The state of our faith in our nation is in rapid decline. This may surprise you, but the majority of people in 2022, 63%, still self-identify with the Christian faith. You would think with that high percentage that collectively, our reach and influence would extend across every spectrum, but sadly, we seem content to remain silent on the margins. While 63% of people is still a significant majority, over the past decade, that number has slid down from 74%. 11% may not sound too extreme, but that represents nearly 35 million fewer people in a decade who no longer identify with Jesus being their Savior. Pew Research has done some future charts to show that if things remain similar, those with the Christian faith will no longer be the majority between 2050-2070. That is not far off; literally, one or two generations away.
Over the past few months, I’ve interviewed 12 lead pastors in Omaha, NE, about the state of evangelism in their churches. I’ve done this in partnership with a group called Within Reach, a group of pastors working together to reach the city of Omaha for Jesus. It’s truly a remarkable organization, and I’m proud to play a small part in it.
Thom Rainer, founder, and CEO of Church Answers, believes we are now living through the death of evangelism in the North American church. His company has been tracking data in the church since 1996. They’ve looked at the primary purposes of the church, like evangelism, discipleship, ministry, worship, fellowship, and prayer. As they’ve analyzed the data over 25+ years, they have noticed that the “evangelism number almost looks like nothing but a downhill rollercoaster.”
People in the church are concerned about this decline, but the activity is still dropping. He says those concerned about it “don’t know what to do about it.”
To summarize, we are aware of the problem of the state of evangelism, but we are not clear on the answer.
I grew up on the tail end of what’s known as the “Evangelism Explosion” model. Of course, some will knock this model, and our world has changed since this method became popular. But can I be honest with you? Any model, even if it’s ineffective, is better than no model at all.
These interviews have opened my eyes to what’s happening in the church world regarding evangelism. In addition, I’ve seen common trends in obstacles the church faces that emerge from these conversations. Hopefully, by seeing these trends, we can come up with an effective strategy to combat these obstacles.
Listed in the blog are not just five obstacles, but 26 ideas and resources that we can use to help our churches in our pursuit to bring new life and energy to the state of evangelism.
When I ask someone how they are doing, one of the most common responses is, “Busy.” That’s crazy!
Corrie Ten Boom once said, “It the devil can’t make you sin, he’ll make you busy.”
The number one obstacle that showed up in my interviews was the overall busyness of our culture today. It could be a variety of reasons that people are busy:
Another possible reason is that people don’t intentionally think about how they spend their time. I actually believe people are far less busy than they think they are. The problem is that they choose to spend their time on things that don’t bring fulfillment.
As churches, we must preach against and provide resources that bring to light the evil of the rushed, hurried, and frantic pace that many live. It’s also crucial that we help people spend their time wisely. Anxiety, worry, stress, loneliness, and depression are all trending in the opposite direction. When will we learn that just filling a calendar does not equal a fulfilling life?
Recommended ideas and resources:
The rise of technology and smartphones present us with more opportunities than ever to connect with others. The result? North Americans have never statistically been as disconnected as we are right now. And the disconnection is resulting in more loneliness than ever in our nation. The younger you are, likely the lonelier you feel.
Here’s the thing about statistics. Those numbers have real people behind them.
We shouldn’t be shocked at the rise in loneliness because, since our nation’s existence, we have celebrated individualism. But, while individualism has some positive elements to it, it becomes the opposite of the life that Jesus calls us to live when lived out to its fullest.
Individualism is perhaps most seen in the following slogans of our day:
When we are taught to pursue our interests and heart and go with our feelings, it often leads to very lonely lives. Many spend their “off” hours binge-watching Netflix, scrolling through social media feeds, planning and going on vacations, and trying to fill every waking hour with entertainment options to avoid boredom. Most Americans don’t know most of their neighbors—and they barely talk to the ones they do know. It’s tempting after a long day of work to drive home, close the garage, and tune the rest of the world out.
Left to our own devices, we will often choose what is most comfortable at the moment. And what is most comfortable is typically the comforts of your own home.
Americans have fewer friends than ever. In just 30 years, we’ve seen the number of friends rapidly decrease. In 1990, 33% of Americans reported having ten or more close friends. Now, it’s lower than 13%. Similarly, in 1990, 73% of people had more than three close friends. Currently, only 51% do. Our friendship circles are getting smaller. And, if our goal is to tell the Good News of Jesus to others, and the most winsome strategy is to be friends, and in a relationship with another person, then it’s no wonder our evangelism numbers are declining.
If our people are suffering from this, so are pastors. Sometimes I wonder if we struggle with this more than the average person. As a pastor, it is so easy for me to surround myself naturally in a Christian bubble. Without intentionality, I could go a long time without having a significant relationship with someone who doesn’t know Jesus. That’s comfortable for me. But it’s not right.
If we want our evangelism efforts to be strong in churches, we must push people towards relationships and out of individualism.
Recommended ideas and resources:
Not all of the obstacles of evangelism’s root problems are because of our people. Some are because of our leadership. In my interviews, many lead pastors admitted that they offer far too much inside the church walls. This left no time to do anything outside of the church.
I can relate.
I had just planted a church in 2011, and my core group was extremely solid, loyal, and committed to the inward-focused aspects of the church. They were generous, showed up way more than the national average for weekly worship, and volunteered to help with things inside the church. But, I noticed any attempt to push them outside the church walls, specifically serving others in the community or inviting their friends to come to church, seemed to fall on deaf ears.
I had no other ideas for mobilizing an entire church, so I challenged the church to do what Jesus said. I took 40 random commands of Jesus, wrote blogs to go with them, and challenged them to do what Jesus said literally. Over time, this idea of hearing and doing the words of Jesus would develop into Red Letter Challenge.
When you look back at the words of Jesus, over and over again, Jesus calls us to go. To make disciples. To preach the Good News. To share our faith. To be a worker in the field. Even Jesus’s final words before His ascension describe His followers as witnesses to the ends of the earth. Yet, the structure of the churches that many of us have either inherited from previous generations, or built ourselves, are primarily centered around a model that takes most of its time, energy, and priorities in caring for its own.
There is nothing inherently wrong with building facilities and having excellent worship services. But, when a church becomes known for only what happens inside its four walls, we have a severe problem. To be a pastor and focus your time, energy, and priorities on those who already attend inside the four walls of your church may be comfortable for you, but it’s not right. To extend beyond the four walls of the church and to seek those who are lost, sometimes even at the expense of those who are found, is highly uncomfortable, yet this is what God calls us to do.
Nearly every pastor I spoke with believed that evangelism is crucial. Many said it was one of the most vital things that they do. But pastors were truly split on whether or not they actually had an evangelism strategy or plan.
I believe the church has a problem indicative of most Christians in North America. I do not think we have an intention problem in our nation regarding living out the call to follow Jesus. But, while we don’t have an intention problem, we do have a planning problem. To want something but not create a plan, strategy, or system to accomplish the desire would be extremely foolish. And yet, this is the reality for many churches. They desire to excel in evangelism but have no clear system, playbook, strategy, or measurables. It’s a confusing message.
Intention without direction always leads to confusion.
If we say something is essential yet have no strategy for it, it’s not really that important. So, pastor, how would you characterize your church’s plan for evangelism? How would the rest of your church describe how they fit into the plan?
In the complex world in which we live, each church ought to have its own unique strategy. So rather than doubling down and thinking that your evangelism strategy should fit every church, a healthier attitude recognizes every church will look different.
In the churches with an evangelism plan, I was amazed at the diversity of strategies found in the same city. I was intrigued and impressed by the various ways God can work through each church. Here are a few examples:
Those are just a few of the many different evangelism ideas and examples that came from my conversations. The point isn’t that your church should match a, b, c, or d perfectly. Instead, your church needs to have an evangelism plan in place. Additionally, in all of the examples above, the strategy came out of the heart, the gifting’s, and the experiences of the lead pastor.
Recommended ideas and resources:
One pastor I interviewed expressed his desire that people would feel the opportunity and the personal responsibility that each of them holds when it comes to evangelism ideas. There is nothing quite like bringing a friend to know Jesus; we all want to experience that.
According to a recent Barna study, Christians increasingly believe that evangelism is the local church’s job, not personal responsibility. This number has nearly tripled in 25 years, from 10% in 1993 to 29% in 2018. Additionally, if you look at actions, only 52% of practicing Christians have shared their faith at least once with someone in the last year. With fewer and fewer people evangelizing combined with shrinking circles of friends, it’s time that churches rethink evangelism.
In the previous obstacle, we talked about the importance of having a strategy. Let’s get more specific about what I noticed in the growing churches. The growing churches employed an evangelism strategy with both a corporate solution and an individual responsibility.
Even though the evangelism strategy may be uniquely tied to the lead pastor’s heart, giftings, or experiences, each of the strategies employed their people to be a part of it. Your evangelism strategy needs to include every single person in your church. They need to clearly understand how they fit and the role they uniquely play in it.
For this, I turn to Rick Warren’s four truths about evangelism:
1. Each of us needs to accept personal responsibility.
We are God’s plan, and there is no Plan B. We are His ambassadors, and He is making His appeal through us. People need to understand that they don’t need to have a doctoral thesis on the Bible before they can start sharing the Good News. Jesus asks us to be His witnesses.
2. Develop a personal relationship.
People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. So while a variety of evangelism strategies can and should take place today, everyone agrees that being in an honest, caring relationship with someone else can only help bring Jesus to someone’s life.
3. Share your personal story.
Evangelism is less about telling other people what is wrong with them; instead, it’s telling them what has happened to you. So when I challenge people to talk to someone else about Jesus, these are the two questions I encourage them to answer:
4. Give a personal invitation.
The church has much room to grow in helping people give an invitation not just to a church service but how to follow Jesus. Some evangelism models are still very tied to attending a church service, but even better is when we can begin training every person in our church to invite someone to believe in and follow Jesus.
Recommended ideas and resources:
I hope that by seeing the obstacles in front of us that we can now more effectively build out a plan. Jesus is the hope of the world. That’s why I’m not nervous, even if every statistic I see trends in the wrong direction. He wins. And those that are in Christ Jesus win. Have faith. Stand strong. But let’s not just sit idly by.
Let’s share the Good News of Jesus with the world, one person at a time.
Then, once we get them into our churches, that’s where discipleship comes into play. For more on that, see this blog.
Blessings!
Zach Zehnder
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