Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus

From The Gospel Coalition:

Mack Stiles. Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus. Wheaton, IL: Crossway, 2014. 128 pp. $14.99.

Our church has always stressed the need for evangelism. Whenever our local missions pastor preaches, it almost always turns into a sermon on evangelism (especially when he’s trying not to). We have a local missions team that goes out every week to open-air preach and interact with individuals on the streets of our city, sharing the gospel at every opportunity.

But then, about a year ago, we did something really bold: we took all of our small groups through a personal evangelism workshop. The response?

*crickets*

I was a small group leader at the time, taking my group through the course. It was really challenging material that actually took a lot of the fear out of evangelism. But despite its initial “failure,” the impetus behind offering this training is a good one—a desire to create a healthy culture of evangelism, one where it’s seen as a normal part of the Christian life.

I have a hunch Mack Stiles would stand up and cheer if he knew this was something our church attempted (and continues to nurture). Why? Because that’s exactly what his latest book, Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus, is all about.

It’s Not About the Results

If there’s one thing Stiles wants you to understand, it’s this: evangelism is not about programs or events. It’s not a technique or a specific kind of response. Many of our problems creating a healthy culture of evangelism stem from a lack of a biblical foundation. We count declarations of faith, hands raised, cards put in a bag, people walking down aisles—but do these things really mean anything? Maybe, but maybe not.

Regardless, if we’re going to see a culture of evangelism take root, “we must be very careful to conform our evangelistic practices to the Bible, because this honors God” (24). So, Stiles, general secretary for the Fellowship of Christian UAE Students in the United Arab Emirates and author of several evangelism books, begins by defining his terms—specifically, what evangelism means.

“Evangelism is teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade,” he explains. “This definition, small as it is, offers a far better balance in which to weigh our evangelistic practice than looking at how many people have responded to an appeal” (26-27).

Those four elements in Stiles’s definition are key: teach, gospel, aim, persuade. Without any of those, you don’t really have evangelism. Our goal in evangelism is to communicate the gospel with the purpose of persuading our hearers that it is true. That doesn’t mean browbeating or extorting a profession of faith. It just means speaking with conviction about the truth of the good news.

This, I think, is one of the places we all get tripped up. We tend to speak almost apologetically about the gospel, or we wring our hands, break out into a sweat, and worry about saying the wrong thing. But this is also where it’s helpful to remember something crucial: “conversion is required [for salvation], but conversion is a function of genuine faith, which is given by the Spirit” (37). In other words, you’re not responsible for the result. You’re only called to be faithful and speak.

What a Culture of Evangelism Looks Like

So what does a healthy culture of evangelism look like? Stiles admits that it’s impossible to instruct people on everything that goes into it, but he can describe the yearnings that surround it. He breaks these down into 11 points:

1. A culture motivated by love for Jesus and his gospel
2. A culture that is confident in the gospel
3. A culture that understands the danger of entertainment
4. A culture that sees people clearly
5. A culture that pulls together as one
6. A culture in which people teach one another
7. A culture that models evangelism
8. A culture in which people who are sharing their faith are celebrated
9. A culture that knows how to affirm and celebrate new life
10. A culture doing ministry that feels risky and is dangerous
11. A culture that understands that the church is the chosen and best method of evangelism

There’s so much that could be said about each of these points, but notice how they all work together. If the people attending week in and week out aren’t passionate about sharing their faith, then no amount of encouragement from the pulpit is going to change them. This culture builds up from within the body and should be celebrated.

Simple, but not.

Create and Cultivate the Culture You Want to See

Creating a culture of evangelism isn’t a one-and-done thing. You can’t preach a series on evangelism or offer an occasional course, pat yourself on the back, and think, Nailed it. You have to be intentional about creating and cultivating the culture you want to see, but there’s only so much control any church leader really has.

Why? Because “a culture of evangelism is grassroots, not top-down.” Stiles writes:
In a culture of evangelism, people understand that the main task of the church is to be the church. . . . The church should cultivate a culture of evangelism. The members are sent out from the church to do evangelism. (65-66)

Do you feel the tension there? It’s so easy to fall into the trap of trying to force the change from the top or to program evangelism. But it doesn’t work that way. A church only becomes more evangelistic as its members become more evangelistic. And this is big, scary stuff. Church leaders can and should model it, but the members have to own it.

Thankfully, every faithful Christian can own this vision. We should want this for our churches. We should want to be the kind of people who take risks to share the gospel, who understand that entertainment doesn’t equal ministry and that God truly rejoices when one lost sheep is found. This is the vision Stiles presents in Evangelism: How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus. It’s what I want to see in my own life and in the lives of all the members of my church. How about you?