By almost any metric, the churches in our nation are much less evangelistic today than they were in the recent past. In my own denomination, we are reaching non-Christians only half as effectively as we were 50 years ago (we measure membership to annual baptisms). The trend is disturbing.
We certainly see the pattern in the early church where “every day the Lord added to them those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). In too many of our churches today, the congregations are reaching no one for Christ in the course of an entire year.
The Poll
I conducted an unscientific Twitter poll recently to see what church leaders and church members thought of this trend, My specific question was: “Why do you think many churches aren’t as evangelistic as they once were?”
The responses arrived quickly and in great numbers, both in public tweets and in direct messages to me. Indeed, I was still receiving responses four days after I sent my Twitter question.
The Results
The response was highly informative for me. Here are the top fifteen responses listed in order of frequency:
- Christians have no sense of urgency to reach lost people.
- Many Christians and church members do not befriend and spend time with lost persons.
- Many Christians and church members are lazy and apathetic.
- We are more known for what we are against than what we are for.
- Our churches have an ineffective evangelistic strategy of “you come” rather than “we go.”
- Many church members think that evangelism is the role of the pastor and paid staff.
- Church membership today is more about getting my needs met rather than reaching the lost.
- Church members are in a retreat mode as culture becomes more worldly and unbiblical.
- Many church members don’t really believe that Christ is the only way of salvation.
- Our churches are no longer houses of prayer equipped to reach the lost.
- Churches have lost their focus on making disciples who will thus be equipped and motivated to reach the lost.
- Christians do not want to share the truth of the gospel for fear they will offend others. Political correctness is too commonplace even among Christians.
- Most churches have unregenerate members who have not received Christ themselves.
- Some churches have theological systems that do not encourage evangelism.
- Our churches have too many activities; they are too busy to do the things that really matter.
So What Is the Solution?
I received hundreds of responses to this poll. There is obviously widespread concern about the lack of evangelism in our churches and among Christians.
First, let me hear what you think of these responses. Second, and more importantly, offer some solutions to the challenges. Make certain those solutions include what you can do as much as what they should do. I look forward to hearing from you.
photo credit: people talking in paris via photopin (license)
Posted on February 23, 2015
With nearly 40 years of ministry experience, Thom Rainer has spent a lifetime committed to the growth and health of local churches across North America.
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325 Comments
I believe number 2 is probably the biggest problem, but not in the way some people might think. Church goers are too buys trying to be friends with unsaved people instead of telling them the gospel truth about their sin and their need for repentance and faith in Jesus Christ. I have known “Christian” people to be friends with people who claimed they believed and that they were “born again” and had a wonderful relationship with Jesus Christ, yet all the while were in homosexual relationships. When I challenged my alleged brothers in Christ on their silence, they replied that telling people that they are sinning and need to repent wouldn’t lead them to Christ.
I think the problem is that churches don’t acknowledge and deal with the problems and pains of the congregation. People are disengaged because the church is not addressing their deeper issues, so teh church is present but disengaged, even punitive towards people’s situations. We theologise too quickly. Whereas for a leader just to mention that as members of the congregaton all of us will have experienced a range of challenges such as abuse, trauma, loss, debt, loneliness, addiction, marriage troubles, health issues would begin to humanise the church. Get people talking (and not just the same people leading) and praying about these things – in a safe way. Then you can teach people, once they’ve been heard and feel safe and acknowledged, about who God is, about their assurance and identity in Christ, our authority as believers and the power of God. I do feel because of the weakened effect of many churches that this approach to beter acknowledge, inform and equip believers (and ‘church goers’) will strengthen poor foundations of Christian living. Only after that should we focus more on practising spiritual disciplines (confession, fasting etc), bible study, theology, evangelising etc. To be honest if we did it this way round, you’d probably have loads of people compelled to come to / engage with the church because of the change they witness in believers lives. I fear instead that we scoot over real issues people are living with, but preach to others about what they should do.
We spend loads of time and money at work on a range of modules to train employees in various sometimes challenging areas, in well prepared sessions, with forethought and evaluation. Why the church doesn’t take this approach I don’t know. As a black person, when I went to my old black majority church, people tithed, sang loud in worship, laid prostrate in awe of the lord, came forward in droves every week for prayer and were preached long and sometimes non PC sermons. We were always church planting. If someone was sick and couldn’t come to church, we’d drive the minibus to their home after the main service so that we could do church at their home. I don’t see the same in the majority white churches I now attend – where convenience and non challenge is the norm. Lots of community and social activities and little time for the Holy Spirit or prayer.
I think it depends on your church, i have been to several primarily white churches and they really did care admit eachother, I don’t feel it is racial, but generational, my generation especially, dio not enjoy accountability, to enjoy what you’re taking about, requires openness and accountability.
In the early christian, all what individual has belonged to everyone, no one dare claim what his having his/her own, but today when a person is giving to something or been influential because of his financial state, men of GOD tend to favour them. It will be hard for rich man to enter heaven
Churches are not preaching the true gospel of sin, repentance, and Jesus sacrificial love. It’s watered down and full of religion.
We cannot expect from people what the pulpit is not giving out.
On another note though, it’s so sad to see the amount of people on church who are probably true christians but not willing to learn on their own. I feel churches have become a factory that feeds sheep every Sunday on a conveyor belt with a preprogrammed, doctrinal, feel-good messages full of empty calories.
Repent for the Kingdom of God is at hand
for the bible said in the book of John 14v6 Jesus saith unto him, I am the way,the truth,and the life:no man cometh unto the Father,but by me.
the bible said that in the book John 3v3: Jesus answered and said unto him, Verily,Verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God. john 3v4: Nicodemus saith unto him, How can a man be born when he is old? can he enter the second time into his monther’s womb, and be born? john 3v5 Jesus answered, Verily, Verily, I say unto thee, Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he coannot enter into the kingdom of God.
Romans 6v 23 for the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Romans 8 v 1 THERE is therefor now no condemnation to them which are in Christ Jesus, who walk not after the flesh, but after the spirit. Romans 8 v 2 : for the law of the spirit of life in Christ Jesus hath made me free from the law of sin and death.
Thanks Thom… Many church leaders seem to feel compelled to provide programs for their people. Some of it may look like discipleship and these are conceptually good things. But it seems to me that often times their focus with many of these programs misses the mark and end up feeding the consumer Christians with nice Christian programs and nothing more.
In the end, because of the way these programs are set up and how the church does church, the church members end up thinking it is the role of the pastor to do certain things and their “job” is to simply show up. For example we are commanded to make disciples, baptize them and teach them to obey… but whose fault is that the congregation thinks it is the pastor’s job to do these things? The sermon message on the Great Commission might talk about going out and making disciples. If the Great Commission is preached on, too often each person is left trying to figure out how to reach out to those around them while fearing the appearance of trying to make converts. That is if they feel compelled at all to do anything. And who, in most churches, does the baptizing? It seems in most churches this is limited to the pastor so apparently that part of the Great Commission is optional for the individual members… is seems the idea that as church goers we bring potential “disciples” to the pastor who will then disciple them “properly” so they can be somehow made into a disciple and later baptized and somewhere magically they are taught to obey is what is communicated and demonstrated with every baptism and “discipleship” program in each of our churches. So the idea that this command is specific for the pastor is reinforced by the behavior of the pastor and the church.
Similarly, many of our churches have youth programs. What message does this give? “Hand over your kids and we’ll take care of discipling them for you.” This may not be the intent of the leadership but I’m pretty sure many church goers assume that they don’t really have to do much to disciple their kids because the church has it covered. In the end this teaches our kids that living out our faith isn’t a way of life but doing church things is merely some thing Christians do… we go to Sunday school because that is what Christians do… we pray before a meal because that is what Christians do… but making disciples? Do we pray for the lost around us and then take action to reach them (aka going and making disciples)? No… so that teaches there are optional parts of the Bible–things we don’t have to bother with.
Here is a thought. From a relatively early part in my faith walk, I assumed that the Great Commission did apply to me but I wrestled with how to do that without looking as if I am some used care salesman (sorry if you are a used car salesman… hopefully you won’t take this comment personally). I envisioned following people around with my Bible while they ran in the other direction. The issue is how do we engage those around us in a natural way so that we can talk about God and our values? How do we get them curious? I gave a message about “access ministries” recently and several people came up to me later and said they’d never heard about this concept before. And some of those are seminary graduates. An access ministry is just some thing that a Christian can do to find an excuse to engage those around us. Missionaries do this… they have a short term team come out so that the long term team can engage those around them because the short term team is making some event possible. But why aren’t we doing that right where we are at? A missionary family once told me, they hadn’t really thought about their day to day life that way before they went off to serve. Now that they are off serving in another country, this is what they do all the time but while they were here, the thought just didn’t occur to them.
An example of this is the ministry that I am involved in. I’m not saying this to promote my ministry but rather the concept which can be applied to anything. But if there is somebody that wants to partner with me in what I do, I’m all ears.
My ministry is SAM Camp (Science, Arts and Math… Used to Exalt the Lord). The short term team is the volunteer staff who make a fun summer camp experience where we have fun with science, arts and math available. But also knowing that the heavens declare the glory of God and that the skies proclaim the works of His hand, we are free to express that everything we do and experience in life and in particular through science, arts and math, points to God. So for our teen class, for example, we can talk about the scientific method and present facts and show that Darwinism takes a lot more faith to believe than what the Bible says because there are a whole lot of scientific facts that need to be ignored for Darwinism to be true. The long term team is anybody who isn’t volunteering to run the camp. In other words, families with kids going into 1st – 12th grade can invite their non-Christian friends, pray for them during the week and depending on God’s timing and the movement of the Holy Spirit, invite them to church at the end of the week so that their friends can continue on their spiritual path being discipled.
So here we have an example of a Christian building a deeper relationship with a non-Christian that they would normally interact with by doing an activity that is appealing to them but that also has the potential to draw them closer to God. That is making a disciple. This is not to be confused with making a convert which is often the focus with random street evangelism. Street evangelism has its place but that isn’t necessarily making disciples because the amount of discipling is often times minimal and is over when you part ways. This is making a disciple for the long term. The point isn’t to rush a conversion but to teach who God is and through that have them fall in love with God to the point they are ready to commit their lives wholeheartedly to God.
As part of SAM Camp, we also have evening presentations for adults. These could be the parents of the kids who are invited but not necessarily. It could be neighbors or work colleagues. These presentations cover various topics that will provide a reason to invite a non-Christian to, again, in order to develop a deeper relationship and where things about God can be discussed.
The idea of SAM Camp is to provide opportunities that will hopefully make the hearer or participant more curious to want to know more about God and our faith. That is what makes SAM Camp a stepping stone or an access ministry to those around us. It gives us access to them at a deeper level and enables them to take steps towards God that they wouldn’t otherwise take.
Sorry for the long post but it is my prayer that other Bible believing Christians might be inspired to help those around us live out our faith and glorify God in reaching the lost around us.
At my church we want, not me, to go out and do nice deeds such as: volunteer at the local food pantry or ring the Salvation army bell. Nice, but any pagan can do that. Or they want to help with a church dinner to fundraiser or give backpacks to underprivileged children. Again, nice but anyone can do these things. My thought is that if you don’t build relationships and invite to church and/or spread the gospel it is just another activity for a secular group to do. I know we should be helping fellow believers as they have needs, widows and orphan, but should we make it our priority to help the poor if we are not trying to spread the gospel and attending to their spiritual needs. Please tell me if I am off base. My favorite project at church is Operation Christmas Child because spreading the gospel is what it is all about. I want to hit the streets with fellow believers but my church just wants to be fed or feed each other, and do there secular good deeds. I want help to go!
My local church is only open to public Sunday morning. Rest of Time it is closed. Except to private group. I saw the door open one day and i went inside to only be told to leave immediately. Because I’m not allowed to pray in my local church according to the person who made me leave. I felt bad that it has come to this that a church is no longer a place of worship on any day.
A problem that I see with Christians who try to evangelize is that they immediately want to convert the person to a specific church or belief but they do not show any interest in who that person is. I feel that for people to reach others on any level, especially church, that they need to be a friend FIRST. I do agree with the last point that churches have too many activities that they become the entire point of church. It’s been said many times that we are to gather as one when at church, but we really aren’t gathered as one when group activities results in exclusive cliques instead. Being treated as an outcast most of my life, I have never really responded to the demands of church groups, whether it is the Youth Group or Ministry work. To me, it felt like they were using me and not for the better.
For #9 that people do not believe that Christ is the only way to salvation. I don’t see that as a real problem Everyone has a right to believe whatever they choose to believe. You should always remember that a lot of Christians have friends and even family who are different religions. Maybe people are being more open-minded and listening to people instead of condemning someone just because they are not Christian. I have Jewish relatives on my dad’s side of the family. I would never pass judgment on any of them or say that they are not saved or are going to hell just because they are not Christian. My friend’s mom would pass judgment on people because of their beliefs, and she alienated people outside of her family by doing that.
I personally have never cared to evangelize my faith to people. I choose to walk the walk, instead of talk the talk. In one of the points mentioned in a comment above is that people do not know how to evangelize to reach people, and I think that it’s true. When someone evangelizes to me about their faith and they tell me that I am just flat out wrong in my faith, I ‘m not going to listen to them. So, if I don’t listen to someone, is that person still reaching me? I don’t think so. I think that a reason why a lot of church goers have not really received Christ is because it was never presented to them in a way that they will listen. Throughout my life I have heard stories about various stories in the Bible, but it was never really explained to me until I started going to the Catholic Church. I think that part of it is because of the pressure the church gives to people who really don’t know. When I was a child, whenever I asked something, people would look at me and say “You don’t know that?” “Where have you been?” So, people like myself don’t ask questions out of fear of being ridiculed by others who assume that I should already know.