Church-Based Evangelism: The Pastor-Missionary

A cool dawn breeze swept across the banks of the James River, setting five patient fishing lines swaying in the quiet morning air. It’s 6 a.m. in Madison Heights, Virginia. My dad, brother, and I had woken up at 5 a.m., gone to the Triangle Market to get nightcrawlers, and made our way down to the bank of the James River on my grandparents’ farm. Five fishing lines are in the water, with one of them slightly further up the river. In front of my dad are four fishing poles resting on Y-shaped sticks. In front of my brother and me is one fishing pole resting on one of these sticks that we were to share. This is because my dad loves fishing. I have never developed the love for fishing that my dad has, but I still enjoy going fishing with him whenever I get the chance. But now, as an adult, I don’t even attempt to have a fishing line in the water; I simply sit with my dad, bait hooks for him, and enjoy my time with him. My dad has taken numerous people to this very riverbank to fish with him, and no matter who was with him, he had four poles. My dad loves fishing, and his love for it makes fishing with him fun, even when he’s doing more of the fishing than you are.

Evangelism in a church should be similar to fishing with my dad. Church members should see their pastor as someone who loves fishing for men. These articles propose a new approach to evangelism called Church-Based Evangelism. Church-Based evangelism is when a church directs all its efforts toward evangelism so that the outcome of everything it does is evangelism. The first step of seeing Church-Based Evangelism is not with a program, casting vision, or even scheduling evangelistic outreaches. Church-Based Evangelism starts with all of the pastor's efforts pointing to his own personal soul-winning.

For a pastor to point all his efforts toward evangelism, he must first love personal soul-winning. When Christ used the term “You will become fishers of men,” I don’t believe that Jesus had my dad’s kind of fishing in mind. But I think Jesus had my dad’s attitude toward fishing in mind. Not only would my dad use four poles, but he also will not quit for hours, even if the fish aren’t biting. He anticipates and desires to catch fish and pulling him away from the riverbank is almost impossible. That same desire must be in a pastor toward soul-winning. The overabundance of love for fishing for men should seem like we want to evangelize more than everyone else.

Church members must know that their pastor loves evangelizing. This does not need to be a fake love or manufactured love either. Dr. Paige Patterson has said that if you want more excitement in your life, go evangelize. The surge of excitement when you get to share the good news with someone and discuss why this person should bow down to King Jesus is euphoric. Pastors should love evangelism. Honestly, a defense of loving soul-winning should not be necessary. A pastor who is apprehensive to evangelism has failed to obey 2 Timothy 4:6. A pastor must be a spiritual midwife, skilled in the obstetrics of regeneration, and desiring new birth. At minimum, a pastor must be philosophically and theologically a lover of personal evangelism, even if, because of present circumstances, the practical outcome of that love is lacking, albeit that must change quickly. A church with a pastor who sees evangelism as something only a few select Christians do, or as something a church pays mission boards to do for them, will neglect evangelism. A church with a pastor who is apathetic to soul-winning will be apathetic to soul-winning. The pastor’s love for personal evangelism is a key ingredient in Church-Based Evangelism.

This love for soul-winning on the part of the pastor must lead to the appropriation of a title that represents an evangelistic responsibility in pastoring: The Pastor-Missionary. As stated previously, Church-Based Evangelism is not the idea that the only thing churches do is evangelism. If the only thing a church does is evangelism, it will eventually cease to evangelize because the gospel will be lost. Discipleship is essential. Fellowship is essential. Worship is essential. The expositional preaching of God’s word is essential. Church-Based Evangelism says that all of those things point to or have the outcome of evangelism. Discipleship starts with the goal of seeing the disciple evangelize. Fellowship starts with the goal of seeing church members desire to go together to evangelize. Everything that Scripture commands a church to do must be done, but they must be done in such a manner that the logical and necessary outcome is evangelism.

In the same way, evangelism isn’t the only thing the pastor does. The pastor must be a pastor-preacher, proclaiming the word of God in a text-driven fashion every week, letting the text determine what he preaches. The pastor must be a pastor-shepherd, guiding and caring for hurting souls with the word of God. The pastor must be pastor-theologian, guarding the faith delivered once for all. The pastor must be pastor-prophet, speaking out against sin within the church and without. The pastor must be pastor-counselor, giving sage wisdom from Scripture to help believers grow in their faith. The pastor must be pastor-leader, ensuring the direction of a church is steady in all facets. All of these things are vital to biblical pastoring. All of these responsibilities must, in one way or another, coalesce into the personal soul-winning of the pastor. The pastor must be pastor-missionary, desiring to see his community changed by the gospel of Christ. While the pastor has a Great Commission responsibility as a Christian, he also has one as a missionary. The pastor evangelizing the lost is as essential to his work as pastor as the study and proclamation of God’s word each Sunday. Evangelism isn’t an add-on to the ministry obligations but is just as essential as every other obligation. Everything that Scripture commands a pastor to do must be done, but they must be done in such a manner that the logical and necessary outcome is evangelism.

To be clear, this is not advocating that a church hires a pastor solely for evangelism. When a church has a plurality of pastors, all of them are pastor-missionaries. Whether a church has a single pastor, a plurality of pastors with a senior pastor, or a plurality of pastors equal in authority, all of them must be pastor-missionaries. As stated, 2 Timothy 4:6 makes this responsibility clear, as do the examples of Paul, Peter, James, and Jesus.

Simply stating that every pastor must be a pastor-missionary is easier than making it a reality. The difficulty of assuming the responsibilities of the pastor-missionary is that a pastor's responsibilities are numerous. It doesn’t matter the size of church one pastors, if a pastor is biblically pastoring, his responsibility list often grows beyond what he is capable of doing in a week. This means, understandably, that he must plan neglect and allow some responsibilities to go undone for the sake of getting the more important and urgent things done. Sadly, evangelism tends to be the thing that gets neglected. Since the preached word of God is the center of the church, sermon preparation must be given the lion’s share of time. Add in budget responsibilities and counseling, and a pastor quickly runs out of time in a week and has never left his office. A pastor may attempt to do his pastoral work from a local coffee shop, but simply being on the riverbank does not mean the lines are in the water. The pastor-missionary is a great ideal, but it is not something that will come naturally or passively, nor can it become the only thing a pastor does. A pastor can appropriate the responsibility of pastor-missionary by reflecting on how his other responsibilities can spur him to evangelism and then expect himself to evangelize. Sermon preparation, even when the principle and application aren’t about evangelism, can remind the pastor of the lost. Counseling hard situations can remind the pastor about the power of the gospel and remind him to think about the lost. Dealing with financial hardship can remind the pastor that the reason to be wise in finances is so the church can evangelize the lost. These things being pointed to evangelism will urge the pastor to witness to the waiter while he’s on his date night with his wife or to evangelize a fellow parent at his kid’s baseball practice. This is how the pastor points his efforts to evangelism. Through all of his pastoral responsibilities, he develops a sensitive heart for evangelism and begins seeking it, both personally and corporately. The difficulty of becoming the pastor-missionary can be answered by approaching everything with the hope of being able to evangelize! To state it differently: The pastor should see all of his responsibilities not as a barrier to evangelizing, but instead as the reasoning, exhortation, and encouragement to evangelize.

Understanding the difficulty of the pastor-missionary then leads to the demand of the Pastor-Missionary. If a pastor is going to become the pastor-missionary, he needs to demand a high standard for himself in evangelism. A pastor’s thoughts about evangelism must go beyond philosophy and theology. When I first came to Mid-America Baptist Theological Seminary, I philosophically and theologically was a soul-winner. I firmly believed that evangelism was necessary. But I didn’t know I wasn’t a practicing soul-winner until I got to Mid-America because they put a number on it. Mid-America’s standard is that a soul-winner is someone who evangelizes on average once a week. I believe that’s a good standard for a pastor. A pastor-missionary should aim to have 52 gospel conversations each year. That might require creativity in finding opportunities, but this high but attainable goal will rightly prioritize the responsibilities of the pastor-missionary. The other demand of the pastor-missionary is to be present at and participate in every evangelistic outreach the church has. In managing his time, the pastor cannot attend every event the church holds. But he must, to the best of his ability, be at every evangelistic outreach and outing the church has planned. The pastor cannot expect church members to be part of these outreaches and outings if he’s not going to participate.  

As pastor-missionary, the pastor also needs to talk about his evangelism. Sometimes, leadership is letting your work speak for itself. Other times, it’s show-and-tell. For generations, missionaries have come to churches to tell of how they have been reaching the lost in their areas. The pastor-missionary needs to do this as well. This does not need to be braggadocios but can be done in the context of everyone sharing their evangelism testimonies, or simply from a place of genuine excitement and love for evangelism. Share about these evangelistic conversations not only when someone gets saved, but when the person rejects the gospel. The pastor’s role in Church-Based Evangelism is to keep the goal of evangelism ever before the church, and this is partially done by talking about his personal evangelism.

Much of this article reads more like pastor-based evangelism than Church-Based Evangelism. And learning that my dad uses four fishing poles, while my brother and I use one, may make it seem like he’s uninterested in anyone else fishing. But both would be far from reality. My dad’s love for fishing leads him to incorporate others, especially those less experienced, in fishing. Part of why I stopped having a pole to myself was that I knew my dad would eventually get a fish hooked, then hand me the fishing pole to reel it in. Or my dad would be reeling in a fish and notice he has a hit on another line and tell me to grab that pole. Fishing with my dad never means you just watch him fish. Rather, you join him in the experience. The same is true with the pastor-missionary. The pastor-missionary takes church members along with him, from young new believers to seasoned older believers, and helps them in their fishing expedition. The pastor-missionary may get a lost person on the proverbial hook and then have a church member reel him in. Or the pastor-missionary may help push a nervous, shy, and reserved church member to step out to start an evangelistic conversation. Or the pastor-missionary helps a church member at the end of the gospel conversation when the person desires to be saved. Not only are these extremely effective ways to teach evangelism, but they’re also one of the most joyous experiences in pastoring. Not only is it joyous, but it teaches church members the absolute necessity of personal evangelism and why a church must point all its efforts toward evangelism.

When the pastor takes the responsibility of the pastor-missionary seriously, Church-Based evangelism will start to take root. To point all the efforts of the church to evangelism, all the efforts of the pastor must be pointed to evangelism.

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