Be The Fruit

We need to be the church – Evangelism Research

by Bill Blair on 06/05/08 at 3:46 am

Ed Stetzer recently posted on his blog about some new evangelism research that Lifeway Research has conducted.  The research dovetails with the idea that I am promoting here at Be The Fruit which is that believers need to focus on “being the church” rather than just going to church.  Here is a link to his post and here is a link to the main article on the research.  A quick summary is below:

The bottom line of the research is that unchurched people are not visiting churches; therefore, to impact the world for Christ by making new disciples, Christ-followers must engage non-believers with the gospel.  Stetzer comments how for many years churches have focused on “attractional ministry,” trying to create great programs to “attract” non-believers to a central location where they might hear the gospel.  Now, as the research suggests, non-believers just are not attracted to come to a church.  The research suggests that the only people who visit churches are already believers, so in order to produce true church growth (new believers), we must get outside the church and engage non-believers.

I liked one quote by Scott McConnell in particular:  “Some of the activities on our church calenders may actually be preventing effective evangelism by keeping believers away from the people they need to reach.”  I think this is very true.  See my last post about the idolatry of church for more about how “church” comes before God.

What is the solution?  Stetzer states:  “I believe we must move from attractional ‘come and see’ ministry to incarnational ‘go and tell’ and join Jesus in the harvest fields all around us.”

Now you know, and knowing is half the battle.   So, get out there and get after it.  Spread the good news of the gospel wherever you are.  Go make disciples.  By they way, this is not some new idea that was born out of the research, Jesus commanded all of us to do it!  So, go and obey.

On a side note, I was encouraged to read in the comments on Stetzer’s post that he concurs with me that there is not a “gift of evangelism,” but that we all should be prepared to go the full distance with gospel (scroll down on the comments to see where Ed states this here).  More on that sometime later.