Hi First Presbyterian Church,
It’s time for our Mid-Week Meet-Up! This Sunday will be our second outdoor worship service of the summer and will be at 11:00 am, following our regular worship service. I’ve been working with our Vital Congregations Initiative (VCI) team to put together a service centered on the theme of “telling our faith story.” Please come for coffee hour at 10:30 and bring your lawn chair or blanket for the service at 11:00.
What does it mean to “tell our faith story”? What do you think of when you hear the word “evangelism?” For a lot of people, they think of a person knocking on their front door or being approached by a stranger out in public who is trying to convert them into accepting a new religious worldview. If you’re like me, imagining yourself doing that kind of evangelism makes you incredibly uncomfortable. In 2019, when asked how many times they shared their faith in the past six months, 55% of Protestant churchgoers said they shared their faith 0 times. If our concept of evangelism involves approaching strangers and asking them invasive questions about religion, it’s no wonder over half of Protestants aren’t evangelizing!
On the other hand, Jesus commissioned his disciples at the end of his earthly ministry to make disciples of all nations, to baptize them, and to teach them to obey Jesus (Matthew 28:19-20). Additionally, 1 Peter 3:15 tells us: “Always be ready to make your defense to anyone who demands from you an accounting for the hope that is in you.” We are expected to “always be ready” to tell others about our faith. VCI believes that “Intentional, Authentic Evangelism” is one of the marks of a healthy congregation. So, how do we reconcile the importance of evangelizing with our aversion to doing it?
What if evangelism didn’t have to involve accosting strangers but could involve having meaningful conversations with our neighbors - people we already know? What if evangelism didn’t have to involve a forced topic of conversation but was something that naturally came up as we talked about things that matter deeply to us? What if a starting point for evangelism was simply inviting people to worship with us at church?
In the book The Unchurched Next Door, author and researcher Thom Rainer explains the results of a study on evangelism that he and his team conducted. The study sought to understand the receptiveness of “unchurched” people (i.e., people who don’t attend any church and don’t identify as Christian) to the church and to Christian beliefs. The research identified five groups of unchurched people. Group 1 made up 11% of the unchurched and was highly receptive to being invited to church and hearing about its beliefs. Group 2 made up 27% of the unchurched and was receptive to being invited to church and hearing about its beliefs. Group 3 made up 36% of the unchurched and was neutral to the topic, with no clear signs of being interested yet perhaps open to discussion. Group 4 made up 21% of the unchurched and was resistant but not antagonistic to the topic. Group 5 made up 5% of the unchurched and was highly antagonistic and even hostile to the topic.
Would you have assumed that 36% of our unchurched neighbors were open to discussing being invited to church and that 38% of them were receptive or highly receptive to being invited to church? That seems amazing to me! Some of those people may be our own neighbors.
I hope you will come to our outdoor worship service this Sunday to worship God, to celebrate God’s love, and (importantly) to contemplate how to invite others in to experience that same love.
Peace to you,
Pastor Neff