If you haven’t done it already, what is your church’s evangelism strategy for 2008?
Have you set measurable evangelism goals?
I met a pastor last week who was telling me that their church will be focused on Evangelism as one of their top priorities in 2008.
He has invited me to come in my role as a evangelism consultant and help them develop their evangelism strategy.
People often complain about lack of time when the lack of direction is the real problem.
– Zig Ziglar
Most of us know this true.
If we don’t plan ahead, we will miss the opportunities that present themselves. Allow me to throw out some ideas for an evangelism strategy. This list should help you brainstorm what you can do in your local context.
Church Evangelism Strategy
- Send your leaders to an evangelism training seminar.
- Host an Evangelism Training Seminar.
- Find an evangelism program like the Alpha course and implement it.
- Conduct a church hospitality assessment and seek ways to improve the welcoming of visitors.
- Set a goal for the number of professions of faith, conversions, or baptisms (whatever statistic is an important measure of growth for your church or denomination).
- Host a regional Evangelism training event.
- Invite speakers on Evangelism to share a passion.
- Set your outreach events that are intentionally geared towards your target audience.
- Host “Invite a friend” Sundays.
- Develop your holiday sermon series (Easter, Christmas, Mother’s day, etc)?
- Develop an Evangelism Coaching Group in your church to nurture the passionate. (See Evangelism Training in the Local Church)
The International Mission Board has developed some evangelism software that can help a church plan its evangelism strategy. It’s called the Evangelism Planner. I’ve not used it, so I can’t offer a review of it. The software claims to have:
- Proven evangelistic resources
- Interactive planning calendar
- Project management capability
- Strategy recommendations
- Timelines
Personal Evangelism Strategy
- Read at least 3 books on personal evangelism (see our Evangelism Books Page for some ideas).
- Or read one evangelism book each month.
- Participate in a group like the one described in Evangelism Training in the Local Church
- Work with me to receive 1-1 Evangelism Coaching.
- Pray daily for those who do not know Christ.
- Look for the daily opportunities to have a conversation about your faith.
- Think through your witnessing conversations and consider what you might have done differently. (1-1 Evangelism Coaching is helpful with this).
- Journal your evangelism conversations to reflect and learn.
- Learn a default setting — a basic evangelism gospel script.
- Instead of counting conversions, count the number of conversations you have.
- Review your day to see if you missed an opportunity to share your faith.
- Spend time “doing life” with people apart from the church. Quit doing Bible Studies all the time. (See: 10 Ideas to Reach Out To Your Neighborhood)
- Build genuine relationships with your neighbors.
At Evangelism Coach, we want to help you in practical ways to help you overcome your fears, increase your passion, and encourage your attempts at sharing your faith. Here are some products that might help you:
Share Your Story Now
Wonderful post, Chris. I forwarded this along to some of my ministry friends as well.
I agree with some of these suggestions that are listed here and question others.
Every church should be focused on evangelism since it is a commission we should be fulfilling in obedience to Christ (Mark 16:15, Matthew 28:19-20).
I do disagree with establishing a goal for any number of professions of faith. Didn’t Jesus say that there would be more joy over one who repents than 99 who felt they did not need to repent? Who wouldn’t like to see masses repent and trust in Jesus Christ as their savior? Every evangelistic effort should be led by the Holy Spirit and whomever is willing to listen to the gospel preached, whomever is convicted by the Holy Spirit of their sin through the preaching of the Word, they will repent and trust in the Savior.
Why should a target audience be so important? Isn’t every unbeliever destined for hell because they have refused to believe in the Son of God? The demograhic target is everyone in the world, is it not? God is not partial toward anyone so why should there be a target audience?
Personal reading on the subject of evangelism is great. Especially reading about Spurgeon, Moody, Whitefield, Edwards and others whom had a deep passion for lost souls and it reflected so in their preaching. No other book should be read more than the Bible itself though.
Bible study is important, but it should not consume your life, though to know God so well would be great but it would take away time from meeting other people. However, such a person would be an incredibly knowledgeable resource and hopefully led by the Spirit in their life, where their words are seasoned with salt and spoken in truth; the law to the proud and grace to the humble.
“For God so loved the world…” not a particular continent, nation, state, county, city, village, town, block or single family house, but that the world through Christ might be saved (John 3:16-17).