Ten ways to keep your church focused on evangelism
From an article by Great Commission
The Great Commission website recently published an article from John Coyne of CPAS on practical tips for ensuring that sharing Jesus is in the DNA of your church.
Here is a summary:
Evangelism is meant to be a normal part of the life of a church. We need to recognise that this activity is not an occasional set of actions but remains in the DNA of a church’s life. So here are my top ten ways to keep a church focused on evangelism:
1. Build it into your vision:
A church’s vision must make it abundantly clear how and why evangelism is at the heart of church life.
2. Make it a part of your prayer life:
Ensure that prayer for evangelism is part of the church’s gatherings, large and small, and that Christians are encouraged to form prayer partnerships or triplets to pray for their non-Christian contacts to develop a spiritual hunger and openness to the good news of Christ.
3. Examine how you communicate:
Consider how the good news is communicated in your church. Is it clear to the membership and those who hear the gospel through them that God’s love is offered unconditionally but then involves a life-long relationship with Jesus, which will be both enriching and costly?
4. Encourage testimony:
Encourage the regular sharing of testimony of those who have come to faith in Jesus as well as hearing from those who are seeking to share their faith in multiple contexts and different ways.
5. Develop multiple access points:
Ensure that the church offers multiple access points to people who are curious about faith or are in need of God’s love manifested through compassionate service freely offered by God’s people to the wider community.
6. Listen carefully:
Evangelism is to be seen as something other than what we say, but rather it involves deep listening to people’s heartfelt questions and objections to Christianity.
7. Focus on the frontline:
Evangelism must not be limited to invitational events where the church gathers with those willing to join with us. Wherever a Christian spends the greater part of their week – workplace, local community, recreational activities – is their frontline.
8. Keep it a priority for the whole church:
Ensure that evangelism is seen as a priority for the whole church. Gifted evangelists will be a minority in a congregation, but evangelism is a shared task of all God’s people.
9. Engage with culture:
Recognise that the wider culture, which will consist of a mix of secular, pluralist and postmodern thinking, is increasingly distanced from the beliefs and assumptions which undergird the lives of many Christians.
10. Foster new expressions of church:
Increasingly, there is a need to form new expressions of church, develop resource churches and focus on unreached generations which require a level of cultural agility beyond the ability of many congregations.
Read the full article here.
A great list. I would also add that those with a gift for evangelism in the congregation should be equipping others (Ephesians 4:11).
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From an article by Great Commission, 19/02/2019