By Gregg Boll, Executive Director of Missions
Early in my ministry, I attended the annual Missouri Baptist Evangelism Conference. One of the featured speakers was a pastor from South County, St. Louis named Phillip Hunter. Phillip’s church had experienced more than 200 baptisms in the prior year, and the majority of those baptisms were new believers from outside the church. Of course, everyone wanted to know how he accomplished that. He humbly explained that he didn’t do it, but the Spirit of God working through the people of God.
“But, what did he do?”, you ask. A couple of things. First, he preached on salvation and the power of the gospel. You know, stuff like the Great Commission and that the greatest need every human being has is forgiveness of sins and a relationship with the Lord, “as the Father has sent Me, so send I you”. Yes, and even preaching the Great Commandment to love your neighbor as yourself has evangelistic implications. After all, the most loving thing you can do for another person is to share the life-giving gospel with them. He challenged believers biblically about their responsibility to share their faith when the opportunity presented itself.
The tagline they gave to this emphasis on evangelism was “No More Excuses”. He asked the staff and key lay leaders to hold themselves to this commitment to share their faith. You can’t ask those you serve to do what you are unwilling to do. He taught and asked church members to write down the names of their lost friends in their prayer journal (he supplied them with a journal) and to pray for them. He taught them how to have “spiritual conversations” and how to share the gospel simply, succinctly, and biblically with their friends.
“Yes, Gregg, but what did he teach them to say to start a gospel conversation with lost people?” Here is the phrase he taught them that I think is brilliant and effective. When you discern that the conversation is at the appropriate place, you ask them, “I was wondering; has anyone ever taken the time to sit down with you and show you what the Bible is really all about, who Jesus is, and the place He wants to have in your life?” If they answer “no,” then you follow up with the question, “Would you like to get together in the next few days and do that?” Phil shared that in his experience, no one is threatened by this question, and most unbelievers will agree to meet to have this conversation. Obviously, there needs to be some instruction given about where, when, and how to have these gospel meetings in an appropriate way. If it is a woman you’re meeting with, have the conversation at your office with the church secretary nearby and the door open. Or, if outside the church, invite your wife to join you. You can use whatever presentation you prefer for these meetings, but I would keep it as short as possible, Christ-centered, and open the Bible and have them read the passages you want them to hear. A nice gesture, if possible, would be to present them with a Bible at this meeting.
So, what are the takeaways for you:
A Church of any size can do this. South County Baptist Church wasn’t a mega-church, just a church of 200 when they started this emphasis.
Pastors must preach, teach, and model evangelism for their people if they want it to happen. Repeating and promoting the “No More Excuses” idea was a way of developing a culture of evangelism and mutual accountability. Then, every new believer and their subsequent baptism celebrated by the church reinforces this new culture of evangelism.
To any pastor or church member reading this, I would emphasize that our churches must get back to building genuine relationships with lost people in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and play spaces. Pastors must become more intentional in developing this expectation among their members. The Art of Neighboring strategy is the best resource out there on mobilizing your members to live gospel-intentional lives in their neighborhoods.
Friends, we simply cannot and must not depend upon transfer growth, or biological growth (children of members); we never should have been satisfied with this to begin with. The best quote I ever heard on the need for believers and churches to evangelize was from Dr. John Bisagno, pastor of First Baptist Church of Houston, Texas. He said, “The Lord called us to be fishers of men, but instead we have become keepers of the aquarium, swapping fish from fishbowl to fishbowl.” The next best quote I heard was from Darrell Robinson in his book People Sharing Jesus. He writes, “Jesus said, ‘Follow Me and I will make you fishers of men.’ So, if you aren’t fishing, you aren’t following.” There are several cogent statements in his book, and I encourage you to buy it and use it in your equipping of the saints for the work of evangelism.
I hope this spurs you to prioritize the communication of the gospel. If you would like more information or help developing a culture of evangelism within your church, please reach out to me and let’s have a conversation. No more excuses.
