That’s a question I received today from someone who was asking based on an email invitation their received to tomorrow’s seminar on spiritual conversations and evangelism that I’m holding. I decided to treat the question as if it was a real question, as opposed to a snarky question that implied something completely different.

Here’s my response:

Few churches have the tools to walk someone who is a non-believer into faith via their worship service or their Christian education programs. Both tend to be designed for already-believers. 

Few church members are equipped to do the time-consuming work of evangelism (knocking on doors and sharing the gospel isn’t an effective disciple-making process anymore). In today’s world, it takes long-term relationships with someone outside of faith (Paul calls them “Outsiders”) to lead someone into an effective faith relationship in today’s culture. And sadly, the reality is that few church members (or pastors, for that matter) have close relationships with non-Christians … and we can’t be faithful to the Great Commission if we have no unbelieving friends. 

That said, one way we CAN reach the irreligious and the outsiders is to find ways to encourage them to attend a church’s worship service where they learn, step by step, how to have that full and abundant life Jesus offers to those who are faithful in both belief AND by applying what he taught. And churches that are willing to take that step, to get serious about reaching the unreached in faithful and effective ways, grow. On the other hand, a church that isn’t growing will continue to age out and decline to the point where it will close … and then there is no evangelism, discipleship, or ministry opportunities at all. 

The solution is to either get the church out of the building and into meaningful, lasting relationships with the unchurched where they are intentional and effective at evangelism/disciple-making … or to grow the church by effectively reaching the outsiders. (Pastors have been trying to get their members out of the pews and into the personal disciple-making practice for over 50 years … so far, most church members kinda like thinking and living like it’s someone else’s job.)

The alternative is to help the pastor and church leaders to do something different … because if they keep doing what they’re doing, they’ll keep getting the results they’re getting. And in the US, that means that 85% of our churches will continue to plateau/decline. And getting serious about growing their churches by intentionally and effectively connecting with non-believers is a pretty good alternative.

At that point, I was winding down my email. But I added one last comment: “I teach personal evangelism through Phillips Seminary so that at least pastors will know how to help connect the growing population of Nones and non-believers with Jesus.” I’m a firm believer in personal evangelism … but if we depend on the church members doing that, we’re probably going to keep on getting what we’ve got.

BTW, you can register for this week’s Catalytic Conversation (my weekly webinar) here: https://effective.effectivechurch.com/webinar-registration

Missed the Spiritual Conversation Webinar? Church professionals can watch the replay at https://www.facebook.com/groups/next.level.with.billtb