Calvin Wilkins, a much-loved and well-remembered Kentucky Baptist pastor and former KBC Mission Board staff member, once told me of a young pastor who wanted to find a new place to serve. The young man expressed to Calvin that he wanted to pastor a good church, a church like the one Calvin was pastoring. Bro. Calvin gently shared with the young preacher that it was a great church, but it was not that way when Calvin started serving there.
Churches must be nurtured and led to become effective at advancing the Great Commission. Dr. Tim Beougher, evangelism professor at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary, has reminded us that churches will drift into fellowship, but they must be led into evangelism.
An important part of helping a church or Christian ministry or organization become evangelistic is developing an evangelistic culture. Culture in any church or organization is that unspoken understanding of what gets done around here and how it gets done.
Leadership guru and management consultant Peter Drucker has famously said that “culture eats strategy for breakfast.” He was not implying that strategy — or a plan of action — is unimportant. It is not only important, it is essential. He was saying that the culture of an organization will determine if the strategy actually gets implemented.
So how can a pastor or ministry leader develop an evangelistic culture in their place of ministry responsibility? Here are five suggestions:
1. Check your own heart. Do you want to have an evangelistic church and are you willing to pay the price? Is advancing the Great Commission the driving force of your ministry, or have you settled for something other than that? We can never lead others where we ourselves are not headed.
2. Pray and ask God to help you. God gave us the Great Commission, so there is little doubt whether He will answer your prayer.
3. Train your people to share the gospel. Those who are equipped to share Jesus are more likely to witness to lost people than those who are not. When people are being trained to witness, they are more often thinking about lost people, praying for lost people, partnering with others in winning the lost and, as a result, talking to lost people more often.
Training is not confined to a small group going through a witnessing course — though that is important — but also in your preaching, communication, meetings, videos being played and stories being shared. Training instills in followers what is important to the leaders.
4. Schedule evangelism. What gets calendared gets completed. As the budget shows spending priorities, the calendar shows ministry priorities.
Church leaders were told years ago that scheduled, or programmed, evangelism had passed its expiration date and that what we need today is lifestyle evangelism. That is sharing Jesus where we live, where we work and where we play. Churches do not need to make an either/or decision — but can instead make a both/and one. We can have scheduled times of evangelism throughout the year while also encouraging every member to be a witness as they go through life.
5. Celebrate evangelistic faithfulness. The KBC Mission Board staff has an all-staff meeting about once a month. This meeting begins with prayer and then asking three or four of our team members to share some of their witnessing experiences since we last met. There are always more people willing to share than we have time for. Men and women from every team speak up and tell us of their attempts to share Christ with their family, friends, neighbors and as-you-go acquaintances. We celebrate every attempt that a team member makes to share Jesus with others because we believe you replicate what you celebrate.
Building an evangelistic culture is not easy, but it can be done over time, and it will support your strategy for reaching your community with the gospel. God will help you as you take steps in this direction.
Dr. Todd Gray 