Thanks for tuning in as I’ve been walking through the Vitality Matrix. It’s a great tool to help normal-sized local churches understand ministry health. Today, we are talking about core category 6. Here are the archives if you want to read the whole series.

​Is my church healthy?​
​How healthy are the relationships in your church?​
​How good are your metrics (and do they really matter)?​
​Beyond biscuits and coffee (what's your strategy for ministry?)​
​What does financial vitality look like?​
​How easy is it for new people in your church?​

Category six is one I often find many churches swear they do, but aren't very intentional.

Evangelism.

If a church IS evangelistic, they know it. They might not have a problem seeing a 3-6% growth rate yearly. BTW - this is what systems naturally need to stay actively alive…not just local churches.

Can I get on a soapbox real quick?

I write to you as a mainline pastor, serving in a denominational role in my Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church.

The longer I am in the mainline (it’s been almost 20 years at this point), the more I realize that we actually confuse two important ministry dynamics.

Ministries of Mercy and Justice. Ministries of Mission and Evangelism.

This might come from my upbringing as an SBC mega-church pastors kid, but I don’t hear much conversation about actual evangelism around mainline circles. I tell people that we've combined these two ministry streams into what we call "missions." We focus on mercy and justice work, but often forget about evangelism.

I went on a Lesslie Newbigin tear earlier this year, and I’m going to drop something he said in here.

Goheen and Sheridan, in their book on Newbigin’s missionary strategy, have this to say about the idea of evangelism and mission in current church culture. (go get their book Becoming a Missionary Church right now).

Regardless of your tradition, I think the American Church needs to rediscover evangelism. We are in a groundswell of spiritual curiosity, especially in people under 40. Here is the definition of evangelism I use when working with local UMC congregations in Louisiana.

“Evangelism is about drawing people to a relationship with Jesus Christ through a relationship with a local church.”

Why the emphasis on the local church? Most of the demographics I’ve run for churches estimate around 30% of their population is likely involved in a local church. Usually 65% have agreement with the statement “It is possible to believe in Jesus Christ and not have a relationship with a local church.”

While I don’t want to get into a conversation about salvation, and I don’t think St. Peter is going to hair split the idea in heaven, I personally believe people meet Jesus and grow as disciples in Christian Community in a local congregation.

So let’s talk about evangelism inside the vitality matrix.

Unstable Churches

The church rarely has new visitors, and the congregation isn’t equipped or expected to invite people into the ministry of the church.

These are churches that might only see 3-5 visitors a year. They haven’t taken in more than a handful of new members in the last 5 years. On an average Sunday, if they have visitors, they account for less than 1% of the attendance that day. In some situations, you might have only 2-3 visitors over the course of a year. I’ve seen churches of around 20 people see less than 5 a year. It didn’t frighten them.

Many times, I also see churches in this category seeing their sub-par livestream as the primary evangelistic arm of the church. This thinking, as well as an early 2010s approach to social media (see this video) seems to be the silver bullet they are hoping for. In short, evangelism is almost non-existent in the church.

Stable Churches

Once a church reaches the stable category, you begin to see a bit of invitation from the congregation. Sure, it might be only a few people, but those few people can cover some ground! The church is still relying on signage and social media to be the primary intentional method of evangelism (I call that passive evangelism).

At this stage, seeing a new person in worship on Sunday morning might not be regular, but it isn’t odd anymore. Depending on the size of the church and the location, it might be one on a Sunday or a few spread out across a month. You will find most of those people are coming from invitations from the same segment of the congregation.

The pastor probably has some sort of guest follow-up system, but it doesn’t extend beyond a “we hope to see you again” approach. There isn’t likely a discipleship pathway in place.

Vital Congregations

A vital congregation is typically seeing 5% of their Sunday attendance each week made up of new visitors. The congregation has been trained in personal evangelism and is equipped with resources to invite their friends to church weekly (invite cards are a great investment!). Social media is still in place, but personal invitation is the power behind these new people coming. The invites no longer come from a handful of people, but is a known congregational expectation.

Another big difference is the guest integration system (see the previous email). It helps new guests become fully integrated members.

At this time, you might see a basic discipleship pathway in place. It focuses on Sunday morning and adults, but it is there.

Sustainable Congregations

This category takes the vital category and amplifies it. The guest integration system is designed to fit the unique needs of the local church. It isn’t only for adults, but is part of both kids and student ministry. The church also has adapted it to not just fit Sunday morning, but other aspects of the ministry of the church. They know their first contact with someone might not be Sunday morning and they’ve adapted it to fit other ministries.

Their discipleship pathway works the same. All age groups. The church has also developed a unique definition of following Jesus through their church.

So where do you think you are? While some of the other core categories might take some work to move forward, I find this one is perhaps the quickest to get into. Doing an intentional invitation campaign is a great way to build these patterns.

I also realize I wrote from the perspective of evangelism as a pipeline into the local church, and not getting into the “salvation” side of evangelism. My focus on involvement in the local church is important. The idea of evangelism happening on a stage, or from a stranger, is a unique blip in the larger radar of the history of the church. Rodney Stark shows that relational evangelism is key to church growth. This means people with existing relationships join the church. This method has been the main way for the last 2,000 years.

Got questions? Or just want to provide feedback?

Feel free to hit reply to this email.

Next one we will be back with the last core category, congregational engagement.

See you then

Chad

ps. You can see the entire vitality matrix here.
​Individual Areas of Congregational Vitality.pdf​

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