The Church Answers Podcast
#159 Rejoicing about Evangelistic Churches
Welcome to the Church Answers podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. Now get ready for fast-paced insights on key issues affecting the local church today. We release three episodes each week, so make sure you've seen or heard them all. And now, here is the CEO of Church Answers, Tom Rayner. All we're driving to the church at Philippi, and he was seeing so many great things happening. And he said these words in chapter four of Philippians. Rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I say rejoice. Not only did he use the word rejoice twice in that short pericope, but he used it in the imperative twice. Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again. Rejoice. I realize that church answers and in the life of Tom Rayner, because I'm in the business of diagnosing churches, hopefully in a healthy way, that oftentimes we talk about things that are bad that are happening in churches. I mean, my second best-selling book ever was autopsy of a deceased church. I mean, how much negative can you get than talking about dead things or things that died? I get it. I want to take this episode and just rejoice. I want to rejoice about evangelistic churches. I want to rejoice about churches that are reaching people with the gospel. And it reminds me of cash back in the 1990s and '96, '97. I wrote a book that's dated now. I'm not urging you to go get it, but I don't even know if it's available quite frankly, but it's called effective evangelistic churches. And I was a part of the Southern Baptist Convention then and I put some parameters down and kind of just spit out the data and we found the 576 most evangelistic churches out of the roughly 40,000 plus churches that were in the denomination at that time. And I put the names at the back and got some data on them, put the pastor's name, the church name and location. You would have thought that I was having a party. I guess I was. We were celebrating over 500 of the most evangelistic churches in the denomination according to certain parameters. It got to be such a fun thing after we put them in the book and we were talking about the characteristics of these effective evangelistic churches that we decided to have a conference and we included more than our denomination in that conference and we presented recognition. I don't want to call it awards because it's not all about what's in it for us. We're recognition how God was working in these churches. We had an effective evangelistic conference and we had people at tables and there was applause and there was excitement because these were churches that were reaching people with the gospel. I know that there's a lot of negativity. I'm the source of it quite often. I'm the one who has said only 1% of churches in America have an ongoing evangelistic program or ministry. I'm the same one that said only 5% of churches have anything evangelistic in the course of the year. I get that. I'm the one who has brought up the stark and tough reality of what has taken place in many churches. But I want to shift my focus for this episode and I want to talk to you about some churches that are reaching people with the gospel. I know it's not a majority. It is not even a significant plurality, but I want to rejoice in the Lord always. Again, I will say rejoice. So what's going on? Well, for one thing, more and more church leaders and members are realizing what they are missing. And they're saying, you know what? We do a lot of good things in our church, but we are not reaching people who are not followers of Christ with the gospel of Jesus Christ. They're recognizing that and is that recognition that causes their desire to change, that desire to change moves them from just obedience to the Great Commission to obedience to the Great Commission. And then you start having evangelistic churches. More churches are realizing that they're missing evangelism. I love it when we do the Know Your Church report where the members respond about what they think about their own church. And even though no one member's highlight is done in anonymity, the aggregate numbers are really revealing. And I've seen churches come back and say, "We're not doing very well in evangelism." But then they rejoice because they know they're not doing well. And that means they can change. They recognize the problem instead of being in denial. As I've said in a previous podcast, they accept it and they want to change. More churches today are realizing what they are missing. And as they realize what they're missing, they are ready to change. I have mentioned a new denomination that is being formed, the Global Methodist Church. And it's just that. It's global. The contacts I have are within the United States. And we could get into all the issues about why the Global Methodist Church, most of them are pulling away from the United Methodist Church. That's not my purpose here. My purpose is to say this. Many of these Global Methodist Church leaders are saying, "Just because we left a denomination, didn't mean that we're automatically evangelistic." We've got a return to the tradition of John Wesley. We've got a return to the tradition of Christ even more importantly. And we have to be evangelistic. And for my Global Methodist friends who are out there listening to this or watching on YouTube, I hope that's who you become. I hope that that is going to be one of your primary emphases. I know that you have written that as your primary, one of your primary emphases and your founding documents that I think are still tentative right now. But I pray that that's what you become an evangelistic denomination with a heart and fire of Wesley and with the desire to be obedient to Christ. I rejoice in that. I would rejoice too in the days when the Southern Baptist Convention was more evangelistic than it is today. But there are still some churches, even though the number of people that they reach for Christ is waning considerably. There are still some churches that are reaching people for Christ in that denomination. And I rejoice in that. I rejoice in what is happening with the Hope Initiative. I think I'm mentioning that almost every podcast now. Better get careful. I might overdo it, but you can tell I'm excited about it. You know, we're to the point now where well over 1,000 churches are participating in the Hope Initiative and it just keeps growing and growing and growing. And what the Hope Initiative is doing is just creating a culture of hope. It's creating a culture of outward focus is creating a culture of evangelism. And this is because church answers invented a methodology quite the contrary. We found out what God was doing in churches and presented what God was doing as a way for other churches to do it. Now, the Hope Initiative is not like any one church. We tried to take the best practices of several churches, but I rejoice that now over 1,000 churches are participating in the Hope Initiative and it's still very young. It's still in its emphasis. I know we have a long way to go, but you don't get anywhere without taking the first step. And I'm getting more and more encouraged that more churches are taking that first step and they are moving to an evangelistic heart and evangelistic obedience. So what does a church need to do to be a part of this movement of rejoicing and evangelism? Well, they need to have an emphasis on evangelism. Again, one possible path is to look at the Hope Initiative to renew your emphasis in that area. You have to be intentional. Evangelism doesn't happen by accident. It happens by obedience. And evangelism is something that the enemy, Satan, would want to keep our eyes off of it because every time someone becomes a follower of Christ, the population of hell is reduced by one. Intentionality is absolutely necessary. And as I've mentioned in a previous podcast, accountability and evangelism. I love it when I hear that staff come together for staff meetings every week and they talk about with whom they've shared the gospel, how evangelism, that fire of the gospel is burning in their own hearts and how they have shared it with others. So let's just take a minute and let's rejoice. Let's rejoice in the Lord always. Sure, let's don't be in denial. We readily admit we have a long way to go. But let's rejoice that many churches are moving in this direction. And guess what? If you're not one of those churches, if you're a pastor who's not leading one of those churches, all you've got to do is start now. Take the first step. And if you want to take the first step with the hope and issue that's fine, but whatever step you take, take it now. It is my prayer that though we have begun rejoicing, we will have much more to rejoice about in the days ahead. I'm rejoicing about evangelistic churches and my prayer is that your church will be one as well. Thanks a lot. We'll see you in the next episode. You have been listening to the Church Answers Podcast presented by Chaney & Associates. Chaney & Associates are the accounting firm for the church. You need to focus on ministry. Chaney will focus on finances. Also please subscribe and give a review to the Church Answers Podcast on YouTube and on your favorite podcasting app. (upbeat music) [MUSIC PLAYING]