Evangelism conferences offer timeless basics, fresh and new ideas

By BARBARA DENMAN & LAUREN URTEL
March 14, 2008

KNOTT | HAMMOND | CARMICHAEL
MCRANEY | PASSMORE | STETZER

ORLANDO (FBC)—Throughout the three-day “iTell” State Evangelism Conference, small group seminars were provided to discover fresh approaches and rediscover timeless basics to help reach spiritually lost persons for Jesus Christ. In addition to the five seminars recapped here, another 12 provided targeted insights.

Timeless Principles for Growing an Evangelistic Church

“Your personal example is critical,” said Jimmy Knott, as he addressed pastors and lay leaders in his breakout session “Timeless Principles for Growing an Evangelistic Church.”

“If our churches do not engage people with God in a corporate worship service, they are not going to come back,” said Knott, who has been on staff at the First Baptist Church of Orlando for 28 years.

“You need a loving and receptive people,” said Knott.” I don’t want to be a friendly church, I want to be a church of friends.”

“The love and friendliness works its way down from the top,” concluded Knott. “Your personal example is critical. If you don’t show that lost people are important to you, they will not be important to your congregation.”

Visitor-Friendly Church

Thomas Hammond used jokes and a smile to help Florida Baptist pastors and lay leaders understand the importance of a visitor-friendly church and being prepared for guests.

“Your church cannot grow if visitors do not come back,” said Hammond, director of church evangelism, North American Mission Board.

“The longer we are saved the harder it is for us to think like lost people because we are not around them,” said Hammond.

Treat everyone like a first time guest,” Hammond suggested.

“We are the body of Christ and the world needs us to be on fire,” said Hammond. “They want to see if we are real and authentic and if we are not they will see through our façade.”

Making Disciples Who Make Disciples

Despite an increase in evangelistic efforts and baptisms, “Florida Baptists are not seeing an appropriate change in the church in terms of the number of people making a difference in the life of a church,” said Bill Carmichael, director of the Discipleship and Family department at the Florida Baptist Convention.

Make disciples the way Jesus did, he suggested, by teaching, mentoring, building relationships, modeling and correcting. “Decisions don’t make disciples, disciples make disciples. Jesus invested His life in them.”

New members need to know what it means to be converted, transformed, rewired and reshaped, Carmichael allowed. “People want to be safe and sound for eternity, but they don’t want to reshape their lives.”

The most critical time for new Christians is the first week following their conversion while their enthusiasm is at a peak.

Teach people to practice discipleship by praying daily, telling their story, celebrating God, being with other Christians, growing in Christianity; and showing God’s love.

“When you practice those disciplines your life begins to take on the shape of Jesus.”

Increasing the Odds: Raising the Evangelistic Receptivity Level in Your Church

After a textbook approach to increasing evangelism within a congregation was offered by Will McRaney, director of evangelism strategy for the Florida Baptist Convention, Tim Passmore, explained how he put those into practice as pastor of Woodland Church in Bradenton during the “Increasing the Odds” seminar.

McRaney suggested four major ways to create an evangelistic church—make evangelism a pastoral priority; create a climate for evangelism; develop an informed workable contextual strategy; and keep focus on the lost person, rather than succumbing to the “tendency to drift towards my wants, my desires, my preference.”

Evangelism begins with the pastor, Passmore said, “God called you to reach people for Christ; you need to have a passion.” He suggested pastors ask two questions: ‘Am I passionate for lost people?’ and ‘Are we the body of Christ?’ Everything I do is to accomplish those two things.”

While most congregations have only 15-20 percent of the members serving in the church, Woodland has 46 percent of the members involved in leadership roles, he said. “One way to keep unity in church is to get them to serve.”

He reminded participants to look at this worship through the eyes of a lost person, “people are not going to invite people to something they will be embarrassed about.”

ComeBack Churches

“Why study comeback churches?” asked Ed Stetzer, director of research for LifeWay Christian Resources.

Because more churches are declining and dying than are growing, said Stetzer, calling the statistics alarming.

“We are the only continent in the world where churches are not growing,” he said, adding that 50 churches a week are dying in North America.

Yet from a study conducted of 324 churches that were revitalized after decline, Stetzer, the co-author of the book “Comeback Churches,” is able to draw biblical and practical principles from the common experience of these churches.

These insights include: most churches choose tradition over children every time; most churches choose tradition over the community; pastors and churches will not change until the pain of not changing grows stronger than staying the same.

For more information on the study, go to www.comebackchurches.com.