BAGBR Baptisms

The Baptist Association of Greater Baton Rouge is my home association. I am always interested in what is happening there evangelistically. Here are the statistics I mined out of the State convention reports from the past few years.

Year	2008	2009	2010	2011
Churches and Missions	103	104	100	97
Total Baptisms in Association	731	611	689	639
Churches Reporting 2 Baptisms or Less	34	35	32	30
Churches not Reporting Anything	12	19	14	16

Not too impressed.

When I have time, I will count out the median baptisms.  The PDFs can’t be processed by a spreadsheet program so I will have to enter it all in manually. My guess is that it will be around 4 baptisms per church.

Why Growing Your Church and Reaching Your Community are not the Same Thing

"Growing your church" and "Reaching your community" are the most queried search terms leading people to this blog. Sometimes these phrases are separate, but more often than not they appear together, “How can I grow my church and reach my community.”

Growing a church and reaching a community are both great goals, but they are not the same goal. They seek two different ends and require two different strategies.

When one thinks about growing a church, they usually think in terms of numerical growth, attendance, or the oft cited B’s: baptisms, budget, and buildings. However, when one thinks of reaching the community, they are thinking of how to communicate the gospel to those in the area that are outside the church. The two ideas can work hand in hand, but the second one is much larger in scope than the first.

Imagine a couple of fishermen on the lake in a fishing boat. They have a goal of catching as many fish as they can. What they can fish, however is limited by the size of their ice chest. Whatever technique they use, whatever part of the lake they fish in, their work is done when the ice chest is full.

Whether or not we want to admit it, churches operate much like those fishermen, concerned with outreach until the building is full. Then they turn to maintenance or expansion (a more expensive option). Churches that choose to expand, continue the outreach until the new building is full, then they turn must make the decision again, expansion or maintenance.

Even the largest mega churches are unable to reach an entire city. At best they reach 1-2%. In my opinion, the question that needs to be asked is not, how can we grow our church, but rather how can we reach our community? What is it going to take? What needs to change about the way we are doing things? Those are harder questions to answer.

Thinking of the fishermen might help when thinking of the task of the Great Commission. What would they need to change? What is our parallel?

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

Lessons from Methodists – Part 3 of 3

John Wesley’s disciples, called Methodists, methodically sought to obey the Lord in all areas of their lives by observing three main rules:

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

This simple, small-group discipleship saved souls, transformed families, and changed British society.

The first post in this series looked at the outcome of the first area of change in the lifestyle of Wesley’s disciples: “Do no harm.” The second post focused on the second area change: “Do as much good as possible.” This final post in the series will look at the third area: “Use every means of grace that God has given.”

They Lived up to Their God Given Potential.

Rules one and two are relatively straightforward. Rule number three doesn’t communicate well nowadays. We just don’t call things a means of God’s grace anymore. For me “means of grace” brings up the image of sacraments. Simplified, however, a means of grace is just a way God has made it possible for us to experience Him. Reading God’s Word might be an example.

For the Methodists, this was one means of God’s grace that was identified as neglected among many Britons, because of their inability to read. Reading is a learned skill, but it is something that God has given us the capacity to learn to do. God’s word had been made available in print and so, it was means of grace. A means which was unavailable to the illiterate.

In their small group meetings, besides encouraging one another to abandon sinful habits and do good works, Methodists read the Bible together and sang hymns. John Wesley’s brother Charles had written thousands of hymns. They were taught line by line, by rote, singing them and having them sung back. The hymns were published sold cheaply. When Methodists sang with their hymn books, they were teaching themselves to read by matching the written words with the ones they knew and sang by heart. It was a very effective method.

This new-found literacy gave Methodists the ability to do more than they ever could before, they communicated better, found better jobs, did business transactions for themselves and more. What they learned from reading scripture gave them the wisdom to live well. Combined with the changes in character of doing no harm and doing much good, seeking God through reading made the lives of Methodists much better. They were no longer living in poverty, but attained for themselves a dignified life. As a group, they created Britain's middle class.

Man’s Accomplishments or God’s Grace?

The Methodist motive for embracing literacy provides a good lens through which to view technology in general. Advancements in travel, communication, health, and the like can all provide better opportunities to both proclaim God’s glory and to seek it. While the world would use technology as a modern day Babble tower, Christians and churches should be proactive in utilizing all available technologies as a means of grace, helping others to know God worship him.

For a long time I followed a podcast called Geeks and God, which focused on how computer and internet technology can be used to benefit the church and spread the gospel. I have a friend, a son of a missionary, who dedicated a couple of years of his life to exploring how to create gospel communities through online social networks and massively multiplayer roleplaying games. Michael Card worked with a number of others to create Godly expressions of Art available on the Internet, seeking to call others to go and do likewise.

Can you think of a dozen ways your church is either embracing technology as a possible means of grace? Can you think of a dozen ways it is missing an opportunity? What needs to change? Following the example of the Methodists, there is a lot at stake.

I hope you enjoyed this small series.

Notes

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 Charles Wesley’s ministry. The full article is available for download as a PDF file by clicking the picture below. I highly recommend it.

The E-Scale

Ralph Winter was one of the best when it came to explaining the missionary task of world evangelism. One of the simple ways he helped categorize the situation was by the use of the E-Scale and P-Scale.  These graphs simply showed the cultural distances between the announcers and hearers of the gospel and what it requires of each.

I want to look specifically at the E-Scale in this post, and the P-Scale in another.

The E-Scale represents the cultural distance that Christians go, or need to go, when sharing the gospel.

E-0 Evangelism

E-0 evangelism is evangelism that takes place within the church. This is reaching out to those who already attend or participate in local church activities. Examples of this kind of evangelism in local church practice would be Sunday school evangelism, Christmas cantatas, and perhaps follow-up visitation.

There is no need for the Christian to move outside of his own culture or cultural boundary, as the one he is seeking to reach is already a part of it. It’s greatest focus is renewing wayward Christians and bringing those who participate, but haven’t yet believed to the point of a personal decision.

E-1 Evangelism

E-1 evangelism is evangelism that takes places outside of the church, but to the same culture. This is reaching out to those who do not participate in any local church activities, but otherwise have mostly similarities with respect to cultural views and practices. A good example of this in local church practice is personal evangelism.

There is very little need for the Christian to move outside of his own culture, as the one he is seeking will already fits in pretty well with the church culture. It’s greatest focus is on reaching lost family members of Christians, their co-workers, and others with whom they may already associate outside of church.

E-2 Evangelism

E-2 evangelism is cross-cultural evangelism into a similar, but different culture. This is reaching out to those who may or may not speak the same language, but certainly have different backgrounds. The best example of this in local church practice is probably church sponsored short-term mission trips.

Here there is a need for the Christian to stretch himself and become aware of his own cultures additions to biblical practices, as the one he is seeking will often find them to be hindrances to faith. It’s greatest focus is not on bringing people into the church, but rather bringing the church to a new place.

E-3 Evangelism

E-3 evangelism is cross-cultural evangelism that takes the message of Christ to cultures very different from that of the messenger. This is reaching out to those who have never heard of Jesus or who have a culturally instated resistance to Christianity. There are usually no examples of this in local church practice, except in the commissioning of career missionaries.

Here there is a need for the Christian to radically strip off his own culture from the gospel message and identify the barriers, gaps, and bridges to faith that exist in the unreached person’s culture. It’s focus is exclusively on bringing the church to a new place.

Most churches today never go beyond E-Zero evangelism.

Though I go off topic from time to time, the reason I started this blog and named it “Beyond Outreach” is for this very reason. The outreach of most churches is E-0 evangelism, with occasional forays into E-1 evangelism.

Churches need to go beyond this kind of outreach.

In a future post I will break down the P-Scale as I have done here with the E-Scale. Then, in subsequent posts I will look at the reasons churches get stuck at E-1 and delegate the rest to “the missionaries.”

“I’m Thinking ‘I’d Rather not Talk to You.’”

Andrew Makes a Good Point Regarding Evangelism.

In American culture today many see Christians as bad. To them, they are hypocrites. They are self-righteous. They are prejudiced. They are closed-minded. They are naive. They are out of touch. They are mean. The list goes on.

True followers of Jesus are none of those things. Even so, American cultural Christianity has produced a number of people that fit that description. Unfortunately, this has become the cultural stereotype of the Christian. Many people today just don’t like self-proclaimed Christians.

To that end, proclaiming oneself a Christian on the outset of a conversation can quickly end the possibility of meaningful dialog. It is like announcing you are a Republican or Democrat to someone who holds some degree of disdain for your political persuasion. They’ve got you labeled and assume that you’ve got them labeled from the get-go. Both sides will either dig in their feet to defend their position or just avoid meaningful conversation.

I think this is what Andrew was touching on in his comments on my earlier post “That awkward discomfort of sharing faith.” I wrote in my suggestions for making evangelism a daily habit, that people ought to mention something they got out of their daily devotional to five people each day. Andrew advised that this idea needed some rethinking to apply in the US context.

He said that this approach would more than likely come across as arrogant, and would not appeal to people in this day and age.

Trying to come at people here with "well, the Bible says" is a sure way to have them stop listening, no matter what the context is. If you can't demonstrate actual changes in your life, tangible effects, people in the US just don't care.

Andy is right.*

Religion is usually bound up with cultural identity.

The gospel often expands within a community but does not normally “jump” across cultural boundaries between peoples, especially if boundaries are created by hate or prejudice (from either side). In other words, religious beliefs do not easily transfer from one group to another. So, a Christian declaring a truth held dearly by his own culture does not make it heard-as-true by members of another.

Traditional western Christian culture has identifiable and predictable boundaries and behaviors. It tends to be a somewhat insulated culture. What I mean by that is that the great majority of those who are a part of it do not have many, if any, meaningful relationships outside of it. More so, they can’t visualize how one can even be a disciple of Jesus outside of this culture.

This cultural baggage that is placed on the gospel, while useful to those within the culture, is a hindrance to those who aren’t. It is a barrier to faith. The gospel preached isn’t, “Jesus is the way.” Rather it is “Jesus, and the way we do things here, are the way.” 

People should not have to adopt your culture to believe.

The Bible records the dispute between Paul and Peter on this very issue. Jewish believers were insisting that non-Jewish believers adopt Jewish culture and custom. Paul called it “another gospel.” See Galatians 2.

Here is where I really differ in approach from traditional pastors. For me, disciple making should not be irrevocably tied to joining a new culture. This is what can happen when discipleship is bound to the platform ministries of the local church.

Often a church will reach others from within their community with the gospel and these people will fit into the church quite easily. Sometimes, however, there is enough of a cultural barrier, that neither side knows how to proceed. The new believer (or seeker) just doesn’t “fit” the church. The solution is to release discipleship from the established structure and start a new work more appropriate to the situation of the new believer.

As Vincent Donovan put it:

Evangelization is a process of bringing the gospel to people where they are, not where you would like them to be… When the gospel reaches a people where they are, their response to the gospel is the church in a new place.

This is getting away from the topic at hand, and I will write about establishing the church in a new place in future posts. For now, let’s get back to the initial evangelism suggestion.

Searching for an opening.

I did not communicate the point of sharing with five people a day very well. The key is not to just indiscriminately proclaim a Bible promise to five people a day. Spamming the gospel can do more harm than good. The key is to watch for openness.

Saying “I learned something interesting about God today,” is just one approach. The point is to take something of your spiritual walk verbalize it in a way that gives people a way to ask for more. Discernment and practice will guide the your method and technique. What you’re doing is watching for interest, not lecturing. Watch for permission to share. When it is there. Share.

I suggested this putting out of a trial balloon five times a day, because I believe Christians need to be methodical in sharing Jesus. This doesn’t require haphazard, indiscriminate preaching, but certainly requires consistent proclamation. There occasional situations where sharing Jesus is a perfect fit, but Christians should not be limited to sharing only during those times. We must also find ways to create those appropriate opportunities.

Churches in America are only baptizing an average of two people a year, with the exception of the occasional highly evangelistic church. If everyday Christians do not become intentional and methodical about sharing their faith, there will be no revival.

Notes

*Full disclosure:  Andrew is a friend of mine from my college days. That’s why the nickname “Andy” popped out in this post. It’s worth noting that that time, he was working hard to reach youth in a church that was not. He has seen, first hand, the damage done when people wear the Christian label, but act  like the stereotype in my opening paragraph.