Evangelism Handbook

The preaching of the gospel has been and will be central to the expansion of the church until Jesus comes. Hammarskjold’s analogy serves as a reminder that the gospel preached through a Spirit-endued vessel has been the tool for the conversion of many from the time of Christ until now.

By mass evangelism I refer specifically to gospel preaching to a group of people, including conventional meetings in local churches or arenas. In a general sense, mass evangelism refers to any gospel message presented to a crowd, including a musical, drama, block party, or some other tool. Mass evangelism has endured as a timeless method ordained by God in Scripture and used with incredible effectiveness throughout history. Also, itinerant evangelists have ministered from New Testament times until today.

The New Testament affirmed preaching the good news to the masses; however, the approach varied according to the audience. John the Baptist vilified the Pharisees; Jesus preached repentance; Peter began with the Old Testament in speaking to Jews at Pentecost; Paul followed a similar approach with a Jewish audience, but when speaking to Greeks in Athens he began with creation.

The most effective times of evangelism throughout history also featured some of the most effective mass evangelists. Some were pastors; some were itinerants; still others were pastor-itinerants. In different eras, different means have been used to proclaim the gospel to a given audience.

In the modern era, gospel preaching marked the evangelical awakening in England, although earlier the Pietists in Europe had preached mass meetings of some kind. George Whitefield, John Wesley, and others preached the gospel outdoors, in the streets and fields, with great success. In fact, John Wesley commented at one point that he thought a person had to come to a church building to be converted (talk about a bad case of institutionalism!). Then he met Christ in a life-changing way, and the churches of his day suddenly became nervous at his preaching. He began to preach in the fields reluctantly and of necessity. As a result, multitudes of people came to Christ that had gone untouched by the established church. The Evangelical Awakening that ensued would never have had the impact it did without the preaching in the fields. In their day, mass evangelism in the outdoors, although controversial, became a novel and effective means of proclaiming Christ.

Congregationalist Jonathan Edwards preached his famous sermon, “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God,” to another congregation in what became a one-service, mass evangelism event. Shubal Stearns, noted Baptist leader of the Sandy Creek Church, utilized protracted meetings, or extended evangelistic services. The camp meetings on the American frontier erupted spontaneously about 1800, providing an avenue for many to preach and thousands to be saved. Methodist circuit riders became the itinerant evangelists on the frontier.

Charles Finney utilized protracted meetings, at first extending services over several nights spontaneously after the fire of God fell in revival. In Rochester, New York, Finney preached 98 sermons from September 10, 1830, to March 6, 1831. Hudson called Finney’s meetings “the camp meeting brought to town.”² By the 1830s, the term revival meeting was used to refer to a general protracted meeting, whether it was a camp meeting on the frontier under such men as James McGready or a protracted meeting under Finney in the urban areas of the East. In more recent days some refer to such meetings simply as “revivals.” This is unfortunate because (as discussed earlier) revival refers to the work of God among His people, not an evangelistic meeting, which focuses on the lost.

D. L. Moody signaled the next significant shift in mass evangelism. He was the first modern urban evangelist. He planned meetings with great preparation, set the date, stayed for many days, and involved the entire city. He preferred to speak in secular arenas rather than church buildings (not unlike Paul’s move from the synagogue in Acts 19 to the school of Tyrannus). A whole caravan of evangelists followed after him, including Wilbur Chapman, R. A. Torrey, Billy Sunday, Gypsey Smith, Mordecai Ham, and Billy Graham—the best-known of all, and the evangelist who has preached to more people than any other in human history. Whether it was field preaching, camp meetings, local church meetings, or citywide crusades, Wood has aptly concluded, “For every age God has a programme of evangelism.”³

In George Whitefield’s day, mass evangelism in the fields was rejected by many church leaders as an innovation unworthy of the church. Today, some church leaders have stopped holding evangelistic meetings because they are considered too traditional! While our society has changed, and expecting people to attend weeklong or two-weeklong meetings may be a stretch given our overly busy, ADD culture, mass meetings still play a vital role in effectively evangelizing an area. On the other hand, some churches who see evangelism as only attractional hold a meeting once a year to focus on getting the unsaved to a church building to hear the gospel, doing very little to be missional in their communities beyond the church property. Both extremes should be rejected, whether one ignores mass meetings of some kind or some do them exclusively. Why should a church consider mass evangelism? And how should the church conduct such meetings effectively?

Mass evangelism and evangelists are biblical concepts. Both were God’s idea. Mass evangelism, or the preaching of the gospel to a group, permeates the New Testament. Peter’s sermon at Pentecost comes to mind as a famous example. Jesus, Paul, and others preached to large crowds. This doesn’t mean that churches that fail to conduct annual or semiannual evangelistic campaigns are bad; it suggests that some have given up on the method prematurely. Unfortunately, some evangelists using manipulative techniques have given evangelistic meetings and evangelists a bad reputation. But there are many godly, effective preachers who are gifted as harvesters.

Mass evangelism reminds believers that people are lost and must be reached. In a day when tolerance is a virtue and conviction is a vice, too many believers have lost a sense of their own lostness apart from Christ. Our culture has robbed us of the sense of people’s lostness and the urgency of evangelism. Gospel preaching speaks not only to lost people; Christians need to hear the “old, old story.” We need to be reminded of the need of others for Christ.

Mass evangelism still works. While we should never be driven by pragmatism, we should neither ignore approaches that can be both biblical and effective. We can preach the timeless gospel in a changing world. The largest services in the history of Billy Graham’s crusades are happening in the early twenty-first century—on youth night! Graham has learned how to preach the timeless gospel in a changing world. Franklin Graham has continued arena meetings with success.

Some of my most precious memories are of evangelistic services: the father of a close friend coming to Christ in deep brokenness and tears; a married couple from different church backgrounds who moved from a religious system to a relationship with God; one-fourth of a junior high school football team coming to Christ in one night; a church transformed by witnessing the power of God changing lives.

A recent study revealed that almost one-half of evangelistic Southern Baptist churches use “revival evangelism” (better, evangelistic meetings) regularly. How has the method been so successful? First, extensive planning is done. Hard work and high expectancy mark these churches. Second, prayer lies not on the periphery in these efforts but marks every step of preparation. Third, these churches generally use vocational evangelists.⁴

As a young pastor, I used such an evangelist. We prepared diligently in our little church, using our Home Mission Board’s (now the North American Mission Board) materials. We prayed all night one Friday! We went out into the community again and again. And God blessed! More people came to Christ and were baptized in that church in one week than had been reached for the past eight years. Don’t give up on the method; it will reach people in our day if we make the right preparations.

Many evangelists hold crusades in local churches or areas. Some of the most effective evangelists tell me that areawide crusades are still effective in small-to-midsized towns and cities. In modern times, more organized, structured evangelistic campaigns in local churches and great arenas have been the means for the conversion of multitudes. In the Southern Baptist Convention, years marked by simultaneous evangelistic crusades have led to some of the most significant increases in baptisms.

A. W. Tozer is known for his books, including The Pursuit of God, which emphasizes godliness and holy living. What many people don’t know about him is that as a seventeen-year-old walking home from his job at Goodyear in Akron, Ohio, he heard a street preacher say, “If you don’t know how to be saved, just call on God.” After that, he called out to Christ to save him. A. W. Tozer came to Christ through a street preacher. We should be careful about throwing out evangelistic methods.

In Effective Evangelistic Churches, Thom Rainer noted that preaching played an important role in virtually every church surveyed. More important than worship styles or ministries was the role of the pulpit. More than 90 percent of churches surveyed reported that preaching played a major role in the evangelistic growth of the church.⁵ Respondents also indicated that almost three out of four pastors of these churches preached expository messages.

Some people believe that to reach the current generation, expository preaching must be abandoned in favor of topical, needs-oriented sermons. However, studies indicate that expository preaching still plays a vital role in many evangelistic churches. In fact, in our day one can see a rise in younger pastors who preach expositionally for an hour or more to huge congregations in urban centers. We should remember that the Bible speaks to both felt needs and real needs! It takes more work to exegete a text and apply it to today’s world, but the long-term effects are worth it. The Word of God is as relevant as tomorrow, for God already knows tomorrow’s headlines! Instead of deemphasizing sound, biblical, expository preaching, we should work to eliminate boring preaching and replace it with effective preaching. By the way, young people do not hate preaching—they hate preaching that is not challenging and not relevant to them. I had a doctoral student do a survey on application of biblical texts in preaching. He found that adults could make application of a biblical sermon easily, but youth needed the preacher to take a little more time to give specific application to their life. He found that youth do not reject biblical teaching, but they need help to see how it is to be lived out daily.

During my first year as a professor at Southeastern, a pastor from Virginia told the true story about a little boy who came to the evening service at his church. The pastor waxed unusually long that evening, and the child became restless.

“When will he be finished, Mom?” he asked.

“Quiet!” snapped his mother.

Soon the little boy inquired again, “Mom, when will he be done?”

The mother again replied, “Son, sit still and be quiet, or I’ll take you out and spank you.”

Finally, after the pastor had preached almost an hour, the boy had all he could stand. “Mom,” he pleaded, “just take me out and spank me, please!”

The boy thought a whipping was better than the preaching he was hearing! Evangelistic preaching should be marked by effectiveness, earnestness, and biblical fidelity—and it shouldn’t be boring.

In a lecture at Southeastern Seminary, Haddon Robinson spoke of four worlds the preacher must know in order to communicate the message to any generation. He should know the world of the Bible, which includes a thorough exegesis of the text. He should also know the current culture in which we live. The third world is the preacher’s own, personal world—his strengths and weaknesses. The final world is the immediate world of his local church or the congregation that he is currently addressing. By knowing these worlds and exercising some serious study, preachers can apply the gospel to any generation.

In Jonathan Edwards’s day, a literate culture in a Puritan world required depth of thought and profound images. In our day, influenced by television and the Internet, illustrations and media play a larger role than ever. Communicating to this generation requires an understanding of relationship, which is such a vital part of our culture. The exposition of the Word of God must serve as the foundation of our preaching. Evangelistic preaching must be passionate, biblical, urgent, and relevant.

Today, due to the information available online, some have developed the sorry habit of downloading other’s messages and preaching them. I like what Jerry Vines said: “I milk a lot of cows, but I make my own butter.” Preaching the sermons of others is an echo, not a word from God. If you would preach the gospel, be much a man of prayer and much a man of the Scriptures. Preach a word from God burned on your heart, or stop preaching until you can.

It fascinates me that the preaching during the great awakenings focused not on the need for revival but on the gospel. Teaching and preaching the gospel effectively not only encourages the lost to be saved, but can challenge the saved to keep a focus on what matters. Note the following insights from great preachers:

Central to the evangelistic service is the public invitation. Because of extremes by some evangelists who are manipulative and insincere, some preachers have moved away from the open invitation. I believe the invitation is essential to effective evangelistic preaching. Whenever the Word of God is preached, it calls for a response. That does not mean a public “altar call” in every setting; nonetheless, a call to respond matters.

Some people question whether the public invitation remains a viable or even a biblical way to call people to salvation. I would argue that we should, when the gospel is preached, always call for a response. But that does not always mean we do it in a public, come-to-the-front manner. My president Danny Akin always shares the gospel at our graduation ceremonies. We always have graduates who have family members in attendance who know not Christ. But Akin does not stop and offer an opportunity to walk the aisle; instead, he calls people to respond and encourages any who respond to the gospel to tell their graduate, who will of course rejoice in that news. And, on several occasions that is exactly what happened! He gives an invitation to respond, but he applies it in an appropriate way.

If you are a preacher, you will at times be asked to preside at a wedding or a funeral. You can pretty much guarantee that lost people will be at those occasions. You can clearly and appropriately share Christ and call for a decision without taking away from the focus of the day. I always do this. I officiated a wedding for two students in our chapel a few years back. The groom told me of his uncle, a hippie-type who played drums in a rock band. I took a few moments in the context of the wedding and applied the wonder of human relationships in marriage to the greater wonder of knowing Christ. The uncle heard the gospel, something he had avoided. About a month later he came to Christ.

You can share Christ in such settings, calling for a gospel response without stopping the service to call for a physical response. As increasing numbers of people in the United States, not to mention globally, have little knowledge of the gospel or even of church services, our tying the invitation to salvation to a very specific public response could in fact hinder some from understanding salvation. That being said, I am personally troubled by many who move away from calling people to respond to the gospel and believe many times it comes from a lack of conviction about the power of God to save more than from a reaction to a method, or perhaps it comes from a lack of faith.

In his outstanding book The Effective Invitation, Alan Streett argued the New Testament consistently demonstrates the necessity of a public call. The following discussion is far too brief, so the interested reader is encouraged to read his fine book.⁹ Streett also recognized the consistent call of God to open obedience in the Old Testament. Further, he cited the ministry of Jesus as it relates to the invitation. Beyond the narratives of Jesus and His call of the disciples, Lazarus, and others, the use of the Greek word parakaleo is significant in this discussion. Paige Patterson describes one way this word can be translated:

I have frequently translated it as “give an invitation.” Any time you come across the word exhortation on the pages of the New Testament, you have, in effect, an appeal made for people to come and stand with the speaker in whatever it is that he is doing. This, of course, could take many patterns. . . . In any case, it is an invitation to decide.¹⁰

Streett noted that five times parakaleo is related to evangelistic preaching. Other expressions of this meaning range from the analogy of sowing and reaping to the call for open acknowledgment of Christ in Rom 10:9–10. Thus, the New Testament teaches the importance of a public call to Christ.

Public calls for the converted to proclaim their faith in Christ openly persisted until the time of Constantine, according to Streett.¹¹ For more than a millennium following Constantine, the emphasis shifted from salvation by grace through faith in Christ to the sacramental system of the Catholic Church. During this era, the public invitation disappeared. Occasionally preachers such as Bernard of Clairveaux would issue a call for some type of public response, but this was the exception, not the rule.

During the Reformation, the Anabaptists were consistent “in calling men to repent of their sins, place their faith in Christ, and present themselves for rebaptism (since their infant baptism was null and void).”¹² In the First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards met with persons privately after they responded to his preaching. George Whitefield and others followed this pattern of calling people to repent, then meeting with them privately about their spiritual needs. Sometimes Whitefield could not sleep or eat because of the many people seeking counsel. Some churches today have moved to this approach, where the pastor meets interested people after the service to discuss salvation. Other churches utilize a card, where the pastor takes a moment at the end to encourage those who trust Christ that day or who want to know more to indicate it on the card, after which someone speaks to that person personally by phone or personal visit.

Howard Olive discusses four ways John Wesley utilized a public invitation: (1) he used personal workers who sought anxious souls; (2) he called upon seekers to attend a service in the midweek to demonstrate their faith; (3) he invited seekers to step out publicly for church membership; (4) he used the mourner’s bench or anxious seat.¹³

Separate Baptists continued the trend of a public call, but Charles G. Finney made the greatest impact in the modern era. He used the mourner’s bench, or the anxious seat, and implored people to come forward and kneel at the altar. With mass evangelists such as D. L. Moody, Billy Sunday, and Billy Graham during the past 150 years, the evangelistic invitation has become a staple in the evangelical diet. Moody used inquiry rooms, Sunday exhorted sinners to “hit the sawdust trail,” and Graham calls people to come openly “just as they are.”¹⁴

For me the issue has less to do with whether to call for a response when the gospel is preached, as the gospel in its very nature calls for a response. The focus should be more on an appropriate, effective manner to call for a response.

I have been in a few services where the evangelist seemed more interested in a large response than the work of the Spirit. Such abuses should not prevent us from extending the gospel invitation. When you preach the gospel, there are some things to remember.

The best way to learn to give an effective invitation is by observing effective evangelists. I have also learned that the host pastor can extend the invitation with effectiveness as the people there know him. I recall a time in St. Louis where I preached and extended the invitation. A couple of people responded. Then the pastor, who had great respect among the people, extended the invitation. About 19 people that night responded to Christ, including one person who came from Judaism to faith.

One of the most haphazard activities in the local church is the hosting of a guest evangelist for a meeting to reach the lost, or for that matter hosting a guest minister for any occasion. I have spoken at almost 2,000 various events in my lifetime, and I have pretty much seen it all, from staying in a home with enough cats to fill a zoo to a wonderful night at the Embassy Suites. If you are going to hold such a meeting, and I believe churches should, do not be haphazard about it. If reaching people matters, we should go about it with all our hearts! My friend Daniel Forshee, who has years of experience as a pastor, an evangelist, and a seminary professor, offers the following suggestions for hosting an evangelistic team. If you are the host pastor, here are some practical things to do:

1. Secure an evangelist whom you know to have integrity. Whenever possible, secure a vocational evangelist. Do not just invite your buddy in to preach so you can play golf together (yes, that actually happens). Ask if he has a music evangelist whom he can recommend. If possible, secure the musician as well, since music plays an important role in a successful meeting.

2. Set the date. The best times for a fall revival meeting are August through November; for a spring revival, March through May. It is better to select the speaker you desire, then set the date. Setting a date and then finding someone who fits the calendar is a poor way of selecting a speaker. Choose the man of God, not the convenient time.

8. Use budgeted money for incidentals. The church should budget for travel, lodging, meals, pianist, organist, and so on. Never tell the evangelist that the love offering will be given to the team, and then take expenses for the meeting from the offering. This lacks integrity, but it happens too often. House the team in a decent hotel. Reimburse the team for mileage if they drive. Surely we can treat the called of God on the same level as the IRS does when it comes to reimbursement for mileage! Just a note: while we should never preach the gospel for money, the truth is most churches are pretty cheap. And those churches are the ones with pastors who complain about their low salaries, likely because they taught their people to be cheap! Paul told the Corinthians: “Even so the Lord has commanded that those who preach the gospel should live from the gospel” (1 Cor 9:14 NKJV). I do many events for no financial remuneration at all, such as FCA huddle meetings and college groups. I know those ministries have little or no budget. But a church should be responsible to care for those who minister to them. Particularly if you host a minister of the gospel who gives his life to itinerant ministry, you should be careful to take good care of both he and his family.

10. If you use a love offering, extend a thoughtful, prepared request for the love offering in every service, especially Sunday morning. Use Scripture, illustrations, and personal example. Do not treat the offering haphazardly. Explain that the evangelists are being paid with no set amount—strictly on a love offering basis. Emphasize to your congregation the joy of giving. Remind people on this and every occasion involving finances that we give to Jesus, not to people. It is for His kingdom. Have special love offering envelopes available in every service, including Sunday morning. I know one pastor who used envelopes for registering attendance as well as the offering. He had all the people put their names on the envelope, indicating that no one had to give. But he encouraged those who desired to worship through giving to enclose a gift as well. There was no high pressure, only encouragement. The love offering was extremely high for a church of its size. Give people the opportunity, teach them to give out of love for God, and they will give!

13. Schedule some fun—golf, for example. If you pastor First Baptist Church of Grand Canyon, then you know where to take your guests! However, some ministers really do not enjoy doing a lot of sightseeing (I am one of those, who has seen a lot of the world, and really does not enjoy coming home to tell my family all they missed), so check with them.

There are two keys to conducting an effective mass evangelism event. One is practical or organizational. The other is spiritual.

As a young pastor I served a church that struggled, and then had a relapse! The church had declined from about 50 in average Sunday school attendance to less than 10 when they called me. I was in seminary and pretty much ignorance-on-fire at the time. I knew nothing better than to cry out to God in fervent prayer and do the best I could to lead our people to prepare for God to move. The church had baptized three people in the previous eight years or so. The baptistry stored the Christmas decorations (I am not making this up). I led the people to follow pretty much the following, and we saw God work in our little church.

Organizational Preparation

A mass evangelism meeting should work from an updated, cultivated prospect list. If the meeting is to be a harvest event and not a cultivating event, there must be people in the services who are unsaved. As I write this, the last two places I have preached I had a conversation after the services with men who openly did not believe, but who came to hear me preach because a friend brought them. They each said they were exploring Christianity. Sadly, too many times I speak at an evangelistic meeting where only the active church members attend (which doesn’t mean everyone there is a Christian!). In order to see the lost in the services, believers will need to spend much time developing relationships with friends and neighbors. This will take some time in the months and weeks before the meeting.

You will reach some people before the meeting starts if you begin about six weeks ahead. For example, in the church mentioned above which I served as pastor, we saturated the community with copies of the New Testament, we used radio, we updated our prospect list, and we visited many people. The week before the meeting began, our church saw someone come to Christ. I had told the congregation the Sunday before that I would be filling the baptistry the next Sunday and was praying that God would save 10 people. I saw more eyes rolling than bowling balls at the local alley, but I knew if God did not do something, this church might not survive. The Wednesday night before the meeting began a family shared the news that their daughter had trusted Christ and would present herself the coming Sunday for baptism. I confess that gave my feeble faith helpful confidence.

The very Sunday morning the meeting began, a young woman who had not been to church since she was about 12 gave her life to Christ and was baptized that night. This happened because we had met her and established a relationship.

During an evangelistic meeting, make specific appointments with unsaved people for the pastor and the evangelist to visit. If you take the initiative to set such appointments, you will probably win several whom you visit as the Holy Spirit moves in their lives.

In addition, organizational preparation for a meeting requires publicity. Use every avenue you can. We tried to touch our community with different approaches: visitation, door-to-door New Testament distribution, door-to-door flyer giveaway the day before the meeting, phone calls, radio spots, and an ad in the newspaper. In one case, our revival meeting was part of the simultaneous crusades that we periodically have sponsored as Southern Baptists. There were television spots as well and a direct-mail flyer available to us. We targeted specific people to visit. Many people in our community were touched by a small, struggling church. As a result, many came to Christ, and we continued to baptize others after the meeting was over.

The third organizational concern for a revival meeting is attendance. Sometimes, we don’t get the church people to attend. Monday night is notorious as a weak attendance night, for example. Another problem is that we don’t get lost people to attend. How can they come to Christ if they’re not present to hear the gospel? A key to attendance night is sponsoring special emphases. In previous days in rural churches, pack-a-pew night was a big hit. Groups, classes, or individuals would compete to see who could pack the most pews or pack the pew with the most people. This approach doesn’t work as well today, but other emphases are good possibilities. The most significant special emphasis today is youth night. We also had a children’s focus.

Spiritual Preparation

How do you prepare the church spiritually for an evangelistic harvest? After all, organizational preparation matters little without the presence of God. First, provide a list of unsaved people to the evangelist and the church several weeks before the meeting. This will allow the congregation and him to pray specifically during your preparation. It will also encourage the speaker to see that the church is serious about reaching people!

Second, organize focused prayer for the church. This includes praying for the meeting in every Sunday school class, each service, and each meeting, beginning at least six weeks before the meeting. God’s blessing is often equal to the level of our expectancy. All-night prayer meetings or seasons of fasting and prayer can be effective. The chapter on prayer has a section on a prayer vigil you can utilize. At our meeting I described above, we held an all-night prayer meeting. I figured if Jesus prayed all night before calling His disciples, I should do the same before a critical event.

Finally, encourage special times of prayer during the week of the meeting. Prayer walks through the community are increasingly used as a means to mobilize believers to pray. Have prayer times before each service, and enlist individuals to pray during the service. Evangelistic meetings are an excellent time to deepen the commitment of the church to prayer!

After our four-day evangelistic meeting we had 13 who made public professions of faith. We baptized 10 of those, as I had prayed from the weeks before. That began a growing sense of the Spirit’s work in our congregation. There is potency in expectancy!

Some evangelists are using innovative approaches to share the timeless gospel message. An evangelist friend named Kelley Green has used an approach called Frontliners. Each summer he leads crusades at night and involves youth groups from across the country in evangelistic outreach during the day. This combination of a youth mission trip and a harvest meeting has proven fruitful. Such a method utilizes both the attractional element of a meeting and a more incarnational effort to go into the community. We do not only have to have events and meetings to reach the masses in our church buildings. We can use secular venues, or we can simply find places where the masses already are to present Christ through servant evangelism or other forms where the gospel is proclaimed to crowds in the culture.

Wayne Bristow has utilized Total Life conferences in churches with nontraditional worship services. These conferences target young adults in communities where it is difficult to sustain attendance for four or five days and where traditional revival meetings are no longer successful. Total Life events include evangelistic dinners and luncheons; special events for young people, older children, senior citizens, and young adults; and mixed audience rallies.

Words such as revival and crusade are confusing or even intimidating to unchurched people. Wayne recognizes these terms have lost much of their meaning, so he uses other terminology. He calls his meetings Total Life conferences. Changing the terminology can change the emphasis in some settings. But this may not be appropriate or workable in every church.

Thom Rainer’s book, Effective Evangelistic Churches, contains several surprises. For example, Rainer found that event evangelism seems to have little impact. This is true, if we define success or effectiveness in terms of immediate conversions. But we need to remember that evangelism is more than harvesting, although this is our ultimate goal. We must plant and cultivate as well as harvest. In our culture today we must give more attention to sowing and watering if we will have the harvest we desire. So many unchurched need the gospel presented again and again in many venues, events being one of those. Event evangelism can be effective in giving people an opportunity to hear the gospel—particularly people that might not hear it in any other way. A recent example that has grown in popularity reaches outdoorsmen—wild game dinners. These meals, featuring examples of trophy animals, and typically with the gospel presented by a believer who has been an effective hunter or fisherman, have made the gospel available to a group of men who rarely ever attend church services.

A neighborhood block party will present Christ to those for whom the doors of the church are not readily accessible. An evangelistic concert in the church building at Christmas or Easter may draw people who might not come at other times to hear the Word of God preached. We should not judge such events strictly on how many people are converted. But when we do such events, we would be wise to register everyone attending for possible times of further relationship-building and follow-up.

The lost and confused people of your community aren’t likely to fall into your church in large numbers asking for answers. Thus, we must take the message to them in creative ways. This can be done through event evangelism.

By being sensitive to your community, its needs, and its activities, you can use existing events or develop some new ones to introduce people to Jesus Christ. Is your town having a parade? Have the church build a float, then let members walk along the parade route passing out tracts. A church in our town cancels Sunday night activities for several nights in the spring as the town has a cultural arts event series on Sunday nights with various artists from bluegrass to country to pop. Church members are encouraged to attend, mingle among the people, and build relationships for further witness.

Valentine’s Day, Halloween, Christmas, and New Year’s provide opportunities for your church to create an event that draws the unchurched. Then you can tactfully share Jesus with them. In developing an evangelistic event, remember that you’re trying to attract the unchurched, not the church! This may mean doing things a little differently than fits your style, but this is OK as long as you don’t compromise the gospel. It may also mean having the event somewhere besides the church building. Furthermore, in advertising, it may mean focusing on the event or the personality rather than the church. You’re not hiding the church or acting ashamed of the gospel; you’re just being crafty in your presentation.

A specialized type of evangelistic event is sports evangelism. Eddie Fox, head of world evangelism for United Methodists, says that the roads of Rome carried the gospel in the first century, but sports is the means of carrying it today. The evangelist of the future may look more like Reggie White than Billy Graham. The kingdom of God is awakening to the fact that sports evangelism can be highly effective.

The following is a general breakdown of the types of sports evangelism, although it can take many other forms:

1. Major event-centered sports evangelism. This includes potentially thousands of events per year in the United States, including most pro sports and many major college events, as well as the one-time events such as the Olympics. Most churches in most cities don’t realize what an evangelistic gold mine is right before them almost every weekend. Using these events to reach the lost is not difficult and complicated; it’s a matter of motivating, educating, and enabling our people!

2. Personality-centered sports evangelism. This approach is using a famous athlete to draw a crowd. During the meeting, he shares his testimony and the way of salvation. A thread of this runs through all types of sports evangelism, as it is almost always the persona of an athlete or athletes that draws the audience. Networking with churches and associations on whom to use, and how, is crucial. Personality-centered sports evangelism can work in a variety of ways. The athlete may appear live or on video. Tracts with his or her testimony could be prepared specifically for the sport or event.

3. Competition-centered sports evangelism. This is based around nonprofessional, club-level league competition, such as ongoing ministry in the adult men’s basketball league, in Little League, and so forth. This has commonly been called recreation ministry. We should be sharing the gospel through written materials and events formed around recreation play all across the nation.

The variations go on and on. Groups such as Athletes in Action and Fellowship of Christian Athletes have long been involved in this type of ministry, but even the smallest church can get involved.

Cheryl Wolfinger of the International Sports Federation (ISF), which sends sports evangelism teams around the world, reports that her organization is swamped with domestic requests for sports evangelism teams. This is happening, although ISF makes no effort to procure domestic requests. Wolfinger uses these increased requests to highlight the interest in sports evangelism throughout the United States.

Mark Snowden, media and sports evangelism consultant for the International Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention, confirms Wolfinger’s analysis of the burgeoning requests for sports evangelism development in the United States. He reports that the IMB continues to use sports evangelism to get into hard-to-reach countries. Snowden said the IMB is beginning to appoint full-time sports missionaries instead of relegating this work to short-term missionaries, as it has in the past.

Tom Felten is publisher of Sports Spectrum, a national Christian sports magazine that is a vital tool for reaching athletically minded lost people. Felten says, “What we’re seeing right now is more and more parachurch groups and denominations adding full-time sports evangelism personnel to their staff. The growth is phenomenal. An indication would be our Super Bowl Outreach Kit. We started it six years ago with 2,100 churches involved. This year we will have 6,000 to 7,000 churches holding evangelistic Super Bowl parties. Sports evangelism has been and continues to erupt.”¹⁶

Churches must see the big picture and make specific application of the sports evangelism possibilities within the United States. Courtney Cash, Wolfinger’s associate, says some churches are taking advantage of sports evangelism, but that the percentage is low. “They are hosting clinics, organizing leagues, supplying chaplains, providing tournaments in multi-housing units, and playing pick-up games with youth in the inner city,” Cash says. “However, even though there are almost one hundred sports ministries in the United States, there [are few] networks to help churches utilize the existing new tool, teach them how to reach sports people, or connect them with the necessary materials to be completely successful in their efforts.”¹⁷