As we move into a time in between past/normal/precedented and COVID/not normal/unprecedented, our evangelism efforts may feel stuck. No one wants more events that happen over Zoom, and it’s also still not wise to gather without precautions. We want our unsaved/unchurched neighbors to know we care for them. So how do we spread God’s Word and invite others into the community of church during this time?
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I appreciate the uniqueness of every church I have attended. Each one spoke the Gospel and served their community in their own way while leaning on the strengths of their congregation members. Each had its own way of evangelizing and creating opportunities to bring others into their community.
No matter where you are or how large your church is, I think that learning about the different ways churches evangelize can be helpful. Below are some ideas for how every size congregation can evangelize in their unique circumstances.
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Within a couple of days, our lives have been upended. Events that were supposed to be coming up have been canceled, many of us are working from home for the first time, and even churches have suspended in-person gatherings. It may feel pretty bleak, but a side effect of all this chaos is that people are looking for hope.
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It was the second day of tennis practice my junior year of high school. I was team captain and ready to begin the season. My coach pulled me aside about halfway through warm-ups and told me that we’d have new person joining. That this person’s family was new in our tiny town. Despite the fact that the new person had never played before, she wanted to try the team so she could make connections before the school year officially started in three weeks.
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You may remember that during the 2019 National Youth Gathering, participants from around the country helped us to pack twenty-six tons of Bibles, books, and other Christ-centered resources. These boxes were sent out to the 1,500 congregations that participated in NYG to encourage evangelism within their own communities.
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The church I attended while in college looked for ways to reach out and serve the community we lived in. Situated right on “Frat Row” in one of the most educated cities in the country, our church had a unique position to serve.
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We all have different talents. We know this; we experience it daily. It’s an incredible thing to watch different people with different skills work towards a united goal. The Word speaks to this concept by saying: “If the whole body were an eye, where would be the sense of hearing? If the whole body were an ear, where would be the sense of smell? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as He chose. If all were a single member, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, yet one body” (1 Cor 12:17–20). St. Matthew Lutheran Church in Barrington, Illinois, and their recent mission trip to Belize provide a great example of this message in action. Because of your gifts to Concordia Gospel Outreach, we were able to play a small role in God’s work in Belize.
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Back in February of this year, a study done by Barna research showed some very alarming numbers. One of the most concerning bits of data was that almost 50 percent of practicing Christians in the millennial generation agreed that it is wrong to share your faith with someone in hopes that they will someday share the same faith. In other words, they believe it is morally wrong to evangelize.
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Imagine asking 22,000 youth to take roughly twenty to thirty minutes, or even more, out of their busy National Youth Gathering schedule—a trip they’ve planned for and anticipated for years—to pack boxes with forty pounds of books each. And not one box but many. And more. And more and more. And then to stack those boxes on pallets so they can be sent to complete strangers throughout the United States. Easy, right? They’d jump at the opportunity, wouldn’t they? Well, they would—and they did!
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Everyone is on social media nowadays. As with anything, social media has its pros and cons. It can bring out the worst in people—unfiltered language from users can lead to hurt feelings, arguments, and in extreme cases, cyberbullying. However, the medium isn’t all bad. We can spread love and light through the dark parts of social media too.
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