Do evangelistic campaigns "work"?

A few days ago I was a part of one of those unfortunate conversations about whether evangelistic campaigns or public evangelism still "works." The question always leaves me wondering, "what do we mean when we say "works?" Normally I think these conversations primarily have the pragmatic concern of church growth in view. Therefore, the question is more acurately, "does public evangelism still produce church growth." The proponents say yes, the detractors say no. My comment: does it really matter?

I think you can demonstrate fairly accurately that done "right", public evangelism can produce church growth. At least the proponents will produce the statistics that show this. The detractors have their own statistics, but I think both sides completely miss the bigger issue.

Whenever we speak of something in the church "working" we must realize that we have a particular view of the church in mind. We have to ask "works for what?" So, on this particular day, as I was listening to this conversation and thinking to myself, "I've been here before," I found myself consumed by this question"

What kind of assumptions must you make about the nature of the gospel in order to embrace public evangelistic campaigns as a methodology?

The more I worked on this question in my head the more I realized that it comes back to a notion of the gospel as an "it". I wrote a post on this back in January called, The Gospel is not an "it". Reading that post will help you understand what I'm saying. The evangelistic campaign, born as it was in the modern era in America, is a methodology perfectly design for transmitting a decontextualized, propositional, static, objective truth.

So, if the gospel is not an "it" then evangelistic series are not admitted. It has nothing to with whether they "work". In many ways I am so grateful that in my context they do not "work". This reality forces us to deal with the real gospel - the kind that has flesh and blood and takes shape in neighborhoods.
 

Comments

[Wayne Krause]

I was interested in your statements “does public evangelism still produce church growth?” “does it work?” and your comments “does it really matter? along with “The Gospel is not an “it””
I believe public evangelism works if there is a possibility of an individual becoming a disciple of Jesus Christ. “Does it matter?” only if you believe as I do that church growth means the growth of the body of Christ, his bride, and the fullness of him who fills everything in every way is growing. I love public evangelism, private evangelism, anything, if it produces disciples of Jesus Christ.
If people see the gospel as an “it” – can they still enter the kingdom of God? Or do you have to have the right understanding of the gospel to do so? Can a person enter the kingdom by finding a treasure in a field burying it and not telling the owner about the treasure raise money to buy the field and then own the treasure. Interesting methodology, and motivation for entering the kingdom. I believe we can take people who join the church via a propositional approach and still make disciples.
Until I find something better I will still encourage those who are trying public evangelism and church growth. I am probably more sceptical of those in the emerging church movement who often seem to be second or so generation Christians who have a lot to say but don’t seem to have many runs on the board.
I was talking to Erwin McManus of Mosaic recently and he told me about being approached by the Los Angeles Times, I think it was, to do a story on his and other emerging churches. (Erwin doesn’t seem to like calling his church an emerging church for some reason!) They then came back and said they were not doing the series as they had not found any emerging churches growing. They did a story on his church, but he was glad they hadn’t called his an emerging church.
We planted a church just north of Sydney, Australia a few years ago to be amongst Australian pagans. Starting with 3 people we currently have just over 200 attending. We have 3 ex witches, ex prostitutes etc becoming disciples and I am having a fantastic time. Some think the gospel is an “it”, some think it is a person, while others just love the community. All are at different stages as disciples and I call it church growth and I think it matters.

[Neville Salvador]

I feel, “whether something works” is “on the table” and a legitimate question to ask with respect to evangelism, church growth (whether or not it is measured in numerical terms), and the Gospel.

Not everything that grows and works is the Gospel; but I feel, whether it is an “it” or a living, dynamic interaction of God, working through specific human beings in a specific time and place, at the end of the day (although full fruition may take years, or even a lifetime), the Gospel must ultimately manifest itself in (some sort of) growth and must “work” by affecting and positively changing the lives of those touched by the Gospel.

Protestations and laments about the numerical success of “cheap-grace, consumer-driven” mega-churches by members and leaders of shrinking, dying, totally ineffectual churches who insist they alone have the right/true/authentic theology, methodology and liturgy, kind of reminds me of the complaints of the English redcoats in the revolutionary war who insisted they were "real" and better soldiers but blamed their losses on the American revolutionaries who, instead of lining up in proper military rank and file on the battlefield, used guerilla tactics by moving unpredictably and randomly while firing from behind rocks and trees!

Having said all that, I am not a great fan of public evangelism, as commonly implemented today, for exactly the same reason you point out -- the Gospel presented as abstract, propositional truths. While the argument can be made that this is only a means to an end, and that relational and contextual truths could follow later -- my obvious question is --WHY? Why teach something that will have to be unlearned later? Perhaps it is precisely the reason it is second and later generation SDAs who are the leading skeptics of an evangelistic system that promotes a propositional truth, since it is they who have had to live with the simplistic, judgmental, rigid consequences; and have had to painfully re-learn lessons that should have been passed down by preceding generations.

As a fourth-generation Adventist lay person, I struggle to find better ways, methodologies and values that, I, personally, can pass on to my children that will make them evangelists of a wonderful, dynamic, progressive, relational “truth”. I would hope my three sons will be part of a fifth generation of Adventists who will have better tools to promote this Gospel of Jesus Christ in their time and context, rather than a mere mental assent to (an estimated?) 128 fundamental doctrines.

[Nathan Brown]

This discussion connects with an idea I have been toying with under the provisional label of "anti-evangelism"—that sometimes we should measure our evangelistic "success" by how many people we don't turn off/away from Jesus. My thinking was sparked by an article in Spectrum last year by Daniel Reynaud, reflecting on Adventist TV as a poor method of evangelism because that method of communication tends to entrench people's pre-exisiting beliefs. Thus, while some people are moved toward accepting God, they are those who had an exisiting interest, while those who tend to be skeptical are confirmed in their skepticism and in a way further "innoculated" against the gospel. I guess the biblical terminology would be their hearts are hardened.
This is yet an idea-in-progress but Matthew 18:6 suggests serious consequence for those who cause "little ones"—those of little faith—to sin and turn them away from God.
Of course, such an idea would be misunderstood by some who would use it as an excuse for non-evangelism and criticised fiercely by those who adopt the "whatever means necessary" approach to dragging one more soul into the kingdom. There will always be those who choose against the gospel but should we be careful that by the way we present it to them, we might be assisting them in stepping further away from God?
Would our assessment of whether evangelism "works" be different if we were to add up the positive but off set them with the negatives? And just how would we do that? Would five baptisms outweigh 50 people who are disgruntled, confused or otherwise discouraged by the same evangelistic endeavour?

[Monte Sahlin]

The hard data on whether or not public evangelism campaigns "work" is mixed. They do not correlate to church growth. Why? Because both growing churches and declining churches are equally likely to have public evangelism. Campaigns are equally likely to produce growth or not. (If you want to see the complete data, look at Chapter 2 in my book "Adventist Congregations Today.")

Don't jump to the conclusion that this is because converts who join the church through public evangelism are likely to drop out. The data on that is a very high percentage of the people who join the church through public evangelism are still going to church after one year or even several years. And, people who are born into the Adventist Church are more likely to be dropouts than are those who are adult converts.

I agree with you the question is really irrelevant. In fact, conventional public evangelism does work with some people. It is also true that there are many people groups who cannot be reached by this method. And what generates church growth is never as simple as just yes or no on public evangelism. At no point in church history has one method by itself been determinative for church growth. Church growth is a far more complex reality and always has been.

[Monte Sahlin]

I'm sorry, but I have to make this dialog yet a little more complicated. I do not think the gospel as conveyed by public evangelism has ever been "decontextualized, propositional, static, objective." Public evangelism works only when it is contextualized and it works most effectively when it is subjective, dynamic and emotional.

What I think you are trying to explain is the fact that you minister in a context which requires something different than conventional public evangelism and perhaps only private evangelism (considering the way in which spirituality has become a private matter in contemporary manners). When the negatives are greater than the positives, that means a particular method does not fit in that particular context.

These contextual issues are not new. They have always existed. There are countless examples in every century of Christian history where public preaching was not the best way to communicate the gospel, and the same is true throughout the history of the Adventist Church. There are places in the world where Adventist missionaries have never found public preaching sessions to be very effective. This is strictly an issue of appropriate technology.

[Ryan Bell]

This is a complicated topic and I don't think I've done a good job of really saying what I intended. Monte, I think you make my original point that the traditional evangelistic series works and doesn't work. It really all depends. The point you make in your book about it not being corrolated to church growth is another interesting issue that would be good to discuss but wasn't really related to what I was trying to say.

What I was trying to say was that the question of whether a methodology works is a second order question. The first order question is what it is you're doing - in this case, what the church is for. What is really at stake here is the very nature of the gospel.

I think my question still gets to the heart of what I'm trying to say.

What kind of assumptions must you make about the nature of the gospel in order to embrace public evangelistic campaigns as a methodology?

So, whether I embrace an evangelistic series as a methodology in Hollywood has very little to do with whether it works to produce church growth. The question I would rather ask is, "Does this method produce a community of disciples who by their shared life together are a sign, witness and foretaste of God's kingdom in a place?"

My experience is that it does not. Rather, (and here I will disagree with Monte at my own peril) the evangelistic series is designed to communicate abstract, decontextualized truths. maybe it's not designed to, but that's what it amounts to. The goal at the end is mental assent to these propositions.

Now, I know many of you are doing this better than what I've described and so I do not mean to disparage what you're doing. Keep up the good work. All I'm trying to say is that the pragmatic question of church growth doesn't even begin to scratch the surface for me. In fact, my fear is that this kind of evangelism does work. Maybe I'm just stubborn.

Monte, your observation about public vs. private raises a whole other set of issues that I'll save for a separate post. For now I'll simply repent of leaving the impression that I'm opting for private over public. My suspision is that it needs to be more public, not less.

[Trevan]

I think Adventist Global Evangelism, which I'm sure has done a lot of good, is very problemmatic for how we view the Adventist message and how we do evangelism. Their big drawing card for getting people to go on one of ther evangelistic trips is that if you go, you don't have to prepare a single sermon because they are already written for you. Whether you are from Tennessee or California, whether you are going to Guatemala or Nigeria, the same sermon is going to preached based on the same PowerPoint presentation. I think this is extremely poor methodology and does view the gospel as an "it" which is completly decontextualized.

I'm not a fan of the traditional evangelistic campaign but I'm not going to fight against those who want to use it. My concern is the popular attitude in Adventist circles which says that if people aren't doing traditional evangelism, they aren't reaching out at all. People are framing it in a traditional evangelism or nothing false dichotomy.

This same attitude is found in the Seminary at Andrews now. As part of our graduation requirements we have to do a Field School where we help out an evangelistic series. Every semester there are several different locations around the country. However, they all are presenting the same 6 week Revelation series that we've been doing for decades. There is no thought of innovative methods of evangelism but we are happy with the same old same old.

With that being said, Ryan, I think you are doing a great job of showing us how we can be authentically Adventist while using fresh and innovative approaches to impacting our communities. Thanks for sharing your journey with us because it has really helped me gain a greater vision of how I can lead a community of faith that transforms everyone it comes in contact with.

[Dick Larsen]

The typical evangelism I have seen through out my life reaches out to those attracted by conspiracies and end time event speculation. So, that is who we get. I also have experienced that if the suggestion is made to look for alternative methods of "evangelism", none register on consciousness radar of at least the church I have been involved in. This I would guess is a matter of education. Recently I read that Russell Burril has a new responsibility somehow in the SDA Church. His desire was to have all pastors be evangelists, I'm guessing in the traditional sense. I was left with a bit of unease with that thought. Who will be left to shepherd the sheep?

[Jon]

I found that the original question of this blog, "What kind of assumptions must you make about the nature of the gospel in order to embrace public evangelistic campaigns as a methodology?" is more of a challenge for me to rethink the very nature of the gospel than a overt challenge to those who engage in public evangelism of the six week Revelation seminar variety. I think, Ryan, that you have found away to move beyond this particularly heated debate and onto something more helpful for us all. Thank you.

I do wonder though, if public evangelism that seems to "work" with certain types of individuals can still be considered "successful" if it results in an individual who believes their role in the church community is to passively agree with certain intellectual arguments and little else. Is this a fulfillment of our calling?

[Monte]

It is certainly true that a series of evangelistic lectures that bring some individuals to passively agree with certain Bible-based propositions is not what the New Testament envisions in "making disciples." Evangelism is really a much more comprehensive, wholistic task in scripture. In some sense, the critique you are making of conventional public evangelism, Ryan, is the same critque that is made of "entertainment" in a "seeker service," although the mechanism and the specific outcome is different. Wholistic disciple-making must involve the intellect, the body, the emotions and the social context. The mission of Christ is not only "the whole gospel to the whole world," (to borrow an old phrase) but the whole person transformed by the whole gospel.

Ryan, I don't disagree with your basic point that methodology has implications for how we define the foundational elements of gospel, church and salvation. In fact, for most people, the choice of methodology is the most concrete and meaning-conveying action they take to express their values and definitions. What I am suggesting is a little more sophisticated analysis of methodologies and contexts. In fact, conventional public evangelism does not operate on pure intellect; emotion has a lot to do with what happens in most conventional campaigns and, as Trevan very cogently points out, intellectual value is not strong in many of these events. I was not attempting to deal with the higher order issues that you raised; I don't disagree with those at all (nor with much else that you wrote). I was attempting to suggest that this a more thick, complex reality than it seemed to be perceived as.

Having said all that, I am not sure how we escape the reality that people come to Christ in their own way; they come as sinners (therefore in ways that are not best); and they come, in part, because other sinners (therefore imperfect practitioners of ministry) invite them in various ways that are all grotesque when measured by the beauty and grace of Jesus Christ. In other words, there are people who honestly, really come to Jesus because they attend a rock concert worship service at the Church of Feel Good Now and there are people who honestly, really come to Jesus because they attend a Revelation Seminar. In each instance the practitioners are people with such skewed ideas about how to share the gospel that they don't even see the other practitioners are doing the same thing. Neither of these methodologies come close to the kind of transformative, creative disciple-making that I want to practice. But, no matter how people come to Jesus, that is simply the first day in Kindergarten in terms of the process of discipleship. We need to worry about the ways people come to Jesus, but in the end we have little control over that. We need to focus more on helping people who come to Jesus through the most faulty of methods to grow up toward the "full manhood" He has in mind for all His servants. How do we build communities where the rock-concert convert in his sandles and shorts can sit next to the end-time convert in his black suit, narrow tie and white socks and learn to open Scripture together and grow toward what Jesus really wants them both to be?

[Trailady]

Good thoughts, Ryan. I believe we have become FAR too formulaic and formal with evangelism. I have heard the exact same Revelation seminar presentations given by all our major evangelists for the last 20 years. Blah! Though I am priviledged to sing for such events, I usually sit there bored to death- same ol' same ol'. Do none of our speakers have a living connection with the Spirit? Can one of them come up with a fresh, Gospel centered approach??

Also, these events may bring in baptisms, but research clearly shows that many of our new converts leave within the first 3 years. Why? Because we're good at preaching and not so good at loving. Sad. People need a place where it's safe to be real. They need a place to belong and they need to feel like they are involved. Until we stop dunking and dropping people our retention of new members will continue to falter.
Sure, there's a time & place to teach people. However, every day you wake up, place yourself in God's hands, go to work with a smile on your face & treat people kindly you ARE evangelizing.

[Monte]

Trailady, what research clearly shows that many of our new converts leave within the first 3 years? I would really like to locate that research, if you can help me, please.