THE KEYS TO EVANGELISM SUCCESS: 3 PASTORS SHARE WHAT’S WORKING

THE KEYS TO EVANGELISM SUCCESS: 3 PASTORS SHARE WHAT’S WORKING

By Anita K. Palmer • November 24, 2016

 A few years ago, Kelly Brady was reading 2 Timothy 4:5 when it stopped him in his tracks. The apostle Paul, an evangelist, was telling Timothy, his disciple and a pastor, to “do the work of an evangelist.”

“I remember responding fairly defensively,” says Brady, senior pastor of Glen Ellyn Bible Church in Glen Ellyn, Illinois. But when Brady took hold of that concept, he realized he needed to make changes, for the sake of his church and his community. “I was not living out our mission. And the sheep follow the shepherd.”

Brady is one of a growing number of senior pastors who are rediscovering a personal passion for witness outside the walls of church. They’re swapping traditional evangelism techniques for relational approaches. They’re challenging their members to set aside fears and become creative with evangelism. And they’re partnering “as one church” with other pastors and organizations for communitywide strategies.

Avoiding the Cycle

One of the motivations for Brady was the reality that his church was 75 years old and, statistically speaking, “getting ready to die.” Next door in Wheaton, Illinois—a church-friendly town if there ever was one—an Evangelical Free church had recently closed its doors. An Assembly of God church building was now a mosque.

“I knew there was a documented life cycle for churches,” says Brady, who holds a doctorate in ministry management and leadership. “I wanted to know how to avoid it.”

His answer: Glen Ellyn Bible’s staff and members needed to get outside the Bible bubble and practice the e-word: evangelism. To become outward-facing, mission-oriented, culture-engaging.

Starting with its senior pastor.

Replicating Witness

Like Brady, Dan Weyerhaeuser—senior pastor of Lakeland Church in Gurnee, Illinois—knew that a congregation’s attitude toward sharing Christ reflects that of the senior staff. Although he found evangelism a joy, he knew most of his witness came “on the job.”

“Most of my outreach used to be related to my job. I’d do a funeral, for example, and we’d share the gospel there,” he says. “I wasn’t replicating myself.”

Weyerhaeuser and his staff needed “to help everyone live the life of witness, not just ‘evangelists,’” he says. They changed the church’s mission statement to reflect a new church culture, and hired “a wonderful mobilizer when it comes to evangelism.”

Teaching from the pulpit emphasized the need to build relationships with neighbors. They also instituted communitywide social events and reached out to civic officials such as the mayor and police chief, and partnered with other churches.

Chad Benkert, senior pastor of Federated Covenant Church in the town of Dowagiac, Michigan, had spent several years as a youth pastor, where his “street ministry” opened his eyes to post-Christian culture and where nontraditional approaches to sharing the gospel were successful in bringing the “pre-churched” into the fold. When Federated asked him to be their interim pastor, the congregation numbered around 25.

The church is now around 150. Benkert points to two factors for the growth.

“I got out into the community,” he says. And he began to preach on creative evangelism.

“We created a burden for the lost. Without that, nothing motivates people to share. It takes having a deep desire and a life-transforming walk,” says Benkert, who adds that all the church’s ministries have outreach built into their programs and plans.

Benkert says the momentum of interest ramped up as his people saw more and more visitors come to Christ. “They’ve seen lives change in front of them,” he says. “That’s powerful.”

New Expectations

These senior pastors recognize that the e-word can evoke anxiety and fear among their members.

“We feel like we’ll get pinned, and embarrassed,” says Brady. “You don’t need to have all the answers. That’s a false expectation. You just need to be willing to love people and say you’ll get back to them with answers.

“Get your head up. Look around you. Share what you know in your life with everyone you encounter.”

For example, an employee of the cleaning subcontractor for the church worked in the building for some time, and the church staff had been sharing Christ with him. He eventually made a commitment to Christ and was baptized.

Brady says he estimates that his congregation is about 40 percent on board with practicing lifestyle evangelism. “A hundred percent would be when everyone understands that there’s no tension between evangelism and discipleship,” he says. “Disciples of Christ evangelize.”

Yes, it can be a slow process—and maybe should be. Weyerhaeuser says he went to two restaurants regularly for two years, spending a few hours studying while he ate, and preparing sermons. Eventually, the restaurant staff became comfortable with him and began to sit down to talk.

“People aren’t projects,” says Weyerhaeuser. “They hurting.”

Like Weyerhaeuser, Benkert is a daily customer at a local coffeehouse—and not just because they serve scrumptious baked goods. Benkert recommends church leaders be intentional about setting aside time for relational connection with the community. “They need to get out of the office and into the community,” he says.

Benkert’s wife, Dana, is his partner in ministry. “She organizes church women to meet at [the same] local bakery-café every Tuesday,” building relationships with the wait staff and patrons. “She loves on people in the community so that they’ll come meet Jesus,” he says, adding that she plans ahead to shop so that she can talk with the grocery clerks.

Two-Degree Shifts

Rather than making evangelism a project that he participated in every now and then, Brady made it a lifestyle to be lived out daily. “I decided to make a ‘two-degree shift’—to make room for the nonbeliever in everything, and to expect nonbelievers to come,” he says.

He instructed his staff to embrace the same attitude. He began to get the message out to his congregation. The goal was for everyone at Glen Ellyn Bible to share his or her faith weekly and pray for the lost daily.

All church programming needed to have an “evangelistic flair,” he says. For example, the church’s men’s Bible study had always been aimed at believers. The two-degree shift emphasized that participants should invite friends and neighbors—believers or not—and that the group should welcome and make room for them.

Like Benkert, making room for nonbelievers required Brady to make it a priority. His most difficult challenge was changing his calendar.

“I realize now how self-serving I was in my schedule,” he says. He opened up time to build relationships with people outside the church. He began to teach a class at a local community college. And he changed his perspective on his social life.

For example, Brady explains, a pastor might think, what are my plans for dinner Friday night? Maybe I’ll have some friends over. There’s nothing wrong with that—but if there’s a consistent practice of only socializing with good friends, you’re not making room for people who are in your circle and who do not know Jesus, says Brady.

Neighborly Evangelism

Weyerhaeuser challenged his church to host backyard barbecues on Labor Day weekend and invite their neighbors—whether or not they had met them before. The whole congregation was asked to map out their neighborhood and go door to door with an invitation to an event in their home. Then they were to find out one thing they shared in common with their new acquaintances, and just have fun.

True, inviting strangers into their homes caused more than a few members to be uneasy—including their gregarious senior pastor. “I felt nervous passing out the invitations at first,” says Weyerhaeuser. “Then when most people thanked me, I realized they had a desire to connect, too.”

The event was a hit, and not because of Weyerhaeuser’s magic tricks. (He was a bartender and magician in his unbelieving college days.) What constituted success was building new friendships?

“I used to know the names of about nine of my neighbors,” says Weyerhaeuser. “Now I know 35.”

Lakeland Church has become known for its neighborly evangelism—the kind some experts are labeling as “organic” or “natural.”

Generating Curiosity

It pays to understand the needs of the community. With a population of 5,500, Dowagiac is a stop on the drive from Kalamazoo, Michigan, 45 miles to the northeast, and South Bend, Indiana, 25 miles to the southwest.

“It’s a transitional town,” says Benkert. “There are more people moving through than staying, more renters than owners. I have nine months to help people find Jesus and prep them before they move on.”

Yet, “people feel connected here,” he says. “When they leave they check back with us and tell us stories.”

Benkert teaches his people to approach new relationships in what he calls discovery mode. “Find out what excites them, where they’re at. Postmodern, early millennials have no trust in the church. Get them to trust you. Help them become curious.”

Collaborating for Change

Benkert recommends finding a few others with whom to share the vision. “Build a team. It’s not a lone-wolf thing,” he says.

The pastor leads a cohort of fellow senior denominational leaders who share a vision of “culture change” and meet regularly to support and challenge each other. “We share the vision of culture change,” he says.

Brady’s church is partnering with Young Life and looking for other connections.

Weyerhaeuser is part of a group of senior leadership among churches in Gurnee, Illinois, which borders Waukegan, Illinois, 40 miles north of Chicago. The pastors are partners, not competitors. (See ChristTogether.com.)

“We realized that collectively, we are responsible for every household in Gurney. We are only one church,” Weyerhaeuser says. For example, the group has organized multichurch Bible study groups in their communities.

Weyerhaeuser reminds his church that in every book in the Bible, everywhere in Scripture, is the message of outreach. Christian leadership needs to help everyone live the life, not just “evangelists.”

“Jesus had a heart for all the nations and he sent us out,” he says. “We need to live out John 3:16.”