When a high school looks for a basketball coach, they don’t look for the best player they can find.  They look for someone who can coach the whole team to success.  Sure, the coach needs to have played - and have first-hand experience of the game.  But if the coach is always on the court shooting foul shots and playing pick up games, he won’t be much of a coach.  Worse yet, if he’s always frustrated with the players who aren’t as good as he is, he’ll demoralize the team.

Selecting an evangelism leader is similar.  You may be tempted to enlist the gifted evangelists for the job.  They’re the ones who regularly lead others to Christ.  They’re the guys who glance over the gas pump, start a winsome conversation and lead the other guy to faith before they hit the 10-gallon mark.  Our churches desperately need them!  They are gifted by the Holy Spirit to bring men and women to faith far more often than the rest of us.

But they typically don’t make the best coaches.  They can play well, but they don’t usually coach well. Why not?  For one thing, the work of evangelism comes naturally to them, so they don’t need to reflect on their methods of outreach.  They just do it.  For another, they often don’t understand why other people struggle with outreach.  “What’s so hard about all this!” they will often say.  (May God increase their numbers!) Since they don’t understand why it’s hard for others, they don’t make the most patient encouragers.

So when you’re looking for an evangelism leader in your church, look for someone who

• has a passion for reaching spiritually lost people,
• doesn’t (necessarily) easily lead them to faith and
• has an encouraging spirit.

These men or women will make good coaches.  Once you find them, feed them with leadership support to develop their gifts of helping the entire church reach out.  At the same time, free up the gifted evangelists to do their work.  Then celebrate the fruit that God brings!  Let the players play and the coaches coach.