Strategy #1
Friendship Evangelism: As the Brothers in our great Brotherhood seek ways to create a vision for the Church and lead them to win the lost much time in prayer and in the study of God’s Word is needed. Your attendance must be looked at carefully. How many do you have in attendance, and how many of those are members?
Let me give you a hypothetical, let’s say your congregation is about 100 so you have most likely say 75 members. Ask each member to make a list of family and friends, and neighbors they know personally. This will supply you with 225 to 375 names in your city; ask for the names and addresses. Pray for these people. Then ask those who submitted names to take you or your evangelist to see the people. My personal experience with this is a high percentage will receive you, and study with you. Even if the soul winner is of average ability you should see 55 to 90 baptisms. This is the most effective means of evangelism. The next method is more labor intensive and is the least effective.
Strategy #2
Lost Souls: Let’s assume you have 10,000 housing units which average 3 per household. If you door knock to set up Studies you will encounter 2500 at home of that you can expect to set up 1000 Bible studies and if the soul winner does an average job you will have 85 baptisms in your city the first time you cover those 10,000 housing units. This means your church through the LEAST effective means of evangelism will add 150-175 to your attendance of 100. Tell me, should you be excited? I am.
How hard is this? It is not hard it just takes the courage, hard work and will power to do it. Twenty trained couples can prayerfully knock 4 doors per hour 9am to 12pm 1 day per week and in 42 weeks every door in your city has been knocked. This can be repeated until everyone has been given the opportunity to have a Bible study. In other words you can have people being baptized and saved on a regular basis. Does this sound too simple? These two strategies work, I have used them and they are effective.
Will all of your members cooperate? no, that is why the elders must shepherd the flock. Will your preacher do this? maybe, but my experience is most preachers are pulpit wise and very poor at evangelism. There are far too many “good pulpit” men and far too few “evangelists”. Elders must make the determination that they want the church to grow. Do not listen to the worn out excuses “we tried it before and it did not work”. It did not work because the people of God did not want to proclaim the Gospel of Jesus. It is time for a great revival in the Lord’s church, look around, how many did the Lord add to your congregation so far this year? What about last year, the year before? How many are in attendance this year vs. five or ten years ago.
Steve Webb, evangelist
(c) 2017
Unity of the Faith 