evangelism come from obedience to Christ, love for Christ, and love for mankind. The pastor can pass on this motivation to his people through his example, expectations, exhortations, excitement, and promotion of special evangelistic efforts. Specific methods for doing evangelism should not obscure the pure message of the gospel. These include personal evangelism, prospect evangelism, evangelistic home Bible studies, evangelism in depth, and inquirer ministries through the local church. In addition, media evangelism, crusade evangelism, and specialty evangelism are additional possible methods.
Why should evangelism be the concern of the church, and why should involvement in evangelism be the ambition of the pastor? The answer is simple: Our Lord Jesus told us to evangelize (Matt. 28:19–20; Mark 16:15–16; Luke 24:46–49; John 20:21; Acts 1:8). We are under obligation to fulfill the Great Commission to make disciples of all the nations, beginning with our own. The Lord’s purpose, aim, and ambition is the salvation of mankind: “For even the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). “For the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost” (Luke 19:10). Winning the lost was for Christ the highest desire and was the express purpose for which He came into the world (John 4:32–33).
Christ called the disciples to follow Him and learn from Him to become “fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). He schooled the disciples to become messengers of the kingdom news and witnesses of His sufferings. He ultimately commissioned them to evangelize the world, which they began doing as soon as they received power from the Holy Spirit (Acts 1:8; 2:1–4). The record in Acts describes the church’s obedience to the Great Commission, the same commission entrusted to the church today.
THE MANDATE FOR OUTREACHING
The mandate, then, is to evangelize the world. But what does evangelize mean? Some key definitions will clarify the meaning of evangelism. Packer defined evangelism as
just preach[ing] the gospel, the evangel. . . . It is a work of communicating in which Christians make themselves mouthpieces for God’s message of mercy to sinners. Anyone who faithfully delivers that message, under whatever circumstances, in a large meeting, in a small meeting, from a pulpit, or in private conversation, is evangelizing.1
A well-known American evangelist gave this definition:
Winning souls means that we can take the Bible and show people that they are sinners, show people that according to the Scriptures God loves them, that Christ has died on the cross to pay for their sins, and that now all who honestly turn in their hearts to Christ for mercy and forgiveness may have everlasting life. And we can encourage them to make that heart decision that they run from sin and trust Christ to save them. So winning souls means getting the Gospel to people in such power of the Holy Spirit that they will be led to turn to Christ and be born again, be made children of God by the renewing of the Holy Ghost.2
Any definition of evangelism or outreaching takes into consideration Matthew 28:18–20, which includes more than just a proclamation of a simple evangel. The command to “make disciples” includes at least four features:
Biblical outreaching is more than dropping gospel leaflets over a city or inviting someone to a church concert. These four elements deserve a closer examination.
1. Evangelism is proactive. English translations of the original Greek text of Matthew 28:19 begin with “Go,” which is the translation of an aorist participle conveying the sense “having gone.” The main verb of the verse is “make disciples,” or literally “disciple” all the nations. Hence, what the command assumes is that Christians will go out for the express purpose of making the nations disciples of Christ.
Biblical evangelism is outreaching, that is, going out to the lost souls of this world. Many pastors have fallen into the error of thinking that if sinners among the nations want to be saved, they need to come to the church. The greatest single reason why the church is declining is that it has ceased to go out to the lost. For some reason, evangelism has become something to do in church, within the walls of the church building. The church today expects unbelievers to come to it, when in fact the church should go out to them. Effective outreach will take place when Christians realize that the starting point of the Great Commission is to move out from the comfort zones of ecclesiastical structures into the lives of the lost around them. From the pulpit to the pew and from the pastor to the parishioner, the perspective of evangelism must be that of a proactive, aggressive endeavor.
2. Evangelism is gospel preaching. The command to make disciples entails calling men and women to faith, obedience, and submission to Jesus Christ. Some equate evangelism with preaching social change, human rights, political liberation, economic equality, and many more causes. These issues, though they are righteous endeavors, are not biblical evangelism.
Evangelism is the preaching of the cross of Christ, that He died for the sins of the world, that He arose from the dead, that He is Lord of the universe and of His church, and that people must believe the truth of the message before it can have any effect on their souls (Rom. 3:1–31; 10:9–10; 1 Cor. 15:1–4; Gal. 2:16–21). It must include the deity of Christ, His incarnation, His sinless nature, His vicarious substitutionary death for sinful humanity, His bodily resurrection, repentance and faith on the part of sinners, and the coming judgment of the world.
In recent times, it has been a tendency of pastors and churches to water down the gospel of Christ. In an effort to make more converts, preachers have resorted to a diluted gospel void of the saving features. They have resorted to “another gospel,” and inferior results are evident. An effective presentation of the true gospel will take careful preparation, time, thought, prayer, and patience. Evangelistic preaching is a call for souls to become disciples of Christ. Anything short of that is not biblical evangelism. Pleadings for professions of faith, decisions, or other outward manifestations just to elicit a response, if they do not result in making true disciples of the Lord Jesus, are not effective evangelism.
3. Evangelism is transformed lives. Christ commanded that the disciples baptize the nations into the triune name of God as a symbol of their turning from their sins to the Savior. The gospel call is always “be saved from this perverse generation” (Acts 2:40) and “turn from these vain things to a living God” (14:15). The gospel is to let the nations know that God “is now declaring to men that all everywhere should repent” (17:30). It always involves “repentance toward God and faith in our Lord Jesus Christ” (20:21). Paul summed up his proclamation when he told King Agrippa that Christ called him to open the eyes of the Gentiles, “that they may turn from darkness to light, and from the domain of darkness to God, in order that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who have been sanctified by faith in [Christ]” (26:18). Hence effective biblical evangelism always results in changed lives, souls yielded to Christ, believers submitted to the Lordship of Christ.
4. Evangelism is an ongoing discipleship. The Lord included in the Great Commission the additional task of perfecting and maturing disciples by “teaching them to observe all that I commanded you” (Matt. 28:20). Effective evangelism has as its goal the incorporation of the disciple into the context of a local church or assembly of believers, where under the ministry and influence of gifted believers, the new disciple can grow into the fullness of the image of Christ (Eph. 4:11–16). New Testament evangelism issued from the local church and resulted in converts added to the local church. The measure of results was not the number of professions but the numbers added to the church, and later the number of churches formed through the churches’ evangelistic outreach.
The lethargy, lukewarmness, and compromising attitude within the church is responsible for the anemic and stagnant condition of the modern church. The church needs to renew its commitment to obey the mandate of our Lord Jesus Christ: Go! Rice spoke to this generation with a heart-stirring exhortation:
The first great essential in soul winning is to go after sinners! This is the simplest part of soul winning, but one on where most people fail. They do not go after sinners. One may cry, and pray, and read his Bible, and go to church, and have family altar, and give his tithes, and pay his honest debts, and yet his own family may go to hell and all his friends around him, because he simply does not go after them, does not take the Gospel to them, does not urgently try to win them to Jesus Christ. No one ever becomes a soul winner who is not willing to work at it. Aggressive efforts are blessed of God in soul winning. One who does not make the effort will not get people saved.3
THE MANNER OF OUTREACHING
With the mandates in mind, the next step is to draw some broad strokes to describe various ways of outreaching, reserving until later in the chapter specific, reproducible methods for local church evangelism. The New Testament church used at least three main avenues in its efforts to fulfill the Great Commission: (1) personal evangelism, (2) public evangelism, and (3) the planting of churches. A brief glance at these three is enlightening.
Personal Evangelism
All evangelism is ultimately personal, with the heralder appealing to a lost soul either face-to-face or in a crowd. A person responds to the gospel in the privacy of his or her soul and in the uniqueness of the moment when the Holy Spirit lifts the veil, allowing that person to see the glory of the gospel. In that sense, all evangelism is personal.
In the stricter sense, however, personal evangelism is the effort of one person toward leading another individual to Christ. It is Andrew finding Simon Peter (John 1:40–42). It is Philip finding Nathaniel (v. 45). It is Jesus finding Nicodemus (3:1–5) and then the woman at the well (4:7–15). Personal evangelism was the first work of the disciples and the ministry that the Lord Jesus perfected superbly. Personal evangelism was the ongoing work of the early church, where daily from house to house they kept on preaching Jesus (Acts 5:42). The early witnesses to Christ were renowned for their ability to engage in a personal wrestling to bring a soul to believe in Christ (8:26–39; 20:20).
Emphasis on personal evangelism is a great need because of the vast number of Christians and even of pastors who do not engage themselves in the work of personal evangelism. The greatest success at evangelism will be through personal evangelism, and the greater the number who are doing it, the better the results will be. Concerning personal evangelism Macaulay and Belton said,
In the long run, every other form we have mentioned reduces itself to this. Whatever the characteristic of the group with whom we are working, our aim is to win the individual. We are not after the crowd but the persons who make up the crowd. We are not interested in the students as such, the railway man as such, the youth as such, the derelict as such, but we are seeking the person who happens to be a student, a railway man, a youth, or a derelict. They are all lost. They are all precious. Christ died for them all. We see them all as souls, as persons. As such we must seek them.4
Are we pastors personally leading souls to Christ? Have we equipped the laity to lead their family, friends, and neighbors to Christ? These are obviously the priority of our evangelistic efforts.
Public Evangelism
The Lord Jesus, the Twelve, and the early church made great use of public presentations of the gospel to large gatherings and crowds of all sorts. Peter’s first two recorded evangelistic efforts after Pentecost were to unusually large gatherings that yielded bountiful results, 3,000 and 5,000 souls, respectively (Acts 2:14–41; 3:12—4:4). The disciples purposely sought a crowd that they might proclaim the cross of Christ more efficiently (5:42).
The early preachers designed their homilies not just to instruct believers but also to convert unbelievers. Preachers today are sadly deficient in addressing publicly the needs of the unconverted. The pastor must seek training in the public presentation of the gospel to the lost and then make liberal use of such training in the numerous opportunities to preach evangelistically.
Mass evangelism is not just for the mass evangelist. Every preacher of the Word must be ready to use public proclamation to do the work of an evangelist (2 Tim. 4:5). In every public forum exists a splendid opportunity to do public evangelism. Every generation has a certain group of unconverted people who frequent the halls of churches and will remain dead unless the preacher quickens them with the gospel. Dare to preach the gospel in church services for the sake of those who may need it.
Planting Churches
As soon as the early disciples reached out to their Jerusalem, Judea, and Samaria, they set about the task of reaching the remotest parts of the earth and evangelizing all the nations. These converts who lived great distances away were obviously not going to belong to the church in Jerusalem. The only logical step was to plant churches in every city where they lived alongside lost men and women. Church planting was not a special pet project or an experimental endeavor; it was in direct fulfillment of the Great Commission. The apostles and disciples literally scattered themselves throughout the then-known world, evangelizing and planting churches in their wake.
The church today fails to see the correlation between evangelism and church planting, but any casual reading of the New Testament will quickly reverse this failure. Church planting is evangelism. Though not in agreement with all the theological premises of Wagner, we do concur with this statement of his: “The single most effective evangelistic methodology under heaven is planting new churches. . . . Not to make an explicit connection between evangelism and the local church is a strategic blunder.”5 Church planting is evangelism. If we care about evangelizing communities, cities, and nations, we will be aggressively planting new churches. A church planting expert stated, “The idea is that planted churches reproduce themselves and make disciples by planting other churches. This is a process that will continue until the Savior returns. In fact, this is the true meaning behind the Great Commission.”6 Hence, Great Commission churches are church-planting churches. How many has your church helped to plant?
MOTIVATIONS OF OUTREACHING
The vast majority of Christians in our churches do not evangelize, and during the course of their lives will not lead one soul to the Master. Some do not evangelize because they are ignorant of the mechanics and substance of evangelism. Most, however, do not evangelize because they lack the adequate motivation to reach out to the lost. The following motivations, first for the pastor and then for his people in general, should provoke Christians to be about the sacred and urgent task of bringing the gospel to the lost.
Motivations for the Pastor
Indeed all the motivations that follow apply readily to all believers, who should make every effort to place themselves on the highest plane in obedience to Christ. However, the need to motivate the shepherd is crucial because he can serve as a catalyst to prompt his people into a life of witnessing for the Savior. Pastor, consider the following particular motivations for being actively engaged in evangelism.
Obedience to Christ. As undershepherds, pastors are under appointment from the Chief Shepherd, and it is their duty to evangelize the lost. They are not only responsible to feed the flock, they are to add to the flock by doing the work of an evangelist as well. The apostle Paul’s great motive for preaching the gospel to the lost was his duty of fulfilling the stewardship given to him by Christ (1 Cor. 9:16–17). Green, in his masterful book Evangelism in the Early Church, stated that from the beginning obedience to Christ was a major motivational factor for fulfilling the Great Commission. Early Christians felt it was “their responsibility before God to live lives consistent with their profession. . . . The note of personal responsibility and accountability before God, the sovereign Judge, was a prominent spur to evangelism in the early church.”7 Evangelism for the pastor is not a gift, nor is it an option. It is a command; one he should be careful to obey!
Love of Christ. Paul set down the love of Christ as a motive for his ministry when he stated, “For the love of Christ controls us” (2 Cor. 5:14). In the verses following, Paul gave several reasons for his persevering ministry of evangelizing. Christ loves us, and He loves the world for which He died and thus wants the world redeemed and reconciled to Himself. For that reason, Christ’s ministers serve as ministers of reconciliation (2 Cor. 5:18–21). Of the early Christians it has been said,
These men did not spread their message because it was advisable for them to do so, nor because it was the socially responsible thing to do. They did not do it primarily for humanitarian or agathistic utilitarian reasons. They did it because of the overwhelming experience of the love of God which they had received through Jesus Christ. The discovery that the ultimate force in the universe was love, and that this love had stooped to the very nadir of self-abasement for human good, had an effect on those who believed it which nothing could remove.8
Love for Christ will motivate us to reach out to people, just as it motivated the early church. If we dearly love Christ and if we know anything of the love of Christ, we will be about the supreme task of sharing the love of Christ with others. How can we—how dare we do less?
Love for mankind. A genuine love for lost sinners also prompts evangelism. Enlightened souls with uplifted veils, who have experienced regeneration, escaped eternal torment, and received the pledge of the Holy Spirit, will naturally consider the dreadful plight of their fellow citizens. Compassion for the lost will move the hearts of Christians to reach out with the same remedy that quickened their own souls. The great apostle loved his own countrymen with affection so profound that it stoked the fires of his soul to agonize for their salvation. Paul twice testified of his great love in his epistle to the Romans: “I have great sorrow and unceasing grief in my heart. For I could wish that I myself were accursed, separated from Christ for the sake of my brethren, my kinsmen according to the flesh” (9:2–3). “Brethren, my heart’s desire and my prayer to God for them is for their salvation” (10:1). What love! What zeal!
Outreaching has roots in love for sinners. Love prompted God (John 3:16), love prompted Christ (Luke 19:10), and love prompted the early church. Green wrote about the zeal of the early church for the lost:
But these early Christians believed implicitly that Jesus was the only hope for the world, the only way to God for the human race. Now if you believe that outside of Christ there is no hope, it is impossible to possess an atom of human love and kindness without being gripped with a great desire to bring men to this one way of salvation. We are not surprised, therefore, to find that concern for the state of the unevangelized was one of the great driving forces behind Christian preaching of the gospel in the early church.9
It is a great contradiction to be called a child of God, even worse a Christian minister, without having love for lost souls. Packer said, “The wish to win the lost for Christ, should be . . . the natural, spontaneous outflow of love in the heart of everyone who has been born again. . . . May I stress again: if we ourselves have known anything of the love of Christ for us, and if our hearts have felt any measure of gratitude for the grace that has saved us from death and hell, then this attitude of compassion and care for our spiritually needy fellowmen ought to come naturally and spontaneously to us.”10
In such a book as this, it is expedient to ignite the fire for evangelism in those who ought to be the vanguard of the church in rescuing souls from the hellfire. Are we ministers with love for the lost? Are we burdened and grieving for our fellowmen? The following paragraph should stir up the minister to outreaching:
A compassionate leadership in the Christian movements of the world is now our greatest need. Every niche of this lost world needs the ministry of a fired soul, burning and shining, blood-hot with the zeal and conviction of a conquering Gospel. Spiritual dry rot is worse than the plague of Egypt, the simooms of a thousand Saharas, to the churches of Jesus Christ throughout the world. Many a minister is in a treadmill, marking time, drying up, living a professional life, without power, not earning his salt because he has no passion for God or souls and no power for effective service. May our God kindle holy fires of evangelism in all our churches and pulpits where such are needed.11
Motivations for the People
Next to motivating the pastor for outreaching, the second greatest need is to motivate rank-and-file Christians to be about this vital work of soul winning. The average Christian needs to be on fire with a white-hot zeal for lost souls. “How enormous and wonderful and glorious would be the result,” wrote Torrey, “if all Christians should begin to be active personal workers to the extent of their ability!”12 In fact, the greatest moments of outreaching in church history have come through efforts by the masses of average believers. Church historian Latourette stated, “The chief agents in the expansion of Christianity appear not to have been those who made it a profession or made it a major part of their occupation, but men and women who carried on their livelihood in some purely secular manner and spoke of their faith to those they met in this natural fashion.”13 Church leaders need to mobilize, motivate, equip, and unleash their churches on the pagan communities where they stand. Evangelism never was nor can it be the work of only the professional, the pastor, or a select few. It is the prerogative and privilege of the masses in our churches. They need equipping and motivation to do the job, though.
Some believers do not evangelize because they have never received instruction in how to evangelize. Others do not evangelize because they have never seen the need to evangelize. Still others do not carry on an active part in evangelism because they do not have new opportunities to share their faith. Every pastor should urge evangelistic activity upon his parishioners, train them for it, and see that they do it.14 What can the pastor do to motivate his people? Consider five suggestions for accomplishing this.
1. The pastor motivates by his example. The Lord said to His disciples, “Follow Me, and I will make you fishers of men” (Matt. 4:19). Jesus did the work of evangelism, and at the same time gave His disciples a demonstration in how to evangelize and a motivation for why to do it. Coleman asserted about the Lord’s habits, “Through this manner of personal demonstration, every aspect of Jesus’ personal discipline of life was bequeathed to His disciples, but what perhaps was most important in view of His ultimate purpose was that all the while He was teaching them how to win souls.”15
If a pastor wins souls, he will in so doing encourage his people to win souls by his example. Spurgeon wrote in his classic The Soul Winner, “We must always set an earnest example ourselves. A slow-coach minister will not have a lively zealous church, I am sure. A man who is indifferent, or who does his work as if he took it as easily as he could, ought not to expect to have a people around him who are in earnest about the salvation of souls.”16 Are we about the business of soul winning? Are we frustrated because our people are slack and apathetic in reaching out to others? Perhaps we need to stoke the embers by getting down to doing it ourselves. Then our people will follow suit.
2. The pastor motivates by his expectations. Most behavior is learned behavior. Hence, in evangelism people will eventually do what is expected of them. Evangelism is not prominent in the New Testament epistles. It is as if God expects His people to evangelize without constant reminders. We need to pick up on that expectation and communicate such an attitude to the congregation. Excessive references to all the obstacles in evangelizing and a continual haranguing on the difficulties of the task will only extinguish the flames of the most ardent soul winners; neither will it serve any purpose in motivating the most timid.
3. The pastor motivates by his exhortations. The pastor as the chief speaker is also the best motivator, and he ought to make use of his charisma in the pulpit to excite the people into soul winning. Sermons on personal evangelism ought to pepper the yearly preaching schedule. A series of sermons on evangelism does wonders in motivating hearts toward compassionate soul winning. The preacher ought not fear infringing on the sovereignty of God or laying a guilt trip on his people. If they do not care enough about others to tell them of the saving grace of Christ, they need to feel guilty because, in fact, they are guilty of disobedience to the Great Commission. As pastors and preachers, we need such exhortations to soul winning; how much more average Christians whose hearts are dulled by daily contact with a sinful world. Let us keep them focused with gentle but solemn reminders of the perils of unbelief and the transforming power of the gospel.
4. The pastor motivates with the excitement of new converts. The best way to prime the pump of evangelism is by means of new believers being added to the church. Just as a newborn baby adds excitement to a home, so does a new convert to a local church. The testimony of a changed life, the visible demonstration of the power of the gospel, the innocence and sincerity of a new Christian, all these can create a renewed vigor for lost souls. Often it is the new Christian himself or herself who leads the charge into a lost world. New believers bring new faces into the church by introducing old believers to friends and family who need the Savior. The pastor needs to use this zeal and excitement wisely to promote a renewal in evangelism.
5. The pastor motivates by promoting special evangelistic efforts. Even in the finest of circumstances, churches can reach a point where the number of lost people accessible to the church dwindles dramatically. Special efforts are necessary to provide Christians with new opportunities to share their faith. These can be in the form of evangelistic rallies held in the church or sites conducive to evangelism, citywide crusades, evangelistic home Bible studies, literature distribution campaigns, short-term missionary trips, evangelistic sport programs, and the like. The point here is that these events do not just happen. They need planning and promotion, and usually that begins with the pastor or the church leaders. Here is an excellent and exciting way to get a large portion of the church involved in evangelism, but the key again is the pastor. These events need his support and aggressive endorsement.
Undoubtedly, the evangelistic zeal of the church relates directly to the evangelistic fervor of the church’s leadership. Our Lord was evangelistic. The first apostles were evangelistic. The first associates of the apostles were evangelistic (Acts 6:8; 8:5). The first missionaries were evangelistic. We can assume that all the leaders of the early church had a heart for souls. Should not the church’s leaders have the same today? Should not they be the chief promoters of evangelism in the assembly of the saints?
METHODS FOR OUTREACHING
Each generation of Christians must find ways to reach the lost in its own generation. With the bulk of the world’s people still unconverted after two thousand years of church history, the conclusion is inevitable that evangelizing the world is a formidable task. Along with motivation and energizing for evangelism must come a strategy by which to reach the world for Christ.
The subject of methodology can provoke debate among leadership, and sometimes it is possible to spend more energy and time in arguing over the merits or demerits of a specific method than in doing actual evangelism. Sometimes these debates may very well be a satanic smoke screen to keep believers from the main task. Christians need to keep in mind the following observations by Coleman in his masterpiece on evangelism:
Objective and relevance—these are the crucial issues of our work. Both are interrelated, and the measure by which they are made compatible will largely determine the significance of all our activity. Merely because we are busy, or even skilled, doing something does not necessarily mean that we are getting anything accomplished. The question must always be asked: Is it worth doing? And does it get the job done?
This is a question that should be posed continually in relation to the evangelistic activity of the church. Are our efforts to keep things going fulfilling the Great Commission of Christ? Do we see an ever-expanding company of dedicated people reaching the world with the Gospel as a result of our ministry? That we are busy in the church trying to work one program of evangelism after another cannot be denied. But are we accomplishing our objective?17
This is a sobering question and must serve to sift the thinking and plans in regard to the formulation of an evangelistic methodology. The danger of suggesting particular methods for evangelism is that methods become dated with use, and the methods do not apply to every situation. Methods also have a tendency to accumulate cultural baggage that makes them unsuitable for other cultures or settings.
Another issue deserving attention is the possibility of methodology distorting the purity of the message, the prominence of the gospel, and the power of the gospel to save apart from the human methods used. The nature of methods, especially if they are effective in producing visible results, gives them a tendency to appear to supplement the power of God. This has happened throughout history, from the days of ancient relics to contemporary Christian rock concerts. The keen insight of Packer helps in the formulation of methods for evangelism. He said,
So, in the last analysis, there is only one method of evangelism: namely, the faithful explanation and application of the Gospel message. From which it follows—and this is the key principle which we are seeking—that the test for any proposed strategy, or technique, or style of evangelistic action must be this: will it in fact serve the Word? Is it calculated to be a means of explaining the Gospel truly and fully and applying it deeply and exactly? To the extent to which it is so calculated, it is lawful and right; to the extent to which it tends to overlay and obscure the realities of the message, and to blunt the edge of their application, it is ungodly and wrong.18
These words of caution must be before the church as it develops specific approaches to reaching a lost generation. Assuredly, some methods will be more effective than others; nonetheless, each must be beneath the microscope for scrutiny regarding its fidelity to the presentation of the pure and unadulterated word of the cross. In light of these words of caution, the following are suggested methods.
Local Church Evangelism
By far the most effective tool for evangelism is the local church. No other agency comes close in effectiveness for bringing the community to Christ. Actually all the other agencies for evangelism are parachurch, meaning that they come alongside and depend upon the local church for effectiveness. Local church evangelism involves the equipping and motivation of the members of local churches to reach out effectively to their communities. In other words, the local church is the primary mover in evangelism and the primary recipient of the fruits of evangelism. Local church evangelism should include the following:
Personal evangelism. The individual believer should learn to share his or her faith and to go out into the community personally to draw men and women to Christ. Churches need to provide special training programs for laypeople to prepare them for personal evangelism. The program of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Florida is an example of such a program, which effectively teaches its members the art of soul winning. By far the most effective means of evangelism is a person sharing with a friend or loved one the blessed news of the gospel. Most church growth takes place through personal evangelism and personal invitation.19 The finest effort a local church can muster, then, is to equip and mobilize its entire army to evangelize the lost.
Prospect evangelism. This is a takeoff from personal evangelism whereby a church sets about to visit and win to Christ every visitor who comes within a ministry or function of the church. Visitors to churches are usually persons with an interest or curiosity about the gospel of Christ and, therefore, will usually give the evangelist a good hearing. Local churches that do not take advantage of this opportunity are missing a highly effective means of outreach.
Evangelistic home Bible studies. Home Bible studies are another effective tool available for evangelizing through the local church. Designated homes in strategic neighborhoods are useful as vehicles to present Christ to people who otherwise would not go to church. By training a select team of teachers and hosts, a church can have a vibrant and effective witness to the community. Home Bible classes are a haven for an inquirer to have his questions answered.
Evangelism in depth. This is a program that originated in Latin America to help churches reach their communities. It is a plan for presenting the gospel to every home in a city by mapping out the city and assigning a certain section to each group. In time, every home receives the gospel. This noble undertaking is sure to tax the resources of any church, but it is worth consideration.
Inquirer services. These are a new phenomenon whereby a local church designates a worship service of the church as a service designed to reach the lost for Christ. Although the idea lends itself to some rather bizarre innovations, the inquirer service can be useful in presenting Christ to a lost generation. Again, caution is in order not to dilute the message of the gospel or not to confuse the inquirer service with a truly Christian worship service. The biblical perception of it should be as an evangelistic service held in the church on a regular basis, but at a time separate from the usual Lord’s Day worship services.20
Media Evangelism
Another group of methods that can find effective use in evangelizing the lost is the vast array of resources that are so appealing to the masses in the categories of radio, television, gospel films, and literature. Though expensive, when used strategically, these can be very effective means of reaching a segment of the population that may be unreachable by conventional methods.
Crusade Evangelism
The day of mass evangelism is not over. Though not among the most efficient in producing church growth, it is a very effective tool in promoting evangelism and in reaching a mass audience with the gospel. From citywide crusades to local rallies, these efforts at reaching large numbers at one time have their place. Let us not forget that the Jerusalem church originated as a result of mass evangelism (Acts 2). A number of gifted evangelists and revival preachers specialize in this method of evangelism, and they serve a special purpose in promoting evangelism in the Christian church.
Specialty Evangelism
In this age of specialization, the church has developed creative programs that target specific groups of lost people. The local church can capitalize upon these creative efforts by adopting and adapting these methods to reach out to select groups.