Six campaigns and five years in, and when you announced yet another outreach push, your greeters stopped making eye contact. That’s one man’s brutal honesty about his past six years of evangelism campaigns. The root of the issue? Campaigns. While these initiatives may be a good vehicle to raise a church’s evangelism efforts, what’s necessary is culture. Campaigns ask us to do something. Cultures call us to be something.
Evangelism is not really something the church can do as much as it is something the church must be. It is a matter of leadership, as all matters are. It is leadership that leads, that sets an example, that will go on to raise up other leaders, who will do this work long after the original leader has moved on to other churches, other spheres of influence. Before launching campaign eight, ask yourself these questions in place of the usual campaign eight planning ones.
Stop Training Scripts, Start Developing Character
Most church evangelism training materials focus on teaching technique: how to open, how to close, how to answer difficult questions. But technique without character results in people who can put on a show, but lack the substance of a personal walk with God to make a real difference in people’s lives. The confidence in sharing one’s faith doesn’t come from knowing the right answers to hard questions, but from walking in such a way that one’s life is so intertwined with God that one cannot help but share that with others. That’s the thing about how EQUIP approaches leadership training, proven out in scores of churches across 100+ nations: when a leader develops in character, when humility, integrity, and a genuine love for others are foundational to who they are, evangelism is no longer a job the leader does but something the leader is. That’s Peter’s point when he says we should always be prepared to give an answer to anyone who asks us the reason for our hope (1 Peter 3:15). Notice that we are to have the hope first, the reason for it, and then we are to share it. You cannot train someone to share a hope they do not have, and so all of EQUIP’s leadership training resources start from character and lead to evangelism naturally. The answer to the question is not as important as the presence of the answer within.
Your Congregation Is Reading the Room, and the Room Is You
One thing churches forget is that the congregation is always reading the room, and the room is always the leaders. If the church’s leaders, whether elders or small group leaders, are struggling with their walk of faith, the congregation will sense that. Likewise, if the small group leaders are confident about their own walk with God, generous in spirit, and caring for the lost, that resonates with the congregation too. In short, the congregation mostly does what the leaders do. That’s why EQUIP’s leadership training tools, such as Beyond Success, the seven-session leadership development resource, have evangelism at their core. When a leader is discipled, they are discipled not just to share the Gospel but to truly live in a way that shows people the Gospel. The leaders can take that lesson on evangelism, which is really discipleship, and pass it on to their congregations, who will then be much more open to evangelism in general. Evangelism from the leaders is just the overflow of their discipleship.
Three Shifts Worth Making This Year
Shift from events to environments. This year, rather than asking what evangelism event you should do next, ask yourself what kind of people you should develop who will naturally want to share their faith in Jesus. Events are nice, but they’re mostly forgettable, while environments last.
Shift from expert to equipper. If you, as a pastor, are trying to be the church’s expert evangelist, you’re always going to be stretched too thin. It is better to equip twelve people to disciple twelve more, who will each equip twelve more. Paul’s charge to Timothy in 2 Timothy 2:2 is to pass on what you have heard from me to trustworthy people who will also be able to teach others. That way, the multiplication effect takes off, and your church will be able to saturate the region with the Gospel for years to come. Expert evangelism may be good at getting people into seats, but equipping evangelism is how real church growth takes place.
Shift from performance to stewardship. It’s important for church leaders to see that when they evangelize, they aren’t performing but rather being good stewards of what God has entrusted to them. Stewardship is sustainable, whereas performance evangelism can easily lead to burnout. The move from performance to stewardship frees leaders from the unrealistic expectations elders sometimes place on them around evangelism, expectations that lead to burnout in the first place.
What This Looks Like
Churches that partner with EQUIP through the Bridge Builder partnership are not simply throwing another evangelism weekend into their churches. They are investing in their church’s leadership through the kinds of training described above. Itinerant teams of coaches come alongside elders, deacons, ministry heads, small group hosts, and volunteers who keep the church going, helping them grow not just in evangelism but in their character as well. Team meetings are conducted regularly. People’s character is discussed as openly as their evangelism skills. Evangelism is now part of the leaders’ growth, not just an extra. The fruit is exponential, but it takes years to really see it. It’s real, and it happens without another evangelism campaign to plan, prepare, and implement. This change is a much healthier, more sustainable way to grow a church’s evangelism work for the long term. It might not be quick, but it works. A church that invests in its leaders will always far outlast a church that simply trains its members in evangelism scripts.
Start Here, Not Campaign Number Eight
Start with the leaders you have, your elders, deacons, and small group hosts: are they really growing in character? Ask yourself if you’re investing in them as much as they need before you charge them to evangelize. Your congregation will follow your leaders’ example, and a congregation with good leadership will find evangelism much easier, since it’s a result of their leaders’ faith. If your church is prepared to develop a real culture of evangelism that doesn’t end when you leave the pulpit and continues to bear fruit for years to come, EQUIP would like to work with you. You can learn more at iequip.org.
