Evangelism is the beginning, not the destination
I’m not saying that all evangelism efforts are bad or a waste of time. As a pastor, I’m constantly stoking the fires of evangelism in our church. We are always working hard to reach as many people as we can with the message of life. I am not advocating taking the foot off the accelerator when it comes to sharing the gospel.
What I am saying is that evangelism is only the first step in the disciplemaking process. Anytime that evangelism is wrenched out of the context of a larger disciple-making strategy, it can quickly deteriorate into manipulation, gimmicks, and scrounging for decisions that seldom last. True evangelism will always result in true disciples. Anything that doesn’t isn’t real evangelism.
Why churches often separate evangelism from making disciples
For generations, there has been a great divide between the “evangelism camp” and the “discipleship camp” in churches. Some focus primarily on winning the lost, even if it means abandoning the new believers to fend for themselves. People have said to me,
“I just win them, someone else can take care of them!”
Others prefer deeper life teachings and focus primarily on spiritual formation and disciplines, even if it means that they seldom, if ever, share their faith. One woman plainly told me,
“I’m not into evangelism, I just do discipleship.”
This problem isn’t only in our churches. Even many of our denominations are divided on the organizational chart into evangelism departments and discipleship departments. The two are viewed as polar opposites, even at times seen as competitors for resources and focus, but Jesus never drew this distinction.
Jesus never separated evangelism and making disciples
Jesus wasn’t only about evangelism and he wasn’t only about discipleship. Jesus was only about making disciples.
Making a disciple requires that you help people come to faith in Christ and train them to feed themselves and reproduce. It’s not either/or, it’s both.
The church needs a long-term strategy for multiplication
Now more than ever we need churches that are not fixated on short-term gimmicks to achieve explosive numerical growth. What we need are churches that are committed to a long-term strategy to make disciples who will make disciples to the third and fourth generation. If you do that, the growth will take care of itself.
A veteran pastor’s reflection on what matters most
I recently had the opportunity to sit down and visit with Pastor Peter Lord. Pastor Lord was born in Kingston, Jamaica, British West Indies. He later came to the United States for school and pastored Park Avenue Baptist Church in Titusville, Florida, for more than thirty years. Lord is a gifted speaker and author, best known for teaching people how to pray and hear God’s voice.
Today, Dr. Lord is retired and well into his 80s, and I wanted to hear words of wisdom from his life and ministry. We talked about a lot of things, his wit and sense of humor still sharp and surprising. When I asked him about the condition of the local church today, he got serious.
Leaning forward and locking in on my eyes, he said, “England had the greatest preachers, but now they have empty cathedrals. We must do more than preach, we must make disciples.”
When I asked him what he would do differently if he could do ministry all over again, he said simply, “In my day, ministry was all about making decisions for Christ, but if I were doing it all again, I would make more disciples.”
Today Dr. Lord meets with people in his home and he trains them to walk with God, reach the lost, and invest in a few. He’s making disciples.
This blog features an excerpt from one of our books, Bold Moves.
