The North American church desperately needs to focus on evangelism again. As a whole, we simply haven’t made much of a dent in the darkness. Correcting that problem begins with the pastor; and, as a pastor myself, I recognize my own responsibility to lead the way. As I push myself to be more faithful to this task, maybe one of these texts will push you, too—regardless of your leadership position in your church:
10 Evangelism Questions for Church Leaders to Ask
Why Pastors Don’t Evangelize Much, and Why We Must Do More
8 Reasons the Pastor Matters Most in a Church’s Evangelistic Efforts
If a Christian does not come to faith in an envornment in which effective evangelism is not just valued and promoted but actually practiced, and they are not discipled in effective evangelism, they themselves are not going to be evangelistic. Regrettably that environment no longer exists in many churches if it ever existed in these churches in the first place.. Not only is Jesus’ command to go and make disciples of all people groups ignored but so are his other commands–love God, love others, love your enemies, pray for those who treat you badly, do good to your enemies, treat everyone exactly the way you would wish to be treated, love one another. pursue holiness. I was read an article by Ed Stetzer in which he describes the politicalization and tribalization of the church. A politicized, tribalized church is not an evangelistic church. What we are seeing the invasion of the church by the world. Who is responsible for this invasion–those who identify themselves as Christians. I believe that we have come to another point in history where we must distinguish between self-identified Christians and genuine disciples of Jesus. A true follower of Jesus recognizes Jesus as their Lord as well as their Savior and they actively emulate his character, his teaching, and his example. Many self-identified Christians do none of these things. This has happened before in the history of the church. We have come to the point where we may need to evangelize these self-identified Christians as well as non-Christians. They may actually be the more difficult group to evangelize. Why? Because they think that they are Christians.