The P-Scale

There are a couple of simple scales that help illustrate the cultural distances between the announcers and hearers of the gospel and what it requires of each.

In an earlier post I presented the E-Scale, which represents the cultural distance that Christians go, or need to go, when sharing the gospel. This post will look at the P-Scale.

The P-Scale represents the cultural distance potential believers must move in order to join a church. Though the scale is principally a missionary tool for describing unreached people groups, it can be applied to local communities as well.

P-0: People “at home” in a local church setting.
(no cultural barriers to belief)

These people have not repented and trusted Jesus for forgiveness and eternal life. They do, however, have a great portion of their social circles within the church and its culture. P-zeros would feel out of place without the church culture around them. The unfortunate TV show Good Christian Belles is probably a good example of p-zeros.

John the Baptist was reaching out to p-zeros (E-0 evangelism) when he said “Produce fruit in that shows your repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, 'We have Abraham as our father.' For I tell you, God can raise up children for Abraham from these rocks.” These people did not need to leave their culture, the needed to change their hearts.

P-1:  People who could “fit in” at a local church with some adjustment.(1 barrier to belief, the micro-culture of the churched )

These people are those who don’t know or use the church vocabulary. They are not generally familiar with the church life of local churches and what these churches do. They do, however fit within the same cultural framework of many of the local churches. They may have many common points of interest and concern. (In Louisiana for example, Community coffee, Saints football, Crawfish boils, fishing, hunting, weddings and funerals in churches, etc.) In general, p-ones are firmly established as unfamiliar with the church, and may even have some antagonistic feelings towards church culture.

P-2:  People who would have to sacrifice themselves culturally to belong to a local church, requiring a significant loss of friendships and family ties.
(2 barriers to belief; culture itself, and the specific church culture as well.)

People who must cross barriers of culture, race, and identity in order to join a local fellowship of believers are very unlikely to be able to do that. When a p-two hears of Jesus, he may even develop high regard for Him, but he cannot see a way to become His disciples and still remain within his natural community. Faith in Jesus can mean immediate, significant, and even life-threatening persecution.

P-3:  People for whom there is no local church they could understand or in which they could reasonably participate.
(3 barriers to belief; language and communication, culture itself, and the micro-culture of the local church.)

Probably the most obvious and immediate example of p-threes are indigenous tribes who speak a language, that has no Christian work and whose culture has not developed a way of doing church.

How is this important to obeying the Great Commission?

There is something significant to take away from this.

Simply doing evangelism across these barriers (E1, E2, E3,and E4), is not going to be effective in reaching more than the occasional one or two over a lifetime of work. The call is to make disciples within the framework of a church and that can not happen if the only kind of church that exists is linguistically, culturally, and socially distant from the potential believer.

The only way P-2 and P-3 peoples will be reached is through evangelism and discipleship that has as it primary strategy, the starting of new indigenous churches among those in each culture. (By the way, this is the distinction I was making between daughter churches (p-0), church plants (p-1), mission churches (p2, p3) and church planting (p1, p2, p3) in the earlier post.)

No one church is going to reach its town or city for Christ, especially in modern-day America. There are so many different backgrounds, languages, cultures, and tribes that any one church that attempts to reach them all will not only fail, it will probably break itself. Wise churches find the appropriate means of reaching people across each barrier, and they work together with other churches to get the job done.

"Don't ask, don't tell."

"Don't ask, don't tell" (DADT) was the official United States policy on homosexuals serving in the military from December 21, 1993 to September 20, 2011. The policy prohibited military personnel from discriminating against or harassing closeted homosexual or bisexual service members or applicants, while barring openly gay, lesbian, or bisexual persons from military service. --Wikipedia.org

Steve Addison, of Movements that Change the World, just posted a nice blog entry called “They don’t ask. We don’t tell.” He makes a very good point in a tongue-in-cheek way.

The truth is, many Christians have come to an unspoken agreement with the world, that they will simply live their lives as private Christians and share the gospel only when overtly approached. This is a popular misapplication of a quote misattributed to Francis of Assisi. “Preach the gospel, and if necessary, use words.” The world responds to this truce with great enthusiasm by simply not asking any questions.

As you think about your relationships with your neighbors, co-workers, butchers, bakers, and baristas, have you been operating out of a don’t ask, don’t tell policy? How can you change that? What will change in your world if your Christianity were 100% overt? Are you willing to see that happen?

Dr. Kelly’s Observations on Evangelism in the SBC

Dr. Chuck Kelley, the president and professor of evangelism at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, wrote an article called “The New Methodists,” highlighting the decades of stagnancy and decline in the Southern Baptist Convention. I met Dr Kelley a few times and he has always impressed me as a man in love with God. I always want to read what he has to share.

Below is a brief summary and some some quotables from the article. You can read the whole article here:

• Part 1: The history of evangelism in the SBC
• Part 2: The current state of evangelism in the SBC
• Part 3: What has gone Wrong?
• Part 4: What we have to do to fix things.

My Summary

In 1945 Southern Baptists baptized approximately 257,000 people into their churches. In 1955, only ten years later, they baptized approximately 417,000 people, almost doubling in just ten years.  How did we do it?

• from their earliest beginnings they emphasized church planting.
• [they] continually affirmed for the congregation the importance of sharing Christ with the lost.
• [they] used decisional preaching… preaching which calls for an immediate and public response.
• personal evangelism throughout the community.
• Sunday School became the cultivation strategy for SBC churches.
• [they] used revival meetings as their primary harvest tool.

It was not the individual methods used that produced such an incredible harvest. Rather, the interaction of those methods with each other created an integrated process described in the New Testament as sowing and reaping.

[Southern Baptists have] reduced planting, neglected cultivation, and not surprisingly have found the harvest coming up short.

Money [for evangelism] is not the crucial issue reducing our fruitfulness. Having more money will not turn things around.

The gospel’s power is not the crucial issue. Our message has the same power to transform any human life today that it had in the first century of the church.

Discipleship is the crucial issue. 

We are not anointed – that “we” would be you, me and all of us at work in places with little evidence of the activity of the Holy Spirit. We are so not anointed we have come to accept not being anointed as normal.
[We] have become so focused on discovering a method that works; [we] fail to realize an integrated process is far more important than any one method that is a part of that process.

More importantly, Southern Baptists are becoming the new Methodists.

• Universalism is settling into our pews as more and more Southern Baptists believe and behave as though they believe a personal relationship with Christ is not necessary for one to be right with God.
• Tolerance is beginning to overtake conviction as growing numbers, particularly of younger Southern Baptists, are less comfortable with taking a firm stance on moral or doctrinal issues.
• More importantly, our behavior, the way we live our lives, is blending more and more with our culture. We are growing ever less distinct and recognizable in the crowd of our nation’s population.

When our baptismal numbers started to weaken, we intensified our focus on evangelistic strategies and methods. Hear this from one who is an evangelist by calling. We should have paid more attention to our discipleship process.

We are blending in more than we are standing out.

Our problem is not that more of us don’t witness to our neighbors. Our problem is that more of us do not look like and live like Jesus.

Here is what we know stated as simply as I know how to state it:

In times past God has worked through our Southern Baptist churches in a mighty way. In times present God is not working in a mighty way through our churches. How are you going to respond to this?

Platform Ministries Part 1 - Benefits

Platform ministries are what I call the regular, programmed ministries of a church.   They are usually done on the church property and with a certain amount of regularity. These ministries go a long way in establishing a church’s identity and personality. They are so called, because the church itself is, or provides, the platform for the ministry. To that end, these ministries also do a good job of assimilating people into the existing church culture.

Platform Ministries Include:

• Regular Worship Services
• Sunday Schools, Youth Ministry Programs, and Children’s Church
• Choir, Awana, RAs &GAs, Women’s Ministries, Etc.
• Grief and Addiction Recovery Ministries
• Follow-up Visitation and Homebound Ministries.
• Church Events, Fellowship Meals, and Concerts
• Vacation Bible Schools and Revivals
• Mother’s day out, Day Camp, etc.

Platform ministries usually have a steady structure and leadership and have their schedules printed in the bulletins and on church websites. They have a specific scope, purpose, reach, and expectation. Because of their nature, platform ministries are usually consistent in reaching people within their target audience.

Platform Ministries can Lead to Consistent Baptisms.

Strong platform ministries are characteristic of my home church. The late 70s and early 80s had been a period of staggering growth. (I was baptized in 1982). As our part of the city developed, the church expanded proportionally. Throughout the early 90s my church was among the state leaders in baptisms. During this time, new ministries were being developed left and right.

As we approached the millennium, with no new neighborhoods springing up, church growth became predictable and plateaued. By the time I came on staff in 2000, however, the church had already established a good number of platform ministries. Each one could be counted on for a certain number of baptisms each cycle. We were baptizing between 30 and 60 each year while I served there. The church continues to baptize in this range every year.

Interestingly enough, when the church went through a split a few years ago, attendance dropped by more than half, but something peculiar and particularly good happened. The platform ministries of the church continued regular operation during this time and they continued to reach the same steady number of people as they always had. In fact, many of the church’s platform ministries go back several pastors deep, and even after a full generation in operation, they continue.

A Well-Oiled Machine

Wise pastors work for decades building up their churches and their respective platform ministries. They know that these ministries are good vehicles for discipling both workers and seekers. They know that they are good vehicles for developing community and comradery, as well. They see how platform ministries build a sense of obligation, responsibility, and ownership within the church. Most of all, they know that every platform ministry can be an outreach machine in its own right, and consistently bring new people into the fold.

Platform ministries are not automatically evangelistic, however. They tend to be nurturing and communal by nature. So, if a church is evangelistically passive, its platform ministries will not lead to many baptisms. I have mentioned before in this blog that highly evangelistic churches do not attribute their success to having unique ministries. Rather they intentionally connect their platform ministries to evangelism.

Next Post: Platform Ministries Part 2 - Drawbacks and Limitations

That awkward discomfort of sharing faith.

“I don’t like it when you talk like that.”

I had an eye-opening experience a year or so ago. I had taken my son with me to preach at a church we had never been to. Now, when speakers go to a church they do not know very well, they really try to gauge the formality of the church and make themselves fit. That’s what I did.

I was wearing a suit and looked the part of a traditional pastor. After being called on to share the message from God’s word, I stood up in the pulpit and introduced myself and my family. I then slipped into that preachy rhythm of inflection and pause as I made my way through the text and the message. It was a good message, and I was as close to my radio voice as I could get.

When the service was over, I went over to see my son. He had a somewhat sad, somewhat frightened look on his face. I asked him what was wrong.

“I don’t like it when you talk like that,” came his reply.

I had unconsciously changed my tone and style so much, my son didn’t recognize me. While it has seemed appropriate for the context, it was a big enough change that it made my son, who had just turned four, uncomfortable.

They don’t like it when you talk like that either.

This might be a good picture of why many feel such awkwardness in personal evangelism. People often change their tone when they bring up spiritual matters, especially when they are hoping to convert someone. It may be subtle or pronounced, but this change is often enough that the hearer doesn’t feel like he recognizes his friend anymore. Sometimes the would-be soul winner doesn’t recognize himself either. When this happens, faith sharing becomes and uncomfortable experience for all involved.

One of the most effective things about Jesus was that He didn’t switch into another mode to talk about God. Whether standing in the synagogue or picking wheat along the path, his purpose was consistent, and so was his conversation and style.

I mentioned in a previous post (daily evangelism), that the most effective soul winners are those whose daily speech is so full of God, that there is no distinguishing line between general conversation and “making a gospel presentation.” They don’t have to switch modes or change their tone.

Awkwardness will happen for everyone who is just getting started (or just getting started again) sharing their faith. It should not be an excuse to remain quiet. It is something, however, we should be aware of and work towards eliminating.

Daily Practices

Here are three ways to help turn sharing Christ into a regular habit.

• Give away Bibles. Invest in ten nice Bibles in the ten to twenty dollar range. Have them ready to give away at every appropriate opportunity. Keep a few in the trunk of your car. Wrap up a few as presents for any unexpected occasion. Put one or two in your office desk. Give them away as the Holy Spirit leads. Set a goal to give away at least one a week.
• Mention your devotional. Take a key thought with you from your daily bible reading. Find at least five opportunities each day to say. “I learned something about God today.” If anyone asks what you learned, share the scripture and the insight. If they show more interest, set a time to talk more at their home.

• Offer to pray. There are a thousand opportunities every day to commit things to the Father or to ask for help. Prayer doesn’t need to be a private personal practice. Anytime there is an opportunity offer to pray for that person and pray with that person. Show how your faith is not just “in theory.”

Lessons from Methodists – Part 1 of 3

John Wesley is one of the names most connected with the Methodist church. Wesley’s disciples were called Methodists because they methodically sought to obey the Lord in all areas of their lives by observing three main rules:

• Do no harm.
• Do as much good possible.
• Use every means of grace that God has given.

The result of this simple form of discipleship is seen in the history books. This revival became widespread and affected society to such a degree that it is credited with creating England’s middle class. This in a time when poverty was the reality for four out of every five Britons. The transformation brought about is also said to have saved England from a bloody revolution.¹

Revivals that not only save souls, but transform families and change societies are acts of God that are worth studying and learning from. In this post we will look at the first area of change in the lifestyle of Wesley’s disciples: “Do no harm.”

They Abandoned Sinful Habits.

In teaching his disciples to do no harm, John Wesley led them to form small groups where they encouraged one another to abandon the sinful habits ruining their lives. These accountability groups, as we might call them today, provided a places where new followers of Jesus could confess their sins one to another and pray for one another. They prayed for self-control, something the Holy Spirit produces (Galatians 5:22-23).

The three sinful habits these disciples were admonished to abandon were drunkenness, fighting, and sexual immorality. These three sins in particular had caused a devastating effect on the society.

Widespread drunkenness caused a man-made famine. The demand for gin meant that half of the country’s grain crops went to making alcohol instead of bread. Drunkenness also led to fighting, of course. Violent crime was such a part of life that not even frequent, capital punishment in the forms of public hangings was an effective as a deterrent. Sexual immorality led to rampant illegitimacy, which continued the cycle of poverty.

When new converts became dedicated followers of Jesus they repented of these self-destructive habits. “Believers stayed sober and quit doing the crazy and dangerous things intoxicated people do. They stopped fighting and thus avoided the injuries and feuds that destroy productivity. They abandoned promiscuity and started valuing their families and raising their children. Simply renouncing these three self-destructive behaviors greatly improved the economic lives of the Methodists.”²

Outreach Means Calling People to Repentance 

Every sinful behavior is destructive. That is its nature. In every temptation to sin there is a lie that something good will come, but it is a lie. What really comes is loss, brokenness and finally death.

The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.  - John 10:10

Calling people to repentance is good news, when offered with the hope that Christ brings. To all who repent, there is forgiveness. To all who have bartered their souls, there is life. To all those who desire an escape, there is strength.

Peter declared it plainly: "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself."

An area in which we may have become weak in evangelism and discipleship is in helping people to see the consequences of sinful behavior and where it leads. For many, it is not enough to simply tell them “For all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” We need to be able expose the lie behind each sin, and show clearly how that path leads to death.

The gospel is not simply, “believe like me, and get a pass to heaven.” There is no real hope in that. The gospel is that God will not only forgive us of our past transgressions, when we repent and believe in Jesus, but that as we become his disciples, he gives each of us the power to escape the enslaving power of sin, and to walk away from it.

What About Modern Day Hellholes?

There are places so overcome by sin that they are as dangerous as a warzone. Here in Brazil the favelas, or slums, have that reputation. Escalating violence, poverty, illegitimacy, drug use, drunkenness, organized gang crime, and all kinds of abuse are the reality. In places like these, it is easy to see how sin leads to a culture of hopelessness and death.

Who is willing to go into the dangerous places like these and proclaim the gospel that brings life, even if means laying down his own?

(In a future post, we will look at biblical strategies for going into murderously dangerous places.)
Notes

1. This series of posts and the information with respect to Wesley’s revival contained therein is mostly a summary of an excellent piece written by Charles White and Robby Butler for Mission Frontiers outlining the impact of John Wesley’s ministry. The full article is available for download as a PDF file by clicking the picture below. I highly recommend it.
2. Ibid.

Seven Billion Souls - Considerations for Evangelism

World Population: 7,000,000,000 and counting.

A few months ago the newspapers and magazines here in Brazil were headlining the the 7,000,000,000th baby had been born somewhere in India. This, of course, just a guess based on the UN’s 2010 Revision of the World Population Prospects. According to the US Census Bureau we won’t reach that number until March 12th, 2012.

 

The world population has increased by 4 billion since 1960.

The amazing thing in these reports is not really that we’ve made it to seven billion as a planet, but that it has come so rapidly. Fifty years ago there were right at three billion people living on the planet, now there are seven. According to most predictions, in just fifteen years time, we will add yet another billion to our planet.

Discipleship must outstrip the population growth rate. In the US, it doesn’t.

In the US, our Southern Baptist Convention churches are discipling at this rate:

• There are about 313 million people in the US, less than 5% of the world.
• There are about 16 million SBC Christians, about 5% of the US population.
• It takes 50 SBC Christians together a year’s time to baptize a single disciple.
• Each baptism comes at an average cost of $35,000 in church spending.
• It takes 65 SBC churches together a year’s time to start one new church.

*Source: 2010 church growth indicators for the Southern Baptist Convention

Now, to be fair, one must also consider that the SBC is the largest missions sending agency in the world, and these numbers do not reflect the foreign mission work these churches fund. On the other hand, delegating someone to “do the work for you” is not really full obedience.

The bottom line is that disciple making and church planting are not in the DNA of the majority of SBC churches. These churches, by their fruit, show that they either do not know how to grow the kingdom, or do not care. Personally, I believe they do care, but just don’t know how to change.

Questions for your church.

• Is my church currently reproducing spiritual newborns at a higher rate than the population growth?
• Is my church currently reproducing other churches at a higher rate than the population growth?
• What is it going to take to be able to answer those questions affirmatively?

 

*UPDATE

I just started reading an article that is putting some perspective on this. The article “When Feelings Bend Statistics,” gives some good arguments against the unnecessary pessimism with respect to world evangelization. The article is over 2o years old, but gives a good reason for pause on the hand wringing.

Here is an interesting graph from the article:

My Favorite Posts of 2011

Here are my favorite posts on going Beyond Outreach from 2011, a year with few posts.

1. Daily Evangelism

   The best evangelists I know are not pastors or preachers. They are not ordained. They are not very good public speakers. They are not “leaders” in the business sense of the word. Most of them work full time jobs, but they are lower-middle class at best.
   
   What separates these evangelists from the rest of the pack, including me, is that they can not have a conversation about anything without including Jesus. Read more ...
   
   

2. Excluding People from the Good News!

   Ninety Percent of church evangelism methods, discipleship materials, and ministry strategy targets the highly literate. In fact, the overwhelming majority of church ministry is done in such a way that it is difficult or impossible for an oral preference learner to follow.
   
   Many churches have not addressed the need to evangelize and disciple using oral methods because they have not felt the need. There are always enough literate prospects in the area to grow a church. The result is, that a great number of people are selectively excluded from the gospel message.  Read more...
   
   

3. When Values Collide

   It is among those outside of traditional church culture that the fields are white unto harvest. This is where the lost sheep have gone...[Unfortunately,] many Christians think that crossing cultures is a step beyond the general mandate. 
   
   
   One of the great challenges for churches, however, is to make that transition to real evangelism among those who don’t readily fit. Many churches don’t even understand that a transition is needed because they have a skewed perspective of who they really are... But the values a church claims to hold are not always the values a church demonstrates by its actions. A church’s true values are revealed in their behavior, not their mission statements. Read more ...
   
   

4. Top Evangelistic Churches–Things to Copy

   Just 3% of the churches in the Georgia Baptist Convention accounted for more than 26% of  all the baptisms in the state association in 2008. These churches reached and baptized nearly ten times as many people as the typical Georgia Baptist church of the same size.
   
   These churches were studied and the Georgia Baptist Convention published a booklet revealing the statistics and lessons learned from these churches...  Here is my summary of the top ten observations underscored in this booklet. Read more...
   
   

5. Daily Telling

   All day long I will tell the wonderful things you do to save your people. But you have done much more than I could possibly know. -Somewhere in Psalm 71

   One of the greatest means of evangelism is a daily broad-based telling of what you have learned of God each day. Like scattering or sowing seed, some will land on good soil and produce a harvest of souls. It is neither argumentative nor manipulative (a straw-man argument many make against witnessing). Read more...
   
   .
   

Daily Telling

All day long I will tell the wonderful things you do to save your people. But you have done much more than I could possibly know. -Somewhere in Psalm 71

But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord GOD my refuge, that I may tell of all your works. –Somewhere in Psalm 73

Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will tell what he has done for my soul.  - Somewhere in Psalm 66

One of the greatest means of evangelism is a daily broad-based telling of what you have learned of God each day. Like scattering or sowing seed, some will land on good soil and produce a harvest of souls. It is neither argumentative nor manipulative (a straw-man argument many make against witnessing).

Start your day with meditation on God’s Word and prayer. Spend the rest of the day telling people, everyone, as you can and as it fits, what you learned from God. If there is no natural in, just say “Today I learned something about God,” or “God taught me something today,” or “I read something interesting in the Bible today.” Just leave it out there. Some will ask, “What was it?”

Share.  Do this daily.

If you don’t meditate of God’s word regularly, you won’t have much to share, and you will keep quiet. So, build this habit too, if you haven’t already.

(Oh, and if you are the singing type, by all means, sing!)

I will sing of the mercies of the LORD for ever: with my mouth will I make known thy faithfulness to all generations. –Somewhere in Psalm 89

An Example from Ecuador

I posted earlier in A Guide to Getting Beyond Typical Church Outreach about good soil producing a minimum 2,900% increase. (By the way, now that I am recovered from surgery and travel, I plan to post the rest of that guide soon.)

I also posted an example of this in post WWII China in the post An Observation of Good Soil.

Guy Muse, one of our IMB missionaries serving in Ecuador relates another great example of this declaration of Jesus. This story is so simple and personal. A great read. Here is an excerpt.

What follows is an attempt to briefly describe how seed planted in the life of just one person has produced well over the 100-fold described in Matthew 13...

Marlene was a member of a local Baptist church in Guayaquil. For several years she tried to motivate her fellow brothers and sisters to be more engaged in evangelism, discipleship, and church planting. Excuses were always along the lines of "it is not in this year's budget," "we have a meeting planned to discuss this next month," "we have several outreach activities planned this year that will hopefully bring some new people into our church," "we don't have the money to plant a new church." No surprise that little to nothing was being done.

Marlene was part of an organic church planting training we were asked to do at her church through an invitation made to us by the pastor.
At the end of the training, Marlene respectfully requested permission to start a new house church, explaining to her pastor she wanted to put into practice what had been learned during the training. Her pastor gave his blessing.

Within a few weeks Marlene had won several friends and neighbors to the Lord through her house-to-house visitation, and through contacts made in her local business.

The first year Marlene baptized 18 and spent many hours discipling these new believers. They began meeting several times per week in Marlene's home as a new church start. The "mother church" with all their programs, budget, and paid ministry staff baptized three people that same year.

The story continues, relating how the discipling of one specific couple led to an entire family network coming to Jesus (30 fold), then how relatives, friends and neighbors were reached (60 fold), and finally how this turned into a network of new churches of new believers (100 fold). Read it all in the post 30,60 and 100-fold on The M Blog.

I was right about 50 to 1

In my previous post I said “Years of church baptism reports seem to indicate that in a year’s time, typical church outreach wins about one person to Jesus for every 50 church members.” I was worried about that opening line, because it wasn’t sourced. I figured it out with a calculator and several annual reports from various state conventions.

Now, I can cite Lifeway as a source: http://www.lifeway.com/article/170781/

According to this article evaluating the 2010 SBC statistics on baptism and church membership, Southern Baptist churches reported 332,321 baptisms in 2010. Total membership was reported at 16,136,044.

That means that last year our churches won just one person to Jesus for every 49 church members. My observation was right on target.

This is sad. 

Getting Beyond Typical Church Outreach. (Update)

I posted “A Guide to Getting Beyond Typical Church Outreach, Part One” a couple of weeks ago. This article has become larger than a typical blog post and needs to be divided up even more. When I conclude I will likely post the entire article as a PDF download. This is an update of part one.

Years of church baptism reports seem to indicate that in a year’s time, typical church outreach wins about one person to Jesus for every 50 church members.

Of course there are many churches above and below the curve. Very large churches with a full spectrum of ministries, large budgets, and multiple staff members are generally able to reach a very predictable number of people each year. (It is actually kind of scary to see how some churches have the almost exactly same number of baptisms year in and year out.)

Sometimes, small churches with part-time staff and virtually no resources are able to out baptize the big ones. I recommend paying attention to those churches.

There are a number of churches, though, that do the outreach programs and follow them faithfully and struggle to baptize more than a handful of people in a year's time. When a church is not evangelistic, it is doing something wrong.

As I counsel churches to begin to break new ground evangelistically, these are things I believe to be essential.

1. Begin with Prayer.

Prayer is essential to reaching a city for Jesus. It is the starting point for everything we do, and should permeate everything that is done. Prayer ought to take up a significant portion of our daily time. When do not pray, our thoughts, our affections, and our work all serve our own interests rather than God’s. Without prayer it is impossible to succeed in ministry. You might as well not even try.

In my experience most Christians do not spend even ten full minutes in prayer each day. They may say prayers at meals, when getting up and going to bed, and during weekly church prayer meetings, but they do not spend as much time praying as they do talking on the phone or even watching commercials on TV.

Change this one thing and watch the Kingdom of God advance.

For further reading, see “Praying for Others as Outreach,” “How to Pray for Other Christians” and by Paul Watson,  "Growing Closer to God through Facebook Prayer.”

2. Elevate Scripture

Scripture is our final authority for faith and practice. It is the source for all preaching and teaching. Everyone should be conditioned to go directly to the Bible for instruction, answers, examples and warnings. If dependence is established on any teacher (or Bible study guide or book), other than holy scripture and the holy spirit, then evangelism will stagnate.

Elevate scripture over constitution and by-laws. Lovingly challenge church leaders to compare policies with those of Scripture as they relate to evangelism, church planting, and providing for leadership. Let this comparison be the subject of prayer and an open forum. If church policies put burdensome prerequisites on obedience to commands in scripture, reproduction will be stifled.

Elevate scripture by teaching obedience. Passive learners, hearers only, are not only disobedient, but they model disobedience to new Christians. Obedience is more important than knowledge. Every Bible study should end with an opportunity for people to share what they will do in obedience to the passage learned. Gaining insight is not spiritual growth, obedience is.

For further reading see: Obedience Based Discipleship by David Watson, and Three Levels of Church Authority, by George Patterson (PDF)

3. Set a Goal for 10,000% Reproduction

That sounds silly, but it is biblical. Through the parable of the sower, Jesus likened the gospel to seed falling on the ground. On good soil the seed sprouts, grows and reproduces 30, 60, and even 100 times. That corresponds to a 2,900%, 5,900%, and 9,900% increase.

By comparison, my home association, the Baptist Association of Greater Baton Rouge, reported just over 42,000 church members in 2010 and just under 700 baptisms for the year. That is about a 1.6% increase. Over a generation of 40 years that corresponds to a 64% increase. According to Jesus, the worst yield in good soil should be a 2,900% increase.

Setting a goal requires your church to be intentional about reproduction and to have a plan. That plan must be bigger than your church and, really, bigger than your association. So many pastors prepare “bold” plans to fill their sanctuaries, or the sanctuaries of the new buildings they envision. Regularly filling a dream sanctuary to seating capacity is not a Kingdom goal.

When we settle for mediocre reproduction, we are negligent. Sinfully so.

For further reading see: How to Measure Success as a Pastor. When a Church Changes Size, An Observation of Good Soil and Grow Your Church or Reach Your Community?  



Coming Soon:

4. Do the Hard Work of Evangelism

5. Become a Master of Group Dynamics.

6. Commission, Commission, Commission.

An Observation of Good Soil

This post is loosely related to my previous post A Guide to Getting Beyond Typical Church Outreach: http://beyondoutreach.blogspot.com/2011/05/guide-to-getting-beyond-typical-church.html

Kenneth Keathley, was a professor of mine at NOBTS. He has posted a very interesting article answering the question of how many Chinese Christians there are in China. He wrote:

[In] a recent First Things article (First Things, May 2011, pp. 14-16), three Baylor sociologists claim they have arrived at a reasonably accurate count, and they place the number at 70 million [Christians].

When the Communists came to power in 1949, there were about one million Chinese professing Christians at that time…  The Communist government outlawed religion, so the fledgling Christian church was expected to disappear.  However, by the last quarter of the 20th century it was clear that, rather than dissolving, Christianity was growing in China--and growing rapidly…

What can we conclude about these findings?  On the upside, there is the simple fact that the church in China has grown from one million to 70 million.  A 70-fold increase in 60 years is remarkable by anyone's reckoning.  It also means that in China there are more professing Christians than there are members of the Communist Party.

You can read the full article here: http://www.theologyforthechurch.com/1/post/2011/05/how-many-chinese-christians-are-there.html

This is a 6,900% increase. That fits quite nicely in the curve or a 30, 60 and 100 fold return that Jesus cited in the parable of the sower. Good soil.

Reading Roundup

What are the least churched cities in America? How does giving to missions affect local church budgets? How can one have integrity online? What is an inexpensive way to start a new church? Do churches have a life-cycle? Is each one reach one really the best evangelism strategy?

• DJ Chuang: Least Churched Cities in America http://goo.gl/Ysb0k
• Dan Bouchelle: The Crippling Lie of Zero Sum Math http://goo.gl/F6sDB
• Luke Gilkerson: Internet Accountability Crash Course http://goo.gl/UpCmW
• Les Puryear: How to Plant a Church with Little or No Outside Funding http://goo.gl/X3eYe
• Thom Rainer: Where Have all the Churches Gone? http://goo.gl/pE45H
• Dan Bouchelle: Why You Shouldn’t Try to Save a Single Solitary Person. http://goo.gl/Pvf9N

I want to add an older one to this list, because I think it gets to the heart of oikos evangelism and disciple making. Group dynamics and starting the right way are essential in both discipleship and multiplication. This is one of the best articles with respect to the group process.

• Paul Watson: Small Groups that have the DNA of a Gospel Planting Movement http://goo.gl/VypO7

Excluding People from the Good News!

Ninety Percent of church evangelism methods, discipleship materials, and ministry strategy targets the highly literate. In fact, the overwhelming majority of church ministry is done in such a way that it is difficult or impossible for an oral preference learner to follow.

Look at these recent findings:

• The National Institute for Literacy estimates that 47% of adults (more than 200,000 individuals) in the City of Detroit are functionally illiterate, referring to the inability of an individual to use reading, speaking, writing, and computational skills in everyday life situations.
• Approximately half of these individuals have a high school diploma or GED, so this issue cannot be solely addressed by a focus on adult high-school completion.
• A number of municipalities demonstrate illiteracy rates rivaling Detroit: Southfield at 24%, Warren at 17%, Inkster at 34%, Pontiac at 34%.

View a copy of the report in PDF format

Many churches have not addressed the need to evangelize and disciple using oral methods because they have not felt the need. There are always enough literate prospects in the area to grow a church. The result is, that a great number of people are selectively excluded from the gospel message.

To use a fishing metaphor, no one is fishing for Brim because plenty of Bass are biting their bait. The problem with this is that the church is not to be full of fishers of men in the sporting sense. The church is called to fish with nets. The call is to rescue the perishing. All of the “fish” in the water are dying and will die unless pulled out of the sea of death and given the water of life.

So many churches are not genuinely concerned with winning the lost. What they deeply desire is to reach enough people to fill up their sanctuaries and meet their annual budgets. The goal of many churches is not to preach to gospel to every creature. That may be the stated goal, but the real goal is to present the gospel to just enough to win a few each year and keep the church comfortably full. At least, that is what national evangelism and discipleship results seem to indicate.

Has your church considered orality in its ministry?

Here are some resources for learning how to evangelize and disciple others using oral methods:

Story4All – http://story4all.com Since most of today’s unreached have to, or prefer to, receive information via non-literate means, we believe it is essential that we communicate with them in a style and language that they understand. To this end we have launched the story4all podcast with a weekly show that will bring you news, interviews, discussion, reviews and links to resources that will help you discover the power of storying.

The International Orality Network – http://oralbible.com ION exists to influence the Body of Christ to make disciples of all oral learners and to radically influence the way oral preference learners are evangelized and discipled in every people group.

Simply the Story – http://www.simplythestory.org Most of the Christian discipleship, and even evangelism strategies use literate methods of communication. Importantly, the concepts we use for Simply The Story employ methods that are readily understood by oral as well as literate learners, so this very big gap is filled.

My Bible Storying Journal – http://smy2brazil.blogspot.com This is an on-line journal of some of my experiences teaching the Bible in oral form.

Interview with a Street Evangelist part 1

On Easter Sunday, we had a barbecue here at our new home in Brazil. A friend of mine, Sergio, was one of the ones who came. Sergio is a man who is constantly reaping a harvest of souls for the Kingdom.

I had been unpacking some more boxes and remembered that I had put my audio recorder in a backpack. So, I went downstairs and got it. (We have often barbecues on the roof in Brazil.) I interviewed Sergio for about an hour.

In the next few posts, I am going to share some of his evangelism stories, and some of his thoughts on evangelism. The interview is recorded in Portuguese, and I may make that available at the end of this series.  I will also finish with a post of my own observations from what he shared.

Sergio is an evangelist in the mold of those I wrote about in the post Daily Evangelism.