With all of my heart, I wish that the next big issue in the church would be our general lack of evangelistic zeal. We are simply not growing.

            Far too many of us are willing to merely attend services, give nominal amounts of money, read an occasional report from a lonely evangelist in a far away land and feel contented that we are serving the Lord acceptably.

            To be sure, we are, for the most part, living godly lives. We are good citizens, good little league baseball coaches, good workers on the job, good moral people who don’t cheat on our spouses or our income taxes. But the church isn’t growing.

            Most of the time during a gospel meeting, the preacher will preach a lesson on the need to save the lost and we amen him in our minds. We know that what he is saying is right, but most of us decide that evangelism is not our “gift” and someone else can do that. We tell the preacher what a fine lesson it was and that we are going to do better. Our intentions are good, but when will we get to work?

            There are exceptions, but not many. There are not many churches that are baptizing any significant number of people. How long has the congregation you are a part of been pretty much the same size, except maybe for older Christians who have moved in?

            Since the collapse of communism, we have done a better job of sending evangelists to other countries. And that is quite commendable. We are still far behind many other groups in the numbers of evangelists who are going overseas (at least to live), but we are doing better than we have done in the past. But those of us who are not going overseas need to be evangelistic at home.

            For years I have heard our lack of growth explained away by saying that we are growing spiritually, which is far more important than growing numerically. God is more concerned with quality than quantity. And if we are growing spiritually, we will eventually grow numerically. How long will that excuse continue to survive? How much have we grown spiritually over the last few years? If we are growing so much spiritually, where is that inevitable numerical growth we have been promised? Some people have been Christians for years (supposedly growing spiritually each year), but have NEVER taught or helped to teach a lost soul. When will we finally grow spiritually enough that we will begin to share our faith with our neighbors? At what point in our spiritual growth is this numerical growth supposed to start?

            In reality, I am afraid we have grown in our intellectual knowledge of truth, but not necessarily in our application of that truth. It is one thing to know more biblical facts (and that can be important), but it is quite another to put that knowledge into action

            I fear that we have, for too long, considered a congregation to be sound based solely on doctrinal issues. As long as a church doesn’t support human institutions or send any money to a sponsoring church, we have called that church “sound.” Never mind that they may be sound asleep when it comes to evangelistic efforts; they are faithful. The things above are important issues, for sure, but they are not the sum total of what is involved in being faithful to God. Failure in doing right is just as deadly as doing wrong.

            What would happen if preachers all over the country began to preach about evangelism with the same fervor with which they attack a false teacher or false doctrine? What would happen if those same preachers would spend less time behind the doors of their studies (surely it doesn’t take 40 hours to prepare two sermons and two Bible classes) and more time out in their neighborhoods, meeting and inviting and teaching their neighbors? Might other Christians be inspired to try to do the same?

            When new Christians start sitting beside long time Christians and new faces are being seen all around the assembly and new visitors are coming to check out the church, there is a renewed sense of excitement and joy. Momentum builds and others are encouraged to try harder to bring their friends, neighbors and relatives.

            What would happen if, all over the country, congregations would begin to conduct training classes on how to do personal evangelism? What would happen if assignments were made (and followed up on) to make certain that the newly fired-up Christians would put their new knowledge into action? If you don’t have someone qualified to teach such training classes, have someone else come in and teach it. There are plenty of talented people in this field, including Brent Hunter, Ken Leach, David Banning and others.

            What would happen if, in each of these congregations, there was a renewed emphasis on prayer for the lost and for more laborers in the harvest (Matthew 9:36-38)? Could we stop just talking about prayer and begin to really pray?

            Is it possible to make evangelism the next big issue in the church? Is it possible for us to get out of our church attending, sermon listening, money giving, going home and doing nothing tradition? Is this possible?

            Many other issues have divided the church over the years. Maybe this would be an issue that could unite us into an army for the Lord that could not be stopped. Is it possible that we could “preach the gospel to every creature” (Mark 16:15)?