Evangelism Is Natural Church

By David Bycroft

A city dweller finally had enough of big-city life and decided to move his family to the country. He had also become enamored with lambs, so he decided to start raising sheep.

He purchased six ewes, each with baby lambs, from a neighbor and began enjoying farm life.

After a year went by and the lambs were fully grown, he began wondering why no new lambs had been born. He went back to the neighbor from whom he had purchased his small flock and asked him about it. His neighbor asked when the ram had been put in with the ewes. Amazingly, that thought had never occurred to the new shepherd.

The shepherd solved his problem with the purchase of a suitable ram, and baby lambs began arriving about six months later.

When all the ingredients are in place in a healthy flock, lambs will be born in the natural course of events.

And seeing people born again is also a natural and constant event in the church Jesus established.

GROWTH: ABNORMAL?

Somehow the church has begun to think of conversions and growth as unexpected, perhaps even abnormal. However, when all the ingredients for a spiritual flock are in place, evangelism will occur naturally, people will accept Christ, and the church will grow.

If some Sunday the offering plates are passed and not even a dime is collected, what would go through the minds of the elders? If it happened again the next Sunday, my guess is there would be an all-church prayer meeting to address this critical issue. Yet in most American churches, we can go weeks, months, or even years without seeing any decisions for Christ and no one grows upset or seems even to notice!

It has become normal for churches not to see or even expect a conversion.

But when all the ingredients for a biblical church are in place, it is normal and natural to see the invitation answered on many Sundays throughout the year.

If that isn”t the case, there are some obvious questions that must be asked: Is the Word of God being preached? Is Christ being lifted up? Are Christians growing into Christlikeness? Are Christians being the light of the world? Do we really care if people are lost or saved?

In his article “7 Characteristics of Effective, Evangelistic Churches” in Church Executive magazine, Thom Ranier wrote:

One of the reasons most churches in America are not highly effective in evangelism is, quite simply, they are not attempting to reach people for Christ. Effective evangelistic churches attempt to do evangelistic tasks. The Great Commission to spread the Gospel to all people is not an option. Evangelistic churches are persistently intentional about doing Evangelism.

GROWTH: INTENTIONAL?

Does a sheep rancher””or any kind of rancher””get into the business just to hang on to what he already has? No! He will go broke unless he focuses on increasing and growing the herd.

It is time for leaders of the Lord”s church to become “persistently intentional” about reaching the lost. The good news is God designed the church to naturally grow when we operate it according to his will. Growing the church isn”t a secret or difficult. It has always been the natural result of being his church. We have lost the natural growth of the church because we are no longer intentional about reaching the lost.

There are some Scripture passages we can build on to help us understand that the church, when healthy, will evangelize and grow naturally. Jesus reminds us, “I will build My church” (Matthew 16:18)!* It is his church and he purchased it with his own blood (Acts 20:28). What do you think Christ wants for this church? Does he want it merely to exist? Barely to survive? To become stagnant or even die?

What would you want for a business or organization where you invested your life savings? If you look at it from that perspective, you can begin to fathom Jesus” desire for his church. We can also better understand the promise of Ephesians 3:20: “Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us.”

Now we begin to see what a normal, natural church looks like to God. It is one that succeeds at showing the power of God by thriving, not just surviving! This motivates me to do my best. It has nothing to do with how talented I am, but with my willingness to let his power work in me.

I take great solace in 2 Corinthians 3:5: “Not that we are adequate in ourselves to consider anything as coming from ourselves, but our adequacy is from God.” If I thought the growth of the church were dependent of my ability to preach, motivate, or organize, I would have given up long ago. Here”s the good news for all of us average people who are in ministry: God”s ability makes up for our weaknesses.

Scripture teaches that we all have different gifts (1 Peter 4:10, 11). When these gifts are used in the appropriate setting and with appropriate motivation, God will be glorified. Not everyone has been gifted in the areas of church leadership listed in Ephesians 4:11. I have been convicted by God that I am to serve as an evangelist in the local church. As a result of his gifts to me, I am to help lead the church in becoming evangelistic (2 Timothy 4:5).

GROWTH: COMFORTABLE?

I believe we find here a critical component of failure in the modern church. Instead of churches looking for an evangelist to help lead the church in natural growth, we try to find men who will make our lives comfortable so the congregation can “be at ease in Zion.” Thus, we look for a minister who will work feverishly to meet all the needs in the local body.

Did you ever wonder why the majority of our churches stay in the 100- to 200-member range? That”s about the limit of how many people the average minister can take care of.

Every now and then you”ll find a better-than-average minister who can keep all the plates spinning for a slightly larger church, but at what expense? This person”s time will be eaten up to the point that he has no energy left to devote to evangelism. We have taught the church in the last 100 years or so to expect the minister to do the work of ministry. We must stop this downward spiral away from evangelism and get back to being the natural church Jesus established.

Ephesians 4:12 says it is the leader”s job to equip “the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ.” When the biblical pastors (or elders in our vernacular) work alongside the evangelist to prepare God”s people for ministry, it opens up opportunities for the evangelist to lead in evangelism. Then we will see the body grow, both spiritually and numerically.

Elders must stop seeing their major role as decision makers and begin investing their lives in helping people learn how to do ministry. And they must allow the minister to begin investing his time in leading and teaching evangelism as the natural lifestyle of the church.

Church leaders need to have serious discussion about how their church can become “persistently intentional” about doing evangelism. This might be a slow, difficult process. But the little steps taken today will eventually establish a church where evangelism is natural church.

(In my next article, I will share some ideas about how to be intentional about evangelism.)

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*All Scripture quotations are from the New American Standard Bible.

David Bycroft has served as evangelist with Tyro (Kansas) Christian Church for 38 years. During that time the church has grown from 40 to almost 1,000.