5 Sobering Realities About Evangelism in Our Churches: Most Churches grow at the expense of others

Christian Post ^ | 07/17/2017 | BY THOM S. RAINER

[SeekAndFind]

My wife said she did not understand a word I said to her.

Ouch.

I was attempting to explain our research on 1,000 randomly chosen churches, and she had a blank look on her face. I knew what was taking place. A statistical nerd (me) was trying to share research with a normal person (my wife).

Such is the conundrum where I find myself. This research is incredibly revealing, but I often speak in such statistical terms that I cloud its import.

Allow me, then, to attempt to write with some clarity. Let me know if I have not succeeded. Here are some prefatory comments:

• In this article, I am addressing the issue of evangelism in our churches. Churches measure conversion growth in different ways. The churches in our study measure conversion growth by baptisms.
• The best way we know to measure evangelism effectiveness is the number of conversions relative to the size of the church. We often used membership as a measure of the size of the church in the past. That number unfortunately is no longer statistically relevant. Too many churches have inflated membership rolls. Some churches ignore membership altogether.
• We are now using average worship attendance as our metric for church size. We will look at the number of conversions relative to the average worship attendance of the church. For example, a church with an evangelism ratio of 19:1 is reaching one person a year with the gospel for every 19 persons in attendance. To be clear, lower ratios are better; higher ratios are worse.
• Do not compare these ratios to any ratios that have used membership as a metric for size! Any such comparisons are "apples and oranges" comparisons.
• Please read my previous articles on our research to understand its scope.

So, with the statistical nerdy language done, allow me to share five sobering realities on evangelism in our churches.

1. Growing churches are growing largely by transfer growth. Most of them are not reaching people with the gospel. They are growing at the expense of other churches. The conversion ratio of all 1,000 churches is 19:1. Growing churches are only slightly better at 17:1. Their growth comes largely from other churches.
2. The number of effective evangelistic churches (EEC) is surprisingly stable. We defined an EEC church as one whose conversion rate is at least 50 percent better than the average. Although very few churches are growing evangelistically, the number of such churches is pretty stable. I did a study of EEC churches in 1996. The percentage of such churches has remained in the narrow range from 6 percent to 7.5 percent. Though we don't have many evangelistic churches, the numbers have really not declined over two decades.
3. Churches that are not in the EEC category are doing much worse evangelistically than in previous years. A non-evangelistic church twenty years ago typically did poorly in evangelism. A non-evangelistic church today is typically doing really, really, really poorly today. There is a widening chasm between these two groups of churches.
4. Evangelism in the EEC churches is a clear priority. I'm stating the obvious here. But many churches are not doing the obvious.
5. There are clear and discernible patterns of action in EEC churches. It's fascinating to see the simple consistency in evangelistic churches. We will be sharing these patterns in future articles.

I am praying God will lead our churches to an evangelism renewal. Please join me at EvangelismRenewal.com where we will be sharing details of our research and much more. You can get a free eBook by me on evangelism renewal when you sign up

May God send an incredible evangelism renewal to our churches.

And may it begin in me.

[robroys woman]

There are two “subtle” things I noticed that caused me to join the church my wife and I have been attending for the last few months (and really like).

1. No national flags in the sanctuary.
2. No alter call.

When I first became a Christian, I was a fan of the alter call, though that is not what brought me to the Lord. I’ve since come to the conclusion that there are many better ways. In fact, reminding “newcomers” that there is an information desk in the lobby with people that are waiting to answer their questions is, in my opinion, the best way to bring non-Christians to the Lord from the Sanctuary.

Also, the Alter is an old testament concept about a thing on which sacrifices are offered. This means that every Christian church that has a Cross hanging on the wall has an alter, and that Cross is it. Well, it’s a symbol of the alter on which Christ was sacrificed.

[DungeonMaster]

Remember that time King David collected such a metric of Israel and the whole nation was punished for it?

[Wilhelm Tell]

I don’t understand this:
“For example, a church with an evangelism ratio of 19:1 is reaching one person a year with the gospel for every 19 persons in attendance.”
One would hope that 100% of the people who attend a church are reached with the gospel.

[Wilhelm Tell]

I think many churches think almost exclusively about evangelism and they do not focus enough on Christian growth and maturity for those already there. Actually, focusing on developing believers into greater maturity might have a secondary effect of helping with evangelism.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

alter - verb - change

altar - noun - a table or flat-topped rock used in religious ritual

[ealgeone]

Peter issues an altar call.

37Now when they heard this, they were pierced to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, “Brethren, what shall we do?” 38Peter said to them, “Repent, and each of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins; and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. 39“For the promise is for you and your children and for all who are far off, as many as the Lord our God will call to Himself.” 40And with many other words he solemnly testified and kept on exhorting them, saying, “Be saved from this perverse generation!” 41So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls. Acts 2:37-41 NASB

[taxcontrol]

While I understand your point, I would counter with an observation: Most churches do NOT teach that each and every Christian is the recipient of the great commission and as such, has the personal responsibility to

1) live their life as a testimony to Christ
and
2) Go and teach the world, making disciples

I am of the opinion that most churches today need a strong dose of apologetics followed by an attitude shift from merely “being a good person” to sharing the gospel.

[The Truth Will Make You Free]

One person is baptized for every 19 attendees. For example, if the church attendance averaged 190 at the start of the year, 10 would be baptized during the year.

[robroys woman]

Sorry. I spelled it wrong.

But yeah, the particular definition you quoted was a bit different than the ones I’ve looked up in the past, but makes the same point. The jews used the altAr to offer up sacrifices as a shadow of what was to come - the sacrifice of the body of God in flesh sacrificed for us. The final sacrifice. So one could make the argument that the cross was a type of “altar”. But that is the only thing in a Christian church I feel comfortable calling an altar.

[robroys woman]

Yes, but that was not typical “church”. Virtually everyone warming pews in all of the churches I’ve been to are already professing to be Christian. However, when there is an outreach (like the youth camp type of stuff), this is much more appropriate.

i.e. the event in Acts 2 was not a “church service”. It would have more in common with the modern “tent revival”. That is, the majority of people there have never really heard the message. That is not what a weekly meeting of believers is.

[caww]

Evangelical churches are in trouble period. Too often spreading a false prosperity gospel and bringing too much of ‘the world’ into the church....rather than “go out from the church with the Gospel Message”.....

[Terry L Smith]

Still too many churches afraid of losing their 503c.

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

Still too much threat to the 503c. Trump promised to eliminate that threat, and he’s been hard at keeping promises.

[jettester]

You do not need a 501c3 to be a church. Each State recognizes the for-profit and non-profit corporations when you file with them. The IRS has already codified churches in the tax code as nonprofits so there is no Fedral impacts. The 501c3 only allows churches to book-keep the money and assets given to churches and assign the value to the giver at the end of the year. Our church has existed for over a hundred years without a 501c3 the entire time - it is up to the individual donor to track their own donations for their returns, not the church. Every church that has one has voluntarily “muzzled” themselves for no reason at all ever since Johnson changed the law about what churches can talk about.

[Terry L Smith]

Once the next democrat gets in, i state, not opine, that every church not known to the irs, will be deemed illegitimate religious organizations.

[Salvation]

**alter**

Don’t you mean altar call?

To alter means to change something — such as hemming a skirt, taking a different route to work.

[wardaddy]

No altar call?

I can’t imagine church without that