Jesus left the church a vision of a movement when he challenged the earliest Christians to reproduce from their own local context (Jerusalem) into “Judea, Samaria and the end of the earth” (Acts 1:8). For us to see a continuation of this movement in our own era, we need every Christ follower to adopt Jesus’ personal mission to “seek and save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Evangelism is core to the mission of Jesus and essential to accomplishing his vision.
What happened between Jesus’ early directive and now? The vocabulary and practice of sharing the gospel has shifted and changed across geographies, cultures and historical moments. Currently, it seems that “evangelism” is a taboo word and “evangelizing” often comes across as culturally inappropriate. According to Barna Research, “Nearly half of millennial practicing Christians say it is wrong to evangelize (47%).” But at the same time Christians still recognize that evangelism was central to Jesus’ mission: “Two out of three millennial practicing Christians believe being a witness about Jesus is part of their faith (65%).” The embrace of contradictory statements creates confusion about evangelism that results in churches developing a lackluster approach to reaching the lost.
These insights lead to a relevant question: Is evangelism a lost cause for the modern Christian church?
A New Approach
Scripture shows that while evangelism might appear to be a lost cause, God’s commitment to evangelism is relentless, ultimate and ongoing. Romans 5:8 explains that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” While we sinners persist in rejecting him, God continually pursues us through the ministry, grace and resurrection realities of our Savior, Jesus. Whether our collective focus is on this topic or not, God remains on a mission to restore a broken relationship with every single person we encounter. Lost people matter to God and it is his desire that all come to know him.
If we are going to fulfill the vision of Jesus, we must be about the mission of Jesus, and that means we must reclaim vocabulary around evangelism and revive the practices of evangelism in our churches and faith communities. In doing so, we cannot go back to the approach of a previous generation that has sometimes treated people like a project or left them feeling like a group to be conquered or won.
We must approach those who have not heard of Jesus (and those who no longer choose to follow him) with humble hospitality and as people, like us, who want to know that God hears them and allows them to co-create their own spiritual journeys with him. Does this sometimes make us uncomfortable? Is it easier to plan a program rather than respond to groups of individuals with unique needs? Yes and yes. Reviving evangelism calls us beyond the church growth formulas and strategic plans that have served us well in the past decades.
A Culture of Evangelism
Accepting the biblical truths and relational realities of evangelism leads us to developing new church multiplication practices that incorporate both planting churches and evangelizing people. We must plant new churches that have cultures that prioritize evangelism by creating safe places for people to belong before they believe. A church with a culture of evangelism will hold the biblical values of evangelism, share the compelling narratives of evangelism and live out the white-hot faith behaviors of an evangelistic church.
A culture of evangelism begins to develop when one person inspires another to start taking evangelism seriously, recognizing that all people sin and separate themselves from God, and need to hear both this truth and the truth of the gospel. No sin is big enough to separate us from the love of God through the grace and sacrifice of Jesus. No person is ever too far from God to be restored into right relationship with him. When these truths motivate us, we can’t help but be passionate about reaching people far from God.
As we build new cultures, we can incorporate biblical values and compelling narratives into our communities. We can help people understand what the Bible has to say about God’s love for them (and for us), and in our preaching and teaching, we can help everyone in our spheres of influence understand their own stories in the context of God’s amazing and ongoing story.
When we embrace evangelism as a cause worth committing to, align our cultures with the cause, and help our communities understand compelling gospel narratives, we naturally begin acting in new ways. Our daily behaviors change, both on an individual and corporate level. Our people become passionate about sharing the gospel and confident in their ability to do so. Our leaders become energized to lead in new ways and find new passion for reaching the lost.
Changing the World
In his book, Movements That Change the World, Steve Addison reminds us that the movements that change the world are missionary movements of Christ followers with a white-hot faith. The same love that stirred God to sacrifice his Son for us begins to stir inside each of us as we consider whether or not evangelism is a lost cause. And what are our churches, ultimately? Gathered groups of missionaries, sent by God to love each other and share that love with their neighbors.
What happens when we and our people develop this kind of passion for the lost around us? We start new churches with evangelistic cultures, we restructure existing churches to embrace evangelism. We prove to a watching and hurting world that we are with them, we are for them and we want them with us in eternity when our time here on Earth is done.
Is evangelism a lost cause? We all get to choose, but it doesn’t have to be. Let’s choose wisely, let’s choose well, let’s follow Jesus in his Luke 19:10 passion to seek and save the lost.
Dave Ferguson is CEO of Exponential, visionary leader of NewThing Network, and lead pastor of Community Christian Church in the greater Chicago area.