In the desire to be relevant and up-to-date in reaching out to the community, a minister can teach about the outdated methods of the past by pointing out their diminishing effectiveness. The young upstart minister following some of the new styles for outreach will discourage door knocking and personal studies in the home as methods of the past. One can recognize the need to be up-to-date in reaching out to the lost. This morning I was in the courtroom for moral support to a recently converted member in his court case. At this time, I met his wife who also announced that she will begin to attend services with us. She was previously not doing this. This is called relational evangelism. But sometimes in this desire to be with the times in outreach we leave the impression that nothing works in reaching out. We must be careful about putting down the methods of the past. When we do we leave the older generation discouraged about the future of the church. This breeds a mindset of doing nothing in evangelism. If nothing is working, let us just do nothing. This style of evangelism never works. I think the Waynesboro congregation will have a door-knocking campaign next year.
Related posts:
- Article on Missional Evangelism
- Incarnational Cultural Evangelism
- Review of “Mystic Way of Evangelism”
- Defensive Evangelism
- Attending Evangelism University
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About The Author
Matthew is originally from Nova Scotia, Canada. He has a beautiful wife named Charity and a precious baby named Gabrielle. He has graduated from the Brown Trail School of Preaching, Heritage Christian University with his Bachelors of Arts in Biblical Studies, Lipscomb University with his Master’s of Arts in Biblical Studies and his Master’s of Divinity at Freed-Hardeman University. He is presently working towards his Doctorate of Ministry at Harding Graduate School of Religion. His articles have appeared in the World Evangelist, the Highway to Holiness, The West Virginia Christian, The Christian Echo, The Firm Foundation, Church Growth, and the Gospel Advocate. He enjoys hockey, golf, boxing, and chess. In his spare time he enjoys reading numerous genres of books. Also, he is working on climbing all of the 14ers in Colorado. Matthew is the Pulpit Minister for the Castle Rock church of Christ.
Great thoughts Matthew! You know I’m one who is always looking for something new. But, I think that the only people who claim home/personal studies do not work are the ones who don’t want to do them. The facts are simple: if you doorknock you will get the door slammed in your face; if you are lucky for every three doors slammed in your face you will get someone to accept an invitation to study. Another fact is this, the word of God is powerful and not one person will be saved until they are exposesd to it.
If you have a campaign let me know and I will come up and help. I enjoy door knocking. I am not the best but I love to do it
KUDOS!
I am trying to teach this principle to the students in my PE class.
Here, however, is the problem that I see: Many are told that doorknocking is the only “true” way to be evangelistic. They hear sermons on the Great Commission and other important texts, where the conclusion is that they must be out doorknocking. Then, they evaluate their lives in regards to this principle and they see that they are failures. I know of very few preachers who even doorknock on an absolutely consistent basis.
My approach, then, is to build upon what people already have the ability to do. I force my students to evaluate evangelistic opportunities, from the most traditional to the most “outside the box,” realizing that at some point you have to talk to people about Jesus. I have been pleasantly surprised by the results. It turns out that there are many ways to be DIRECTLY evangelistic if we will just think about them. Most of us have a talent for evangelism waiting to come out and express itself.
My hope and prayer is that every student will grow into an effective door-to-door worker through experience and trial and error. But, rather than build on a foundation that very few people have, I’d like to build on a foundation that God has innately placed within each one of us.
One request: can you organize it so that our students can be a part of your efforts?
God Bless,
Michael
This seems sad that when we think of evangelism, that we only think about door-knocking. This shows our limited perspective on this practice. Good thoughts. The point is to have a wide range of methods.
How sad is it that we think of evangelism in such narrow terms! Our very lives are called to be evangelistic, there is no program to apply, whether it be door knocking, bible correspondence courses, or the program de jour…. what all that leads to is a thinking that we can shuttle our evangelism into some little compartment of our lives.
God seeks for us to live evangelistic lives 24/7… what works in one area will be rejected in another, but we fail to properly bloom in our daily lives when we view evangelism as a program that we ‘do’.
On a personal note Matt, I am sorry to have not gotten to meet and visit with you at the FHU lectureships… we were there Tues-Thurs, but very busy with getting to the lectures and being with some dear friends (Jack and Lola Hilliard) who live in Henderson. Oh yeah… there was this little storm Tuesday night and another one after the Thursday chapel time)
Perhaps we will meet up in the near future… God willing!
Looks like Crosby may hit the ice again soon… look out for the Pens!
Jimbo
Jim you make a great point, it is not a program, it is a lifestyle.
Here is the secret to evangelism: trasitioning from compartmentalized life that includes Christianity to Christianity becoming our life’s vocation.
Don’t believe me? Read the book of Acts.
Rex
Matthew,
Great post and thoughts.