Church-Based Evangelism: Orienting the Local Church to Evangelism

The stated desire of church-based evangelism is not just about evangelism happening; it is that a church’s purpose is to be on mission with Christ for the lost. Yet many things, including the failure to follow biblical commands, can lead a church to default on this purpose. Building on the distinction between mission fields here and there, a church continues to build a culture of evangelism by orienting all that it does toward the desired outcome of evangelism. This culture prevents “efficient causes” from becoming the “final cause.” To state it differently, a church must ensure that a culture of evangelism has no rival cultures.

Before describing how to orient the church to evangelism, I need to defend evangelism as the focal point to which a church ought to be pointed. As stated in A Need for A New Approach, the general thesis of church-based evangelism is that every church, through the work of every church member, would be active in evangelism, and that the outcome of everything else a church does would be evangelism. That may read like a problematic thesis, especially because, in recent years, evangelism and discipleship have been foolishly cast as entirely distinct and opposed to each other. My purpose in this entire series is not to claim that evangelism should be done to the exclusion of anything that Scripture commands a church to do. Rather, evangelism is the purpose of a church or the “final cause.” Using Aristotle’s Four Causes (the formal cause, the material cause, the efficient cause, and the final cause), it is clear that discipleship and evangelism are not contradictory enemies but rather different parts of the “causes” of a church. A church’s formal cause (the form that determines what it ought to be) is the Bible’s teaching, especially the New Testament, on what a church is. A church's material cause (the matter from which it comes) is saved, regenerate believers who have been biblically baptized and have covenanted together with other members. A church’s efficient cause (the agent which brings something to what it ought to be) is the sanctification of the Spirit through the work of discipleship. A church’s final cause (the way something will be used), or telos, is the evangelization of the lost. To use Biblical imagery: Every local church is an embassy of the kingdom of God (the formal cause), made up of ambassadors (the material cause), who are to be equipped, encouraged, and loved (the efficient cause) so that the ambassadors leave the embassy with the gospel of the kingdom to share with those still of the kingdom of darkness (the final cause). All four causes are necessary for a church and are in no way competitors; rather, they have a certain “placement” in the process. Generally, Baptists agree on the formal and material causes. The disagreement (whether explicit or implicit) often lies in what is the efficient and final cause, with some placing sanctification and discipleship as the final cause and evangelism as the efficient cause. Yet that does not align with the final commands of Christ (as discussed in A Need for A New Approach), nor does it work in practice. When the church makes any of the other three “causes,” especially the “efficient cause,” the “final cause,” a church will stop being all of its causes.

Imagine a water turbine and a reservoir built to power it. The goal is for the water to move the turbine, producing power. For this to happen effectively, the reservoir must be properly cared for and maintained; otherwise, the turbine will fail due to debris and decay. The efficient cause of the reservoir is protected so that the final cause of the moving of the turbine to produce power will happen. Yet, if the purpose of the reservoir becomes picturesque and beautiful (the efficient cause becoming the final cause), so that the turbine is regularly shut down for water maintenance, then scope creep has occurred, and the original purpose of generating power has been lost. Christ established the local church to make disciples of all the nations and specifically gives this as the last command He communicates to His disciples. The evangelizing of the lost is the water turbine; the reservoir is the sanctification of the Spirit through the discipleship of a church. The "reservoir" must be kept pure and be replenished, but then directed through the "water turbine."

Orienting the church to evangelism, then, is the process of ensuring that the “efficient cause” leads to the “final cause.” Orienting the church to evangelism does not change anything a church does per se or even add anything to what a church already does; rather, it takes what a church is doing and asks the questions, “How is this producing the outcome of evangelism?” and “How can we produce the outcome of evangelism through this?”

To answer these questions, an honest evaluation must be conducted by a church and her pastor(s). John Charping, a professor and Chairman of the Missions Department at Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, developed the “Five Core Tasks of a Great Commission," which is an excellent matrix to determine if a church is fulfilling its Great Commission responsibility (https://www.midsouthbaptist.com/great-commission-responsibility-competency/). Using the matrix of the five tasks (entry, evangelism, discipleship, healthy church formation, and leadership development), you can ask, "Are the things we are doing as a church actually leading to the gospel being shared with lost people?" A church can have the most fun, family-friendly events, but if the gospel is not shared at them, then the purpose of the church was not fulfilled. A church can have the best small group programs for discipleship, but if a seasoned believer does not know how, when, and why he must evangelize the lost, the discipleship program is not leading to evangelism. A church can have biblical preaching, doctrinally faithful teaching, and Text-Driven Baptist ecclesiology, but if that does not produce evangelistic action, something is missing. Your church has its own niche programs and practices that are different than my church, so before giving an idea, what I would recommend before adopting the idea I have for orienting a church to evangelism is to take the five core tasks, place everything your church does into one of the five tasks, and then evaluate: 1) If it leads to evangelism and 2) How it can lead to evangelism. Start with the entry and evangelism tasks, as those are much simpler to evaluate, and determine if what you meant to be evangelistic was. Then move to your discipleship programs, the formation of your church, and your church’s leadership development, asking if and how it can lead to evangelism. Simply taking the time to do this evaluation regularly will quickly orient a church toward accomplishing its purpose of evangelizing the lost. Every single thing your church does can be oriented toward evangelism, either by actively engaging in evangelism, by training to evangelize (either explicitly through training or implicitly through the teaching of all biblical truth), or by encouraging evangelism. A church oriented toward evangelism usually does not need drastic structural change, but rather to lean into everything flowing to the purpose of evangelism.

The one idea I would encourage a church to add to what it does, to help orient it toward evangelism, is witnessing through testimonies. Every Tuesday at 11 am during the school year, Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary gathers for students, faculty, and staff to share stories of how they have evangelized the lost in the past week. This produces the evangelistic zeal Mid-America is known for. Every church ought to follow this example. This could be done during a small-group meeting or Sunday School class, as part of the Sunday or Wednesday evening service, or as part of another weekly activity a church does. Witnessing testimonies keeps the mission of evangelism in front of a church without being overbearing; it gives church members people to pray for who are lost; it reminds every church member that anyone can evangelize; and it convicts hearts of failing to evangelize. It also allows whatever follows it, such as the small group Bible study material or the Sunday evening teaching/preaching time, to be seen through the lens of evangelism.

Returning to the illustration of the water turbine and the reservoir, orienting the church to evangelism is not about replacing the water, digging new ditches, or finding a different way to move the turbine. Orienting the church is taking the reservoir of water and directing it through the turbine to produce the most power. If a church examines its ministries and activities to see how each can advance the task of evangelism, the culture of evangelism will reign supreme in that church.

This article is written by Klayton Carson, pastor at Range Hills Baptist Church in Memphis, Tenn.