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"Then He said to His disciples, 'The harvest truly is plentiful, but the laborers are few. Therefore pray the Lord of the harvest to send out laborers into His harvest.'"
(Matthew 9:37-38)
I have noticed that cultural and religious commentator, Carey Nieuwhof, who I enjoy reading and listening to, has been speaking about the lack of evangelism lately. He said only 1% of pastors say their church is very effective in reaching people. This means 99% of pastors do not believe their churches are very effective in evangelism. Nieuwhof pointed out that 13% of pastors said their churches were effective just a few years ago. He also states that 80% of church growth is transfer not conversion growth. Some statistics say it is much higher, like 95-97%. Transfer church growth is simply moving people from one church to another. This is most disheartening.
Nieuwhof gave 5 reasons why evangelism is on life support:
- Culture wars have created an "us and them" mentality. It kills evangelical aspirations to reach people when you are constantly condemning the people you are supposed to be reaching. I remember years ago I said something derogatory about secular people, and a consultant working with our church at the time asked why would I rebuke those I am trying to reach. It is great to speak the truth in love, but oftentimes we leave love at the door and march on with truth.
- The world continues to reject critical, judgmental Christianity. What is missing is humility, kindness, and generosity. Jesus had issues with the religious people of His day and them feeling superior to others. 42% of non-Christians rank hypocrisy as the leading cause for rejecting Christianity compared to 33% for suffering or theodicy. We should own and confess our hypocrisy.
- Unchurched people feel judged and not loved. John 3:16 says clearly that God loves the world. We should hate sin but not sinners. We must love the lost. Jesus loved the world enough to die for all of us while we were sinners (Romans 5:8). Nieuwhof pointed out that we often judge more than we love, and judgment is a terrible evangelism strategy.
- Transfer growth has become the primary growth. Likely only 2-3% is conversion growth. This is not good and is not true growth. Transfer growth has its place. For example, when you move to a new city, you will look for a church in that area and decide to get plugged in there. But transfer growth is not on mission.
- Church leaders have given up on a battle they are losing. This is a tough thing to admit. I will share in more detail about this tomorrow.
I invite you to hear and obey Jesus' teachings to pray for more laborers and be prepared to be one of those laborers sent out by the Master on mission.
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