Chapter 18
Church Evangelism
My goal is to help the people of God fulfill the mission of God.1
—Pastor David Platt
Both an institution and a movement, the local church has been and will continue to be God’s primary plan of ministry until Jesus comes. She is an institution, one of three God gave us (home, church, state), and as such she can keep the people of God focused on truth and purposeful in mission. As a movement she can be the chief agent for the gospel’s spread and cultural change in a given area. The body of Christ, the people of God, the fellowship of the saints, the local church at her best provides a place of instruction, corporate worship, encouragement, and serves as light and salt in the culture. At her worst, a local church given over to institutionalism, legalism, or license, can actually be the chief enemy of the gospel in a community. We have tended to make discipleship increasingly simplistic while making church life more bureaucratic and complex. Neil Cole of Church Multiplication Associates recognizes the need to reverse this trend: “We want to lower the bar of how church is done and raise the bar of what it means to be a disciple.”2
We must teach people that the primary place of ministry for the church of the Lord Jesus Christ is outside the church building. The most evangelized, the most reached area in your community is the building in which your church meets on Sunday. There’s only one problem: this is also the place where the fewest number of lost people are likely to be.
Church growth has become a popular topic in Evangelicalism in recent years. This is not a bad thing; however, I fear that sometimes we so focus on church growth, in particular techniques and methods, that we forget that God Himself is the one who grows the church. We will not succeed in reaching unbelievers if we fail to BE the church God intended us to be. The church is more than an outreach center, yet if the church seeks not to reach people, she can hardly be called a church.
This chapter will focus specifically on evangelistic growth—true church growth in the biblical sense. The church in Jerusalem added 3,000 people in one day at Pentecost; then converts were added daily. Soon the number of men stood above 5,000; then priests came to the faith, and eventually the numbers were so great that Luke couldn’t report them.
Some people complain about an emphasis on numerical growth in the church. I like to remind them that one book of the Bible is called Numbers! Seriously, one can be too zealous for numbers, but those who criticize an emphasis on numbers usually do so because their numbers are few. I agree that one cannot measure church growth by numbers alone. Let’s assume that a church in a rapidly growing area is growing at the same rate as a church in a declining population area. Is it as effective as the second church? What about retaining members? Is a growing church effective if it baptizes 100 people annually but grows in attendance by only a dozen per year?
The Western Church in the 21st Century
Each semester I ask my students a very telling question. First, I ask them to raise their hand if they were actively involved in a local church through their childhood. Almost 90 percent indicate they were. Then, I ask how many want to go back to serve a church just like the one in which they were raised. Out of over a thousand students surveyed in recent years, only three raised their hand. What do I make of that? These students overwhelmingly wish to serve God in churches of their tradition, but they realize something is not right about the DNA in most churches they know. They recognize that if we are to become effective once again in reaching our communities, things must change.
What Is A Church?
Evangelism is essential to the church because the church will cease to exist without evangelism. Further, God’s plan to reach the world is through local congregations. The New Testament word for “church” is ekklesia. In the Greek world, it usually described an assembly of people. This word occurs 115 times in the New Testament. It refers to a local congregation 95 times; the other references are to the general church.
The church is a congregation of baptized believers who join together to honor God and to fulfill his mission in the world. In a larger sense, the church includes all believers of all time. Implications for the doctrine of ecclesiology on evangelism are many. Some emphases today hinder evangelism because they grow out of a faulty view of the church.
God’s Plan to Reach the World
First, some people have forgotten that the local church is God’s plan to reach the world. I have a great love for parachurch organizations. I led the first person to Christ in my own personal evangelism through the Four Spiritual Laws booklet produced by Campus Crusade for Christ. I was discipled in college with materials produced by the Navigators. I have participated in rallies with such organizations as Young Life and Promise Keepers. Such groups have played a wonderful and significant role in the furtherance of the gospel. But the base for reaching the world, according to the New Testament, is the local church.
The apostle Paul planted churches wherever he went. His letters are to churches or leaders of churches to give guidance to those leading local churches. Mark Driscoll noted how three areas must be balanced to be an effective church, and what happens when a balance is not there:3 1. Church + Culture – Gospel = Liberalism. These are churches that have forgotten the unchanging gospel, focusing on today, leading to compromise.
2. Church + Gospel – Culture = Fundamentalism. These are churches that isolate themselves from culture. The unintended consequence of their desire to protect the gospel is that they separate themselves from the very people they are called to reach.
3. Gospel + Culture - Church = Parachurch. Some today love lost people and love the gospel but have given up on the church. Some even go so far as to argue the church is no longer needed. Such a naïve and unbiblical view must be rejected. The local church has been and will continue to be God’s chosen way to grow believers and reach the unchurched. Parachurch ministries exist because local churches have failed to be what God called them to be.
Second, some people see the church as irrelevant. Many today are down on the church, and it is true that some churches are irrelevant. I have seen some whose favorite hymns must be “I Shall Not Be Moved” because they won’t do anything for God! But the church is God’s idea, and we dare not run ahead of Him! When a local church is the church as God intended—not perfect, but functioning as the body of Christ—nothing is more powerful for reaching a community for Christ. Even as I am finishing this chapter, I am on a plane returning from a strong, vibrant, evangelistic church. There is nothing on earth that can substitute for it! What an awesome tool it is in the hand of God!
Jesus is the head of the church. The pastor is not; the deacons are not; the charter members are not. The church is the visible manifestation of the kingdom of God in this age. A person cannot love Jesus and despise His church.
Third, some people today are victims of the “edifice complex.” This is institutionalism at its worst. They see the church as a building—not people. The church is not at Fourth and Vine or on Main Street. The building is there. On Sunday morning, the church is gathered in that geographical location where the church facilities are. On Monday, the same church is scattered—on the job, at the store, at school, in the neighborhood. We must recapture this biblical ideal. It is hypocritical to sing praises to God with all our hearts on Sunday as the church gathered and say nothing about His goodness throughout the week as the church scattered. If the body of Christ acted throughout the week as we do in Sunday worship, what a difference it would make!
Fourth, some people make a sharp clergy-laity distinction that is not scriptural. Yes, God has set apart ministers to lead churches, but they are to lead the work—not do all the work. Ministers are to equip the saints to do the work of the ministry (see Eph 4:11–12). If anything, we would be more accurate to say every believer is clergy! Now, ministers are also saints, so we are to do the work also. Many ministers never share Christ with others. We must lead by example. I share my faith because I am a Christian; I preach and teach because I am a minister.
Fifth, there is sometimes an unhealthy and unbiblical emphasis on fellowship. This is particularly true in rural churches in the South where the most significant time in the church year is homecoming with dinner on the grounds! My aunt, a member of a rural Alabama Baptist church, once quipped that Baptists won’t get to heaven without a paper plate in their hands! The New Testament does speak of fellowship meals, but these meals were held around the observance of the Lord’s Supper—not in honor of Granny Smith’s banana pudding.
Fellowship, as in biblical koinonia, is crucial. But fellowship is not built on food or by avoiding conflict, as in the sentiment, “Let’s not hurt anybody’s feelings.” How do you build a great team? I grew up in Alabama, where Bear Bryant’s football coaching was legendary. Alabama’s teams never seemed to have the number of all-Americans that Notre Dame or Southern Cal did. Bryant’s genius was in convincing good players to play like all-Americans. He could build a team with a clear focus. Their focus was on winning, and they were single-minded.
Fellowship misunderstood undergirds an institutionalism that hinders the work of the gospel. Focus becomes centralized toward matters of church business over gospel witness. Joel Rainey described the conventional church’s problem with excessive institutionalism in a congregational polity:
Though I continue to have a great appreciation for the church where I grew up, I noticed that little to nothing could be substantially accomplished in this church without numerous committee meetings, motions, amendments, and secret ballots. I remember wondering how many more might be won to Christ if business was simply turned over to trusted leaders and missions became the primary concern of all of those who showed up to cast their votes.4
Do you want to build fellowship in your church? Then get a single-minded focus in the church—a focus on reaching people for Christ. The early church shared Christ in one accord at Pentecost. When they faced persecution, they united in prayer for boldness to speak the Word of God (see Acts 4:29–31).
In his unique way, Driscoll describes his introduction to a bizarre collection of “churches” as a young believer in Seattle. It struck him that all the places he visited claimed to be churches but had very different missions:
Example One (Gay Agenda “Church”)
“One church [was] particularly confusing. They promoted homosexuality but made me take off my ball cap upon entering the church. It seemed odd that a male greeter who had likely had sex with a man before church chastised me for wearing a hat in church because I was disrespecting God.”5
Example Two (Social Activist “Church”)
“Down the street, another woman pastor and her gay male associate pastor with the lovely rainbow on his eloquently sassy robe both spoke passionately about the need to get rid of our nuclear weapons. Their message did not connect with me.”6
Example Three (Prosperity Gospel Church)
“From the printed material and the sermon, it was readily apparent that this church was into the bling-Christ, who will make you rich and cure all your diseases, except for epidemics of consumerism and ’80s charismullet hair, of course. They even taught that Jesus was a rich man and that only people who lack faith get sick, presumably like the junior varsity Job and Paul.”7
Example Four (Legalistic Church)
“One fundamentalist church I visited was doing a series on Revelation, and the pastor’s face was so red that I thought he was going to blow a gasket. He yelled about the end of the world at the battle of Armageddon, which was going to happen in ten or fifteen minutes, from what I could surmise. . . . His mission seemed to be simply to get off the planet as soon as possible, which didn’t sound very incarnational to me.”8
His conclusion from visiting these and many other examples: “No matter what the tradition or theological perspective, the one common thread that wove all the churches together was that they were each on their own mission instead of on Jesus’ mission to transform people and cultures by the power of the Holy Spirit through the work of the gospel.”9 Approaches to Growing Churches
Suffice it to say that under normal circumstances a church ought to grow. Rick Warren has it right when he says the critical issue is not church growth but church health.10 A healthy, Christ-honoring church is more likely to grow than a divided or spiritually dead congregation. A brief summary of more recent attempts to help churches become effective for the gospel follows. The Church Growth Movement
We can’t discuss growing churches without considering the impact of the Church Growth Movement over the past generation. Churches have been growing since the first century. But the Church Growth Movement refers to the specific phenomenon arising out of the influence of Donald McGavran and continuing through the ministry of such men as Peter Wagner, Win Arn, Elmer Towns, and many others. It became an influential force in the evangelical world for a generation, although in recent years it has lost much steam as other movements have arisen.
Church growth began in the book of Acts, but the Church Growth Movement began in 1955 with the publication of Donald McGavran’s The Bridges of God.11 This movement began overseas and was imported to the United States. McGavran (1897–1991) is the founder of the movement. His parents and grandparents were missionaries. He was ordained by the Disciples of Christ in 1923 and received his PhD from Columbia University in 1936. He served as a missionary in India. McGavran asked, “Why do some churches grow while others don’t?” His book was published to address this and other important questions. C. Peter Wagner (b. 1930) served as a foreign missionary in Bolivia, South America, for 16 years. In 1971 he began teaching at Fuller Seminary. He has written numerous books and articles: Church Growth and the Whole Gospel, Leading Your Church to Growth, and others.12
Other leaders of church growth and church growth advocates include Ralph Winter, Arthur Glasser, Charles Kraft, Win Arn, John Wimber, Kert Hunter, George Hunter, Elmer Towns, John Vaughn, Rick Warren, C. Kirk Hadaway, Thom Rainer, and Gary McIntosh.
Thom Rainer has become increasingly significant as a leader, particularly among Southern Baptists, but among evangelicals as well. Rainer has been particularly influential in balancing all the interest in innovative approaches with more conventional churches that also grow churches. Further, Rainer has reminded church growth leaders that we should measure growth by evangelistic impact above anything else.
The Church Growth Movement has offered many helpful contributions to evangelistic church growth. For example, this movement has noted there are different levels of evangelism.
Wagner summarized the Church Growth Movement in six presuppositions:13 1. Nongrowth displeases God.
2. Numerical growth of a church is a priority with God and focuses on new disciples rather than decisions.
3. Disciples are tangible, identifiable, countable people who increase the church numerically.
4. Limited time, money, and resources demand that the church develop a strategy based on results.
5. Social and behavioral sciences are valuable tools in measuring and encouraging church growth.
6. Research is essential for maximum growth.
The findings of the Church Growth Movement have been helpful in assisting churches to grow. Some of the findings or emphases have proven controversial. For example, its emphasis on pragmatism (emphasizing results to an extreme) may lead to lack of attention to biblical truth.
Few aspects of the Church Growth Movement provoke more controversy than the homogeneous unit principle. The principle states that people typically come to Christ “without crossing racial, linguistic, or class barriers.”14 Wagner says, “The rationale upon which a homogenous unit is determined is a group which can ‘feel at home.’”15
The problem with the homogeneous unit principle is in its application. Used as a description, it can be helpful. We will reach people who are most like us. One need not be a rocket scientist to see this. But this is far different from being prescriptive, or saying we should only reach people like us.
Models for Evangelistic Church Growth
One of the significant shifts in church growth at the dawn of a new century is the movement from specialists who analyze trends as the leaders of church growth to effective pastors who model such growth. This is true in denominational leadership as well. The old paradigm emphasized the development of new tools, methods, and strategies coming from denominational leaders and think tanks. In the future, effective tools and strategies for church growth will be birthed on the field. Denominational leaders will shift to the position of discovering and announcing proven methods in churches rather than discovering or creating them. Growing churches, not professors or specialists, will set the pace for effective church growth.
Purpose-Driven Church
An example of a model church approach is the Purpose-Driven Church model of Rick Warren, lived out in the Saddleback Community Church in southern California. Saddleback represents Christianity as a movement in a specific location. Warren’s strategy focuses on moving from secondary issues, such as programs, finances, buildings, events, or seekers, to the primary issue: a biblical, purpose-driven focus. “Absolutely nothing will revitalize a discouraged church faster than rediscovering its purpose,”16 he contends. He cites a familiar survey in which church members were asked, “Why does the church exist?” Some 89 percent responded: “The church’s purpose is to take care of my needs and my family’s needs.” Only 11 percent said winning the world to Christ is the church’s purpose. Ninety percent of pastors who were asked the same question said the church exists to win the world to Christ, and 10 percent said it exists to care for members.17
The slogan for Saddleback comes directly from the New Testament: “A Great Commitment to the Great Commandment [Matt 22:37–39] as the Great Commission [Matt 28:19–20] will grow a Great Church.”18 Five key words are used to summarize the five purposes of the church in the Purpose-Driven Church model: 1. Worship. “Love the Lord your God with all your heart” (magnification).
2. Ministry. “Love your neighbor as yourself ” (ministry).
3. Evangelism. “Go and make disciples” (mission).
4. Fellowship. “Baptize them” (membership).
5. Discipleship. “Teach them to obey” (maturity).
Warren also describes the fivefold purpose of the church with the words edify, encourage, exalt, equip, and evangelize. Certain principles are timeless and unchanging! Saddleback is not a church with a nice purpose statement that is never displayed in the life of the church. The entire organizational structure is built around the five purposes.
The goal of the church, using the analogy of a baseball diamond diagram, is not to get them on first base but to get them around the bases into active ministry and evangelism. Warren argues that everything in the church should be done on purpose: assimilating new members, programming, education, small groups, staffing, structuring, preaching, budgeting, calendaring, and evaluating progress. Some have criticized Warren’s approach for its simplicity and its focus on seekers. Others have foolishly tried to clone his model in other settings with poor results. Effective leaders know how to learn from other leaders like Warren and to adapt. When I eat a watermelon, I know how to chew up the fruit and spit out the seeds.
Other examples could be given of pastors of large churches who have set forth principles for growth and who host conferences on effectiveness, including Bill Hybels at Willow Creek in Chicago, Ed Young of Fellowship Church near Dallas, Andy Stanley of Northpointe Church in Atlanta, all of which are young churches led by their founding pastors. Established churches such as First Baptist, Woodstock, Georgia, and First Baptist, Jacksonville, Florida, also merit study for their growth.
Emerging Church
More recently the “emerging” or “emergent” church movement has given much attention to effective ministry in a postmodern culture. Because this movement is still “emerging” it is hard to consider in a brief amount of space. However, at least two clear groups have evolved since its beginning. The “emergent” side has tended to be less likely to uphold the unchanging truth as has the conventional church. It has also been excessively critical of the modern church. Brian McLaren and Doug Pagitt would be recognized leaders in the “emergent” side of the movement.
The “emerging” side of the movement includes those who compare more theologically with evangelicals, preach the gospel, and have been effective in reaching very unchurched people. Many would be more open on social issues such as alcohol while affirming traditionally conservative views such as complementarianism regarding gender roles. An example of the latter would be Mark Driscoll and the Mars Hill Church in Seattle. More detailed taxonomies of this new movement include Scott McKnight’s five “streams” and Ed Stetzer’s three broad categories: relevants, reconstructionists, and revisionists.19
Stetzer’s simple taxonomy of the emerging church movement evaluates its approach to contextualization.20 He cites three groups:
Relevants. “There are a good number of young (and not so young) leaders who some classify as ‘emerging’ that really are just trying to make their worship, music and outreach more contextual to emerging culture. Ironically, while some may consider them liberal, they are often deeply committed to biblical preaching, male pastoral leadership and other values common in conservative evangelical churches. They are simply trying to explain the message of Christ in a way their generation can understand.”
Reconstructionists. “The reconstructionists think that the current form of church is frequently irrelevant and the structure is unhelpful. Yet, they typically hold to a more orthodox view of the gospel and Scripture. Therefore, we see an increase in models of church that reject certain organizational models, embracing what are often called ‘incarnational’ or ‘house’ models. They are responding to the fact that after decades of trying fresh ideas in innovative churches, North America is less churched, and those who are churched are less committed.”
Revisionists. “Revisionists are questioning (and in some cases denying) issues like the nature of the substitutionary atonement, the reality of hell, the complementarian nature of gender, and the nature of the gospel itself. This is not new—some mainline theologians quietly abandoned these doctrines a generation ago. The revisionist emerging church leaders should be treated, appreciated and read as we read mainline theologians—they often have good descriptions, but their prescriptions fail to take into account the full teaching of the Word of God.”
Suffice it to say that the emerging/emergent movement even in its varying forms has already become a significant force in the Western church and brings with it the need both to affirm the contributions it brings and jettison the error it encourages. One would be unwise to generalize this movement as a newer form of liberalism on the one hand, although some adherents would fit that characterization, or the only way to be effective in our time on the other.
Revitalizing a Stagnant Church
Because church life in the West has been recognized as being in trouble particularly in terms of evangelistic effectiveness, one of the greatest needs for our time is for leaders to move churches toward effectiveness from stagnation. A recent study of over 300 churches from a variety of denominations that had moved from decline to revitalization offers encouraging help for church leaders who long to see their churches grow again. These churches declined for at least five years followed by two to five years of evangelistic growth. Published as a book entitled Comeback Churches by Ed Stetzer and Mike Dodson, the findings can encourage any leader that hope exists for any church. I would add, however, that two indispensable ingredients exist for any stagnant church to begin growing: you must want to grow (most say they do), and you must be willing to pay the price to grow (sadly, many do not). In Comeback Churches Stetzer and Dodson discovered 10 areas of change that most affected the churches to become effective again:21 1. Prayer
2. Children’s Ministry
3. Evangelism
4. Youth ministry
5. Leadership
6. Missions
7. Assimilation
8. Worship
9. Sunday school/small groups
10. Organizational structure
Look at the list carefully. Most of these you would expect, although at this point I would remind you that we often need ruthless attention to familiar truth. It is one thing to say “of course a church should pray” and another to become a praying church. As a young pastor I watched a church move from a decade of decline to remarkable growth and would agree that deep, earnest, consistent prayer was most vital. And, the vast majority noted that a shift in worship style to celebrative and more contemporary helped. But look closer. Two factors that most leaders I meet completely overlook are children and youth. It is no surprise that I have a chapter in this book dedicated to each of these. Yet this is so often overlooked. I would submit that a healthy and biblical focus on reaching children and their families and youth holds the key to renewed growth in most churches.
Beyond these essentials for helping a church toward revitalization, a few other practical features can help.
Know Your Church Field
To help your church become more effective in its witness will take nothing less than a movement of the Holy Spirit bathed in prayer. But it will also take some common sense. We are to be spiritual and shrewd. I have met earnest, passionate ministers who simply could not translate their zeal into effective ministry. Knowing your church field and the people who live there can help you to lead your church effectively. Discover all you can about your area. In our day, finding this information on the Internet is quite easy.
You should be aware of basic demographic information: population, economic status, social characteristics (how many singles? How many families with youth?). Psychographic research can show you the basic attitudes and lifestyles of residents. Ethnographic studies help you know the ethnic makeup of your community. These and others can help. Of course there is no substitute for you living among the people you seek to reach and personal observation. We are often better at complaining about lost people than at getting to know them to share the gospel. The Internet offers tools and Web sites to help churches become more aware of the community around them.
Change the Culture
If most churches are not growing, how do we get them to grow again? Books have been written on this subject. Suffice it to say that the most critical element is the presence of God in the midst of a renewing church. Jesus said, “I will build My church” (Matt 16:18). Stagnant churches must redirect their purpose. Critical to this is leadership, which is addressed in another chapter. Here are a couple of ways to help revitalize a church. One has to do with getting your people away from the church field to another place immersed in missionary work. The other has to do with getting people out of the church building into small groups in your church field.
Note that for a church to change it will take a change not in programs or other cosmetic work; it will take a change in culture, in the DNA of the church. That takes time. A local church is not a jet ski; it is an aircraft carrier! The wise pastor will take much time and give much space to lead a church to move from a monument to a missional movement. The reason I wrote this book is to help churches with this very process. He will also tie as much of the future to the best of the church’s past. Change should come without unnecessarily alienating people. However, there will be hills on which to die, and the pastor must have the conviction to stand boldly and lovingly when necessary. My colleague George Robinson is the most effective person I know at leading effective short-term mission trips to “strike the match” of evangelistic passion.
Utilize Short-Term Mission Trips
Small Groups
Small groups provide the intimacy people need to connect and to grow. From traditional Sunday school to the growth recently of small groups in homes, small groups can be a vehicle to help move a church to a missions focus. Small groups can be an entry point for the unchurched who may not be comfortable walking into our worship services. They provide a means for missional believers to engage with lost friends in a more personal manner.
Sunday School
In the conventional church the Sunday school has been central to small group discipleship. It can continue to be an effective part of both discipleship and evangelism. I believe in the Sunday school. I thank God that when I was in seminary, I learned about Sunday school principles and the Growth Spiral.22 I learned about the importance of Sunday school enrollment, tracking enrollment, and starting new classes. One of the stats I heard was that if you start a new Sunday school class and focus on outreach, within a year it will enroll an average of 26 new people. When I tracked that in two churches as a pastor and as a minister of education, we averaged exactly 26 people for every adult class we started! These two churches, both of which grew dramatically, one doubling in a year, grew organizationally through the Sunday school.
We took the Growth Spiral concept, which focuses on such issues as Sunday school enrollment, outreach, and new units, and adapted it to our church by scaling it down and simplifying it. Our people had no clue about Sunday school enrollment. They thought that if you didn’t attend three weeks in a row, you ought to be dropped from the roll. It was a major struggle to get them to see you should keep people on the roll!
Sunday school is about reaching people as well as teaching. In the churches where I have served, we had to reorient our people to the true purpose of Sunday school. Most people think that Sunday school exists to teach the Bible. When the Sunday school movement began in Southern Baptist life, the Sunday school had a threefold purpose: (1) to teach the Bible, (2) to reach people with the gospel, and (3) to minister to the body of Christ. We had worker meetings, and we elevated evangelism through the Sunday school. We even drew up a covenant and had our Sunday school teachers sign it. It included a commitment to make weekly contacts and to set the pace for others. The teachers did not have to come to visitation every week, but they committed themselves to make contacts. In the past, as many as 80 percent of converts came through the Sunday school. This is changing because the front door, the worship service, is becoming a more significant factor in reaching unreached people.23
How do we get Sunday school teachers involved in outreach? Weekly worker meetings are essential. The next step is to secure a layperson who is teachable to be Sunday school director. A teachable spirit is absolutely critical. I enlisted a director like this and took him and two or three other leaders to a Sunday school conference. They got such a vision for Sunday school outreach that I had to calm them down a bit! I didn’t want them to run ahead too fast because they would get beat up by the other laypeople. Gradually, over a year’s time, we began to implement some of those changes. If your Sunday school is not evangelistic, it may take a year or two to change it. Find those teachers who are open to outreach and work with them. Encourage everybody. As you change, love everyone, but move with the movers.
You must also close the back door in Sunday school. Having observed numerous churches with strong Sunday schools, I’m convinced this is crucial. We had excellent retention of new Christians in the last churches I served, and it was because we were a Sunday school-based church.
Off-Campus Small Groups
Thom Rainer discovered the important role of small groups in reaching the unchurched, as many church leaders described small groups as “indispensible in reaching the unchurched.”24 Small groups can be formed around common interests to build a bridge to share Christ. These “affinity groups” can help to attract those with a common interest and develop community among the members, whether believers or not. In his excellent resource Seeker Small Groups, author Gary Poole encourages the concept of the “open chair” in groups, or the idea that there is always a seat to be filled. Poole argues that filling the open chair is one of the most effective ways to keep a small group focused outward toward those who need Christ.25
Small groups are effective for several reasons, including: (1) they can be used by any sized church and require few resources; (2) they can work alongside existing Sunday school structure to further evangelism; (3) the most evangelistic small groups keep the Bible at the forefront of their focus; (4) small groups meeting in homes are more effective in reaching the lost than groups meeting on the church campus.26 The Key to Evangelistic Effectiveness: Contextualization
We have the greatest message, the most wonderful news in history. Yet we often fail to communicate the news in a way that those outside our church walls can understand. Duane Elmer illustrates the need to contextualize the gospel in a given culture with a story:
A typhoon had temporarily stranded a monkey on an island. In a secure, protected place, while waiting for the raging waters to recede, he spotted a fish swimming against the current. It seemed obvious to the monkey that the fish was struggling and in need of assistance. Being of kind heart, the monkey resolved to help the fish. A tree precariously dangled over the very spot where the fish seemed to be struggling. At considerable risk to himself, the monkey moved far out on a limb, reached down and snatched the fish from the threatening waters. Immediately scurrying back to the safety of his shelter, he carefully laid the fish on the ground. For a few moments the fish showed excitement, but soon settled into a peaceful rest. Joy and satisfaction swelled inside the monkey. He had successfully helped another creature.27
We must have a passion for the lost and a concern for their souls. But we also need a little sense about how to go about our task. Missionaries in foreign lands have long understood the need to contextualize the gospel in a given culture. Now, the church in the West must do so more than ever at a time when even many believers want to distance themselves from the perspective so many have of Christianity. I have found it interesting to scan the Facebook profiles of many of my younger Christian friends at the line for “Religious Views.” My younger friends who are overwhelmingly believers rarely put “Christian” or “Baptist;” they are far more likely to put things like “God hates religion,” “I have a relationship not a religion,” or “religion is for people who do not have a cause.” These young believers instinctively want to distance themselves among their friends from anything that smacks of “organized religion.”
Many churches are not wired to contextualize the gospel. I heard Steve Sjogren, pastor and missional thinker, give a summary of how the church today relates to culture. I think his tripartite view helps us to analyze where churches are today.28 First, some churches evade the culture. The Bible certainly exhorts believers to be separate from the world (1 Pet 2:9–10). Some more liberal churches illustrate what happens when biblical separation is ignored, leading to a denial of truth in the name of relevance. Whether it is homosexuality or other issues, their desire to engage culture leads to an attempt to remove “outdated” biblical customs, but too often this moves beyond customs to theology. The result is a church that looks just like the world but has lost any power to change it. More conservative churches should look in the mirror as well, for our emphasis on consumerism, prosperity, and the “abundant Christian life” is too often a cover for buying into the world’s system of materialism and self-gratification. This can lead churches that claim to believe the Word to ignore biblical ideals of sacrifice and the cost of discipleship.
Separation from worldliness does not contradict our Lord’s command to impact culture with the gospel. Some churches just don’t want to have anything to do with the world, including people for whom Jesus died. Churches that seek to evade the culture basically do it out of one or two reasons; some evade the culture out of fear—fear that worldliness will creep into the church, fear our children will not grow up following Christ, and so on. The circle-the-wagons form of the faith rarely leads to effective ministry.
The other group who seek to evade the world quite honestly just don’t care about the world. They tend to focus on “important” issues such as whether people should clap or not in church or whether guitars violate Scripture, or whether the carpet should be green or brown. Such believers have confused preferences with biblical convictions and become derailed on the way to obeying God. And many of the parents of that ilk are sacrificing the future of their children on the altar of their preferences. We should remain unstained from the world; however, we must not be removed from the people for whom Christ died.
Other churches seek to pervade the world, or to use their strength in numbers and influence to change culture. These are folks who seek to overpower the culture by might, be it political, social, or economic. They draw the line between the good guys and the bad guys; the problem is their line is between the church and the unchurched, not between the Lord and the forces of principalities and powers in high places. Lost people are not our enemy; they are captive to the enemy. Churches with this view resemble political rallies more than the body of Christ. Incidentally, these churches can be on the far left, typically being liberal Democrats, or to the right, typically Republican. This group overemphasizes the role of political involvement over the gospel. This is not to criticize those who are involved in politics; for we have a biblical responsibility to be involved in civil affairs; it is a plea that churches and groups maintain a focus on the gospel and the need to give priority to the power of the gospel over political persuasion. Remember that most believers in history have been in the minority with little power in their culture. These are not neutral churches—these churches hinder the work of God. Sometimes we think just because someone or a group is unfamiliar to us, they must be wrong.
The biblical church invades the world. Certainly the other two have some merit. We should separate ourselves from sin, and we should use our influence in the political realm. A biblical Christian is distinct from society and yet is a good citizen in it. We are, as Augustine put it, to be a city within the city. Our distinctiveness should be less about our clothing or outward matters, and more a distinction in our character and our love. Jesus invaded the world through His incarnation! Such a church will be in the culture among the people making an impact for the gospel. It is the church that emulates the life of Jesus, who left His home in glory to come and live among us to give us the opportunity to be a part of His kingdom. We invade the culture not to become like it, but so that more and more will become worshippers of the Most High God.
Let us remember the penetrating words of George McLeod (see sidebar).
We do run the risk of error on two sides of the pendulum when we seek to contextualize. Newbigin recognized this: “Everyone with the experience of cross-cultural missions knows that there are always two opposite dangers, the Scylla and Charybdis, between which one must steer. On the one side there is the danger that one finds no point of contact for the message as the missionary preaches it, to the people of the local culture the message appears irrelevant and meaningless. On the other side is the danger that the point of contact determines entirely the way that the message is received, and the result is syncretism. Every missionary path has to find the way between these two dangers: irrelevance and syncretism. And if one is more afraid of one danger than the other, one will certainly fall into the opposite.”29
We cannot sit idly by in a sea of lostness. We cannot go forward to contextualize the gospel fearful of either extreme. There was a time when missions meant sending American Christians into foreign lands to live among the people there and to bring the gospel to them. In those times we could push off the task of contextualization to them. The time has come to help Christians and their churches become effective missionaries to their own communities. We must call churches (including their leaders!) to transform the traditional view of missions as something carried out only in foreign nations and to apply that urgency to our cities and our neighborhoods. “Jesus has called us to one, love the gospel (loving our Lord), two, the culture (loving our neighbor), and three, the church (loving our brother),” Driscoll writes. “One of the causes of our failure to fulfill our mission in the American church is that the various Christian traditions are faithful on only one or two of these counts.”30
Part of our problem is we have missions committees and evangelism committees in the church. Such a compartmentalization from our institutionalism has not produced either a greater practice or passion for the gospel. We must avoid the opposite extremes of traditionalism on the one hand, which is resistant to change for all the wrong reasons, often confusing theology with preference, and technique-driven ministry on the other, which overemphasizes relevance and innovation to the neglect of theology. That brings us to the vital issue related to becoming missional: contextualization.
The International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention adopted the following five principles of contextualization.31 Principles of Contextualization
1. We affirm that the Bible is the only infallible text that exists. It is appropriate to evaluate all other books by the Bible. We encourage our personnel to search the Scriptures daily to see whether the principles presented by any text or teacher are true (Acts 17:11). Content that is in accord with biblical truth should be embraced. What is contrary to sound doctrine should be rejected.
2. We affirm that there is a biblical precedent for using “bridges” to reach out to others with the gospel (Acts 17:22–23). The fact that Paul mentioned an aspect of the Athenians’ idolatrous worship was not a tacit approval of their entire religious system. He was merely utilizing a religious element of their setting (an altar to an unknown god) to connect with his hearers and bridge to the truth. Similarly, our personnel may use elements of their host culture’s worldview to bridge to the gospel. This need not be construed as an embracing of that worldview. It should be noted that Paul not only used their system to connect, he also contrasted elements of it with the truth. Our evangelism must go beyond bridges to present the whole unvarnished truth of the gospel (1 Cor 15:1–4).
3. We affirm an incarnational approach to missions that is bound by biblical parameters. Following the example of Him who became flesh (John 1:14), it is appropriate that our personnel continue to tailor their ministry to their setting. The apostle Paul likewise embraced this approach, “I am made all things to all men, that I might by all means save some” (1 Cor 9:22b KJV). We advocate the learning and appropriate utilization of language and culture. Constant vigilance is required lest contextualization degenerate into syncretism. Where linguistic categories and cultural mores are deficient, these must be challenged and corrected with biblical truth.
4. We affirm both the sufficiency and unique nature of biblical revelation (2 Tim 3:14–17). We deny that any other purported sacred writing is on a par with the Bible. While reference to a target people group’s religious writings can be made as a part of bridge-building, care should be exercised not to imply a wholesale acceptance of such.
5. We affirm the need to be ethically sound in our evangelistic methodology (2 Cor 4:2). Becoming all things to all men in an incarnational approach does not necessitate an ethical breach. Jesus instructed His disciples to be as “wise as serpents, and harmless as doves” (Matt 10:16 KJV). We are to be wise in our bridge-building. We are to be harmless in our integrity as we hold forth the truth.
In their book Comeback Churches, Stetzer and Dodson use the analogy of a ball team making a great comeback. As a parent of two athletic children, few things thrill me like watching one of my own help their team to a comeback victory. I am finishing this chapter on the heels of Hannah’s volleyball team making an unlikely run to the finals in the state championship game, losing to the eventual national champion as well. In the process they came from behind to defeat their archnemesis, the only team to sweep them in the regular season. I will never forget that night when they rallied to win in five games, propelling her young school to the title game in their first year of eligibility. How much more joy will it bring to the Lord Himself when a church turns from being a stagnant monument to a vibrant, missional fellowship. Remember the Alamo? It began as a mission, became a battlefield, and became a museum. Sounds like more than a few churches I have seen. But when the mission is recaptured, there is the sound of victory!
Questions for Consideration
1. Would you describe your current church’s evangelistic effectiveness as (a) missional, contextual, and thriving; (b) fairly effective; (c) not very effective; (d) on life support?
2. Does your church or ministry have a good grasp on the community it seeks to reach?
3. What are you doing to be effective in contextualizing the gospel in your area?
NOTES
1. From a personal conversation with the author.
2. N. Cole, The Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens (San Francisco: Josey-Bass, 2005), 50.
3. M. Driscoll, Confessions of a Reformission Rev (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2006), 15–16.
4. J. Rainey, Planting Churches in the Real World (Missional Press, 2008), 41.
5.Driscoll, Confessions , 48.
10. http://legacy.pastors.com/RWMT/article.asp?ID=200&ArtID=1726 (accessed April 23, 2009).
11. D. A. McGavran, The Bridges of God (New York: Friendship Press, 1955).
12. C. P. Wagner, Church Growth and the Whole Gospel (New York: Harper and Row, 1981); Leading Your Church to Growth (Regal Books, 1984).
14. D. McGavran, Understanding Church Growth (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1980), 223.
15. C. P. Wagner, Our Kind of People (Atlanta: John Knox Press, 1979), 75.
16. R. Warren, The Purpose-Driven Church (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1995), 82.
19. For more detailed analyses see M. Liederbach and A. L. Reid, The Convergent Church: Missional Worship in an Emerging Culture (Grand Rapids: Kregel, 2009); S. McKnight, “Five Streams of the Emerging Church,” http://www.christianitytoday.com/ct/2007/february/11.35.html (accessed October 27, 2008); E. Stetzer, “First Person: Understanding the Emerging Church,” Baptist Press, January 6, 2006.
20. Taken from http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=22406 (accessed October 9, 2008).
21. E. Stetzer and M. Dodson, Comeback Churches (Nashville: Broadman and Holman, 2007), 192–97.
22. See A. Anderson, The Growth Spiral (Nashville: Broadman Press, 1993).
23. See J. E. White, Opening the Front Door (Nashville: Convention Press, 1992).
24. T. Rainer, Surprising Insights from the Unchurched (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2001), 168.
25. G. Poole, Seeker Small Groups (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2003), 240.
26. Adapted from W. Moore, “Small Group Evangelism” (DMin project, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2008), 219. See also M. Rice, “Equipping Leaders to Reach the Unchurched Through Small Groups Using Gary Poole’s Seeker Small Groups (DMin project, Southeastern Baptist Theological Seminary, 2005).
27. D. Elmer, Cross-Cultural Connections (Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press), 14.
28. While I heard Sjogren share this understanding at a conference, you can see it worked out in S. Sjogren, Conspiracy of Kindness (Ann Arbor: Servant, 1993).
29. L. Newbigin, A Word in Season (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1994), 67.
30. M. Driscoll, The Radical Reformission (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2004), 20.
31. http://imb.org/main/news/details.asp?StoryID=6197 (accessed October 9, 2008).
