The Evangelism Catalyst

I just got done reading When There's No Burning Bush: Following Your Passions to Discover God's Call by Eddy Hall and Gary Morsch. This book is an excellent read and I highly recommend it! With the premise that "every member is a minister," the book helps churches make a major paradigm shift from being program driven to being call driven. While assisting followers with call discovery and the identification of six myths that hinder people from living out their calling, the authors challenge churches to closely examine their contribution to ministry degradation. This book is not only illuminating for the follower, it's convicting for the church. What is so exciting about this book is that the authors have included a 7-8 week small group leaders guide in the back to assist churches in taking the first steps of change, empowering people for ministry.

All of this got me thinking...
Most churches when assessing their weaknesses will say that they are weak in evangelism. When trying to improve this area, many will implement programs designed to teach people how to share the gospel and be prepared to answer questions that may come up in spiritual conversations. They may try to create special activities or worship series to attract non-believers and encourage followers to invite a friend to church. At the same time, most believers will admit they feel fearful of witnessing while feeling guilty that they don't do it enough.

And it dawned on me...
Maybe the approach is all wrong! Maybe the way to help churches and people be better at evangelizing is not to focus on evangelism but instead to focus on ministry and allow evangelism to be a natural outflow of that ministry. When you identify your ministry calling and are able to live out that calling, you're not only more successful at it because God has specially gifted you for the task, your joy level is exponential, motivating greater participation. If we are surrendering our lives for God's purposes, can't we be assured that any ministry He may call us to will somehow be a witness to Him and strengthen the Kingdom?

By directing people to focus on identifying their ministry call and living it out, we redirect their attention from something they naturally resist and are fearful of (evangelism) to something that God has prepared them to flourish in, while at the same time accomplishing God's ultimate purpose; to connect with those who don't know Him yet.

The key to this is making sure that all the church's ministry opportunities aren't inwardly focused. I would hypothesize that if we (the church) allowed "God callings" to determine our ministries and spiritual gifts and skills to determine the way our people were involved in ministry, that most likely the majority of these ministries would not be inwardly focused (taking place on church premise, mostly benefiting church members), but would instead be outwardly focused (touching the lives of people who may not know Him and/or have a need only God can meet).

Which makes me wonder...
Is the solution to church decline and minimal Kingdom growth the freeing of our people? Freedom to follow the Spirit wherever it leads. Encouragement to discover our "God calling". Release from responsibilities and commitments not in alignment with that calling. And the celebration of God's people being used by Him to touch the life of another.