The Hole in our Evangelism

We are living in the midst of a spiritual epidemic that often goes ignored by churches throughout our nation. This epidemic can’t be treated by new books or buzzwords. It can’t be contained through catch phrases or cute acronyms. It can only be turned around by pastors, church staff and lay people who are broken and burdened for the lost. This spiritual epidemic is evangelistic indifference.

We live in a nation growing at overwhelming rates. In 1981, the U.S. population was approximately 229 million, and today, we are at 322 million. The fact that our nation is growing at such rapid rates and yet our churches are dying and baptisms are dropping should send chills down the spine of every follower of Jesus. We must recover our fervency for reaching the lost with the gospel of Christ.

In Acts 17, Paul is in Antioch awaiting the arrival of Timothy and Silas. In the midst of this pagan culture, he becomes driven to reach the lost. Here, we learn three lessons to help us end the epidemic of evangelistic indifference:

1.) Lostness was personal to Paul.

As Paul awaited his ministry partners in Antioch, his spirit was provoked. His spirit was not provoked because people were constantly pursuing him or persecuting him. It was simply that Paul found himself in the middle of a city giving glory to a god who did not deserve it. It became personal to Paul that the god of man’s imagination was bypassing the God of creation.

As we look around today, we find ourselves in a similar place. Our culture is busy laying its praise on the altar of false gods and self-centered pursuits, growing more and more hostile to the things of God. People are flocking to our nation to pursue the American dream while our churches sit silently hoping they will somehow stumble into our doors. If we are going to see this epidemic turned around, we can no longer be indifferent about lostness. It must become personal to us, as it did to Paul. We often forget the reality of hell because we refuse to be close to those who are on their way there. As long as we are more provoked about politics, economics or sports than we are about those lost and going to hell, we will not see this epidemic turned around. We must take personal action.

2.) Paul was intentional about engaging the culture.

Because the city’s spiritual state became personal to Paul, he wanted to do something about it. In verse 17, Paul goes into the synagogue with the Jews and devout men. In other words, Paul went to church. However, Paul doesn’t just go to church and expect others to join him there. He also went into the marketplace every day to seek those with whom he could share Christ. In churches today, we need less expectation that the lost will join us in our church and more intentionality for us to go into the marketplace. We need to apply our time, resources, strategies and efforts to equipping and mobilizing marketplace missionaries who work to make a living but live to make a difference.

Too often, we have made the Sunday morning experience our primary method of evangelism when it’s only a fraction of our church members’ week. This is the hole in our evangelism—that we subconsciously train our people to spend the minimal time on what matters the most. What if we built our strategies on marketplace evangelism? What if we equipped our people to share the gospel where they spend most of their time?

3.) Paul’s objective was the gospel, and his message was compelling.

Provoked by the need, Paul began to preach. He went before the Areopagus; and as verse 18 tells us, he preached Jesus and the resurrection. This was the common pattern of Paul’s ministry. His sole objective was to proclaim the gospel. In verse 20, the men of the city demonstrate a hunger to know more about Jesus and his resurrection. So, too, when we engage people with the gospel, we will see them hunger for more of Christ.

Taking Paul’s example, let’s take the lostness around us personally. Let’s intentionally engage our culture by equipping and mobilizing our people to go into the marketplace. Let’s keep our main objective of faithfully proclaiming the gospel.

We are tempted to identify ourselves and churches as “gospel-centered.” However, if the gospel is not being shared individually and corporately, how are we “gospel-centered”? Perhaps it just becomes a buzzword and a hole in our evangelism. May we work together to put an end to the epidemic of evangelistic indifference!

EDITOR’S NOTE: An expanded version of this article first appeared on Southwestern Seminary’s TheologicalMatters.com blog.