9 Findings about Evangelistic Churches

Thus far in this series of articles on evangelism, we’ve focused primarily on personal

evangelism. In this article, I am shifting the attention to evangelistic churches. I make that shift for one reason: evangelistic churches produce evangelistic believers, and evangelistic believers help churches remain evangelistic. I realize that last statement might seem obvious, but the relationship between individual believers and congregational commitments is important. If you want to be an evangelistic Christian, I encourage you to find an evangelistic church—and then push that church to keep doing evangelism.  

Here’s the problem, though: I’ve studied North American churches for almost 30 years, and few churches do well at emphasizing evangelism. When I have found those few churches, here are some general conclusions I’ve reached about those churches and their leaders: 

1. The pastor takes the lead in evangelism. 

   In three decades of studies, I have never found a strongly evangelistic church led by a pastor who is unconcerned about evangelism. I’m sure that church may be out there somewhere, but I’ve never seen it. Rather, pastors whose hearts beat for evangelism produce congregations who share his passion. 

2. Evangelism does not just happen. 

   Evangelistic churches recognize that some believers lose their early passion for gospel-sharing, and many get increasingly separated from non-believers the longer they are in church. These church leaders know that a church without a plan to evangelize will be a church that does not evangelize, and they plan not to be that kind of congregation.

3. Churches that evangelize offer evangelistic training—and work hard to recruit members to participate. 

   I’ve known too many churches who called members to evangelize but offered no training. I’ve known others who offered training but assumed members would respond to only a bulletin or pulpit announcement. Neither typically results in strong evangelism. Evangelistic churches offer regular and ongoing training, and they set goals to have high percentages of members trained.

4. Evangelistic strategies in these churches include both intentionality and accountability among leaders. 

   Their intentionality is not a surprise, as noted in #2 above. Accountability, though, is often a challenge for most pastors and leaders—especially if it means admitting a lack of personal evangelism. Church leaders who are most committed to evangelism, though, are willing to take these risks. I’ve known more than one evangelistic pastor who quizzes his staff every week about their evangelistic efforts.

5. Evangelism in these churches is dependent on a strong belief in the Word. 

   There is no other way to state this finding: pastors and church leaders who question whether Jesus is the only way to God or whether a personal relationship with Christ is necessary for salvation (or who teach otherwise) do not focus on evangelism. They may do “outreach” to increase numbers—and perhaps even use the nomenclature “evangelism”—but what they’re doing is not usually gospel-centered evangelism. 

6. Evangelistic congregations live and serve among their community. 

   Their church building is not a retreat from their world; it is a place where they are challenged to take the gospel to their world. Their members come together so they might go out again. They actually know lost people, minister to local needs, and make a difference in their community—always looking for opportunities and ways to open the door to sharing the gospel. Continually in their mind is this question: “How do we make sure that we get to the story of Jesus no matter what ministry we’re doing?”

7. These churches usually have strong discipleship and missions programs, too. 

   I’ve actually been surprised sometimes by how much these ministries go hand-in-hand. Churches that genuinely evangelize and reach people quickly find themselves needing a “spiritual nursery” to grow new believers, so they develop discipleship strategies without distracting from their evangelistic efforts. Likewise, their burden to reach their neighbors soon becomes a burden to reach the nations, too—and vice-versa. These churches do the Great Commission of Matthew 28:18-20.

8. Evangelistic churches pray for non-believers by name.

   They don’t always do so corporately and publicly, but they do challenge their members to maintain a specific prayer list of people they want to know Jesus. As I’ve said in other articles, these churches understand that an unnamed burden is not really a burden at all. Burdens have names and faces.

9. Churches that evangelize are unafraid to count numbers.  

   There is little question that churches can idolize numbers. They can so focus on those numbers that they compromise the gospel to get there. On the other hand, churches that evangelize are willing to ask hard questions based on numbers. If the numbers show they are reaching few non-believers, they ask “why” without compromising the gospel message. Here, I’m reminded of the words of Charles Spurgeon, who himself warned against reporting false conversions even as he nevertheless spoke of the value of statistics:

 “I am not among those who decry statistics, nor do I consider that they are           productive of all manner of evil; for they do much good if they are accurate, and  if men use them lawfully. It is a good thing for people to see the nakedness of   the land through statistics of decrease, that they may be driven on their knees            before  the Lord to seek prosperity; and, on the other hand, it is by no means an       evil thing for workers to be encouraged by having some account of results set         before them. I should be very sorry if the practice of adding up, and deducting,    and giving in the net result were to be abandoned, for it must be right to know  our numerical  condition.”[i]

How does your church compare to these findings? How might you help your church become more evangelistic?

                [i] Spurgeon, Charles H., The Soul-Winner: or How to Lead Sinners to the Saviour (p. 3). Kindle Edition.