Evangelism The Great Omission Case Study

In their book, The Great Commission to Worship, Vernon Whaley and David Wheeler takes an in depth look at commandment from Jesus for His followers to go out and spread the Good News of salvation. Today’s Christian seems to have a misconception about their role in evangelism. As the authors stated, “many times in Scripture it appears

Many churches suffer from too few families controlling the life of the church. One of my members once said, "It's hard to get in here, but once you're in you're in." To which I replied, "And the Spirit of God weeps."

A church whose pastor and others in leadership have failed to put in place a proactive plan for discipleship for Believers is usually a “growing” church — growing stagnant, growing cold, growing spiritually immature Christians, and eventually, many growing closed. Patte said, “There is much at stake in accepting or rejecting the challenge of discipleship…” When a pastor or a church makes a conscious decision to make discipleship of Believers a primary focus in their

I feel that it is more important than ever that we, as believers in Jesus Christ, put it all out there on the line. We should be telling everyone what the saving grace of God can do for them. We already talked last week about when you experience Jesus, you can’t help but love and it is our job to get that word out there to everyone. So why are there so many Christians who don’t do it? In 1991 authors James Patterson and Peter Kim took on the task of surveying America about several different topics. The results were given in their book entitled “The Day America Told the Truth.” In the chapter dealing with America’s religious beliefs they stated that 90% percent of the people questioned said that they believed in God. Yet they also discovered

Over the course of the last several decades, mainline churches have been declining in membership as new independent churches have swelled in size (Bishop 170). Bishop asserts that this shift is primarily a manifestation of the Big Sort occurring at a smaller level. Pastors have recognized a shifting tide in the way people think about their religious communities, and have altered their techniques accordingly. In the new conception, the church was not a unifying force for the disparate segments of society, but a self-contained cell of like-minded individuals. These two forces, the splintering and separation of churches, have combined to cement the cultural gap in American life.

The Church Refused to Look Like the Community. Dying churches are concerned with self-preservation. The way of doing church is fare more important to these churches, than adapting to reach the demographics of where God has divinely placed them.

When trying to understand what Evangelism I think D.T. Niles may have been close to the mark when he said “Christianity is one beggar telling another beggar where to find food”. Change the word Christianity to Evangelism, beggar to the sinner, and food to Jesus and I believe you have possibly the easiest way to explain Evangelism simply by saying “Evangelism is one sinner telling another sinner where to find Christ. However, over the past years Evangelism has been in my opinion misconstrued with many other Christian words and trends. For instance, I would be willing to bet that if you asked Christians what is the first thing that they think of when they hear the word Evangelism most would respond with the name of and Evangelist such as Billy Graham, Charles Stanley or even Joel Olsten. Of course the word Evangelist has had the same problem that the word Evangelism has had in regards to losing the true intended meaning of the world. It seems that Christians now days have forgotten that all born again believers are Evangelist, not just those who show up in a small town with a tent, a band, and a sign that says revival. Every soul that becomes saved becomes a messenger of the good news. In fact, I believe with all my heart this is the exact message the Jesus was trying to convey in his followers when he gave the great commissioning in Matthew 28:18-20 NIV 18 Then Jesus came to them and said, “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 Therefore go and make

According to Bill Hull, “While certain pockets of evangelicalism have grown, overall, the church is in a decline. Many congregations can attest to Hull’s assessment, in that, churches in America are indeed experiencing sharp declines in its numbers of baptisms and church attendance. Over

Over the last 100 years, the white, evangelical church in America has experienced unprecedented ease. At no point in history has a particular body of Christians believers been blessed with such influence, prosperity, and general well-being. With exceptions, life has been easy. We have lived in blessing, but we have also grown numb. I 'm afraid that in our comfort, the Church in America has unintentionally become concerned with building OUR kingdom rather than God 's Kingdom.

This trend is exacerbated by Christians buying into America’s mantra of individualism. As such more Christians chafe when their churches expect accountability. There is a real risk of members taking offense at a phone call asking why they’ve missed a month of worship services.

Thom S. Rainer and Eric Geiger conducted case studies of churches and found out that healthy churches have simple processes for making disciples. Church leaders are encouraged by the authors to inquiry and seek answers to vital questions pertaining to church discipleship. The questions that peeked my interest are: Is our church simple or complex? Why? Where do we fit on this continuum? Or In the culture how have you seen people respond to simple (Rainer & Geiger, 2011, p27)? The kingdom is expanding through churches with simple process and the more complex churches are struggling. The authors share examples of simple church, just to name a few; the first one, is not well-know, the Cross Church (Rainer & Geiger, 2011, p33). Their purpose statement is clear and concise “love God, love others, and serve the world” Rainer & Geiger, 2011,

A lot of churches have changed their ways in how they approach things, because of Billy Graham, he created a new way to look

My friends we have brothers and sisters in Christ who are being persecuted for sharing their faith. All while many Christians in these United States are pulling away from the church, we are growing slack in our praise, worship and especially our prayer time... we are now content to cancel Sunday night services because of low attendance... and we tend to get itchy pants if Sunday morning service goes over an hour.

Apathy is a trait that inevitably overtakes us all at some point. In day-to-day life, we come to view common activities as mundane and unimportant; however, an ever-present danger exists where our attitude toward God becomes apathetic and mundane. Within the Lord 's church, a great deal of unconcern and indifference exists in every congregation. How frequently is the work of the church neglected due to members’ unwillingness to labor in the Lord 's vineyard (Matt. 20:1-16)? Undoubtedly the reason we notice the church of our Lord shrinking is due to this attitude of apathy and unconcern.

Today’s society causes people not to be active in the church due to kids playing ball, friends, or other activities. The author gives 8 bullet points of why they do not get involved in churches. Many people just “do not seem that they are needed”,” have poor past experiences”, “thinks staff should do all the work”, “fear of commitment”, “do not feel qualified”, “difficult to get involved” or maybe a “criminal record” (Alexander, 2013). The first one, is that they do not feel like they are needed. They think everyone is where they need to be and they can handle the job. Everyone is needed in the church, and it can help others in certain areas if more volunteers would step up. Next, people have had poor past experiences, and do not want to try again. People not helping, or being supportive to the new volunteer can be a negative to anyone that is wanting to try. Next, according to the author, people think that the staff should do all the work. Some churches have a large staff and they think the only “professional Christians” can do all the ministries(Alexander, 2013). God gives everybody talents, but some may not feel like they are qualified to do the task. We need to help them understand that they do have a gift and show them how they can serve and help spread the gospel to those you encounter. Others feel like they just do not have enough time because they are so involved with other activities. The author states that we could start them with a small commitment opportunity in the church just to show them no matter how small the task is, they are still always needed. Some people are afraid to start volunteering due to never being able to get away from it. It is ok to say no