Is evangelism about results or relationships?

We should focus more on ‘When did you last tell someone your story’, suggests Mark Greenwood

Last year’s articles were all around the theme of ‘How can Elim churches be really good news?’ The inspiration came from a campaign we ran online over lockdown, literally called ‘Really Good News’. I have decided to keep that as my column title as I am more convinced than ever we have really good news to share, and that we can be really good news, because we live in a world that is full of really bad news.

With that in mind, through many ways, including guest articles, stories, resources, books and thoughts from me, we will explore what it means for us to be really good news people. And, at the risk of being interactive, if there is a subject you would like to suggest reach out to me and I’ll see if we can do it.

As I write this article, I have just finished a meeting with someone called Nate who works for ‘The Ugly Duckling Charity’, a ministry committed to helping Christians be resourced in conversations with people, and in particular in the very early stages of the journey ‒ even before the faith chat starts. We reflected about how in an age of strategy, goal setting and outcomes, we have to be very careful about getting caught up in numbers and outcomes when it comes to evangelism. Jesus said, “Go out” not “outcomes”.

Very early in my ministry as an evangelist I carried an unnecessary burden affected by the ‘Let’s wheel in the evangelist because we need to see people come to Christ’ treadmill. By all means wheel the evangelists in, but if I am to understand the limited references to the evangelist in the Bible, it’s more about equipping than ‘winning the lost’? Let’s remember in our evangelism this year that Jesus is the Lord of the harvest, not us! That thought has liberated me.

We may not be able to do anything about people coming to Christ but we can do something about taking Christ to people. That’s why I feel the ‘When did you last lead someone to Jesus?’ is really unhelpful. ‘When did you last tell someone your story?’ may be a bit more of an acceptable challenge as we can do something about that.

If you have heard me speak on evangelism you may have heard me say, “Journey is the operating system of evangelism.” If we want to be really good news we have to be prepared for the journey. A good question to ask ourselves as Christians and churches at the start of this year is, “Who are the people I am meaningfully journeying with around faith – or who might I be able to journey with? Don’t use the ‘how many?’ filter but use the ‘who Lord?’ filter.

A prayer I pray often ‒ maybe three times a week ‒ is this: “Lord, help me leave a little bit of Jesus wherever I go. Lord, lead me to someone I can help along the journey.”

I wonder whether this year might be a year where this could be your prayer?

 

This article first appeared in Direction Magazine. For further details, please click here.