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.

Is your church strong in foreign missions but weak in local outreach? If so, you’re not alone. As they say, it’s easier to write a check than share your faith. If this is true at your church, here’s an idea that might help: a reverse missions conference.

A reverse missions conference puts the emphasis on “Jerusalem” rather than “the uttermost parts of the earth” (Acts 1:8). The desire is not to weaken foreign missions — not at all. After all, the Mission of God involves all venues of the Acts 1:8 mandate. As someone said, “Missions is simply evangelism gone cross-cultural.” But such a conference, if your church holds an annual missions week, can help restore interest in the local part of the Great Commission.

Recently, The Philip Center helped lead a church through this kind of conference, and it went very well. Here are some of the details.

Title: Go Local!

Schedule:

* Thursday: Planning meeting for leaders of outreach small groups
* Thursday evening: Focus Group (click here for more)
* Friday: Church and town leaders meeting. The church provided lunch at town hall and asked the town leaders how the church might meet needs in the town.
* Friday evening: Video of on-the-street interviews about God and religion, followed by a discussion on how to reach spiritually lost people.
* Saturday morning: Men’s, Women’s and Youth Breakfast: “Sharing Your Faith”
* Saturday evening: Dinner and main speaker
* Sunday morning: Services with main speaker
* Sunday after the service: “Where Do We Go from Here?”

An essential element: have someone in place to keep the momentum going from the conference. If the conference is inspiring, be sure that you have someone in the church who can champion outreach and keep it moving forward. And then be sure to provide evangelism training so that those who are inspired by the conference are equipped to share their faith.

I’m not much of a golfer. I’ve played a few dozen times in my life, but I haven’t inherited the natural talent of my grandfather, who I hear was a great one.  There are too many things to think about all at the same time — foot position, hand position, head, shoulders, club face. It’s way to much to remember!

Church life seems that way some times. And when it does, it’s time to remember the basics. What is the essence of church life?  In this article, I’d like to particularly address those of us who give leadership to church activities. It’s important that as we busy ourselves in the activities of church life, we also keep an eye on the big picture of the purposes of a church.

Understanding the essence of a thing is very important to me. What is the essence of marriage…of education…of the church? I’m uneasy pursuing activity in these areas of life until I have some grip on what its fundamental purpose is. When the Westminster Shorter Catechism states “Man’s chief end is to glorify God, and to enjoy Him for ever,” it’s making a statement about the essence of life.

I like what Wayne Grudem says about the essential purposes of the church: “We can understand the purposes of the church in terms of ministry to God, ministry to believers, and ministry to the world.” (Systematic Theology, ch 44. C). The problem is, it’s difficult to maintain these ministries in balance as we seek to nurture healthy churches.

Have you noticed how helium-filled latex balloons deflate in a day? They’re the old fashioned balloons that end up floating just above the floor the morning after a party? But it seems like the shiny Mylar balloons last for decades! The church’s ministry toward the world — our calling to reach non-Christians with the gospel — is like the old-fashioned latex balloon — it deflates faster than the other ministries.

How do we keep the outreach balloon inflated? For starters, we must believe that evangelism is as essential to the church as worship and discipleship. And believing that the purposes of a church include evangelism rests on our understanding that mission is first of all God’s mission, and therefore it is the church’s mission. We go into the world because Christ came into our world. We leave our comfort zone just as Jesus did — taking the form of humanity and becoming obedient to the point of death on the cross. The story of history is the story of God’s work of redemption. That’s why it’s the church’s mission.

Given the multitude of barriers to personal evangelism, church leaders must give a disproportionate amount of attention to outreach. Keeping that balloon inflated as fully as the others will require more input. How is your evangelism balloon? Does it need more air? Keeping it inflated will help you maintain the health of your ministries of discipleship and worship.