Bill Easums Observations

More and more churches are reporting to me they are having conflicts over the sports schedule and the churches schedule. This has been a growing problem since the 80s.

Just recently I received an email from a client I’m coaching asking my advice on what to do with just such a problem.  In this case it was with the youth ministry- secular sports were taking kids away from the churches scheduled meetings. Here is what I told him.

 Why not see this as a missional opportunity and train your youth to be ambassadors for Christ and participate in the sport rather than being at the youth group. Instead of fighting it, or bad mouthing the sport for conflicting with church, equip the youth to participate in the sports as an ambassador for Christ.  Let them know their church is behind them if they will practice their Christianity in a way that it brings people to Christ and the church.

I think we place too high a premium on church attendance.   Most of our people spend too much time a church and not enough time sharing their faith with their neighbor. We have led our people to believe that attending church is the mark of a Christian. But it’s not. The mark of a Christian is what we do in our everyday lives.  So help your youth minister see that their participation in the sport is more important than being at church. If he has too, let him count them in attendance when they are gone for sports or for practice. But also encourage him to equip them to represent the church while they are there and to know that you, the youth minister, and the church support them being missionaries to sports.

That’s the way I would handle it.

There is an old myth that says it is best if lay people make the first call on visitors.  Well, that’s just what it is a myth. Up until a church reaches 500 or 600 in worship it should be the pastor. Many effective pastors like Adam Hamilton and yours truly did it within 24 hours.

Here is a four minute video of mine showing how to make this call to first time visitors.

Responding to first time visitors

I ran across a method of following up on first time visistors that I am now recommending in my Double Day campaign. I thought I would share it with you.

On Monday morning send a FedEx package to every first time visitor who signs in and include all or some of the following:

• a veggie tale CD for children, or an appropriate CD for a youth, a CD introducing the adult ministries and leaders of the church
• a 25% discount to your bookstore
• an invitation to the next Pastor’s Gathering
• and an assortment of any other items that might be appropriate to your church.

You can be sure any Fed Ex package is going to be opened.

Every study shows that the most effective outreach/evangelism/advertizing is friends inviting friends and networks. In fact, 85% of people who come to church do so because a friend asked them. Getting your people to invite their networks is the key to everything. The primary reason new church plants grow is because the pastor and key leaders are focused on inviting their networks to worship and the primary reason church plants plateau is because the pastor and key leaders lose focus on inviting people and begin to focus on the members.

So, what can you do to make this happen?

Here are some of the keys

• Passion about the Great Commission– your theology colors a lot of what your people think and do.
• Repetition — how often are you messages aimed at reaching the world for Christ?
• Ministries –What evangelistic outreach ministries such as “Servant Evangelism” do you have?
• Worship–how often do you mention in worship the need to invite friends and networks?
• Small groups– how often do they invite new people into their group?
• Staff–how often do you or your staff bring someone to church with you?
• Personal–How often do you or your staff actually lead someone to Christ?

In my early years as a pastor (60s-80s) I remember people saying that liberals focused on social justice mostly to the exclusion of evangelism, and evangelical focused on evangelism mostly to the exclusion of social justice.  In fact much of the theological differences during those years were crystallized in the dichotomy between social justice and evangelism as if one was more important than the other.

Well, no more.  Over the past decade we have witnessed a wholesale reverse of these rolls, with two exceptions.  The evangelicals now focus as much on social justice as they do evangelism and the liberals have mostly lost steam on either front due to their free fall decline.

Case in point.

I always record a couple of early Sunday morning programs. One of them is Meet the Press. I can’t make it through the week without watching this program-even if I’m out of the country.  This week Rick Warren and the Gates were featured.

I’ve known Rick long before he was the Rick Warren people know today- saddleback was a one horse church by then (sorry, I couldn’t resist the pun).  I’ve watched him mature in his leadership.  As I watched Meet the Press I could not help but say “Yes.” I loved his response to the question of whether he was right or left wing – “I’m for the whole bird,” he replied.  All the discussions on aids, Africa, abortion, etc. he was a constant witness to Jesus Christ.  He so eloquently tied together social justice and evangelism that only the darkest of hearts could take issue with him- even on an issue one might have a serious disagreement.

The evangelical wing of the church has really come full circle and people like Rick Warren are helping to bring about a marriage of social justice and evangelism the way the Scriptures intended.  You may not like some of this theology but I dare anyone to question the spirit of his ministry.

I salute you Rick.  You are the one God has put here for this hour. Continue to shine your light on social justice and evangelism as two sides of the same coin. It’s time both sides of the table learned the lesson God has taught you.

Bill Easum|
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

To some Donald A. McGavran is one of the greatest missiologist in Christian history. To others his name is almost synonymous with the Devil.  Those who malign McGavran simply have misunderstood him. They say all he is about is numbers. That he is responsible for pastors building large churches around the homogenous model. They say all he was about is church growth.

The title of my first book was The Church Growth Handbook. I had never heard of McGavran at the time. All I knew was that God had called me to change lives in Jesus and when that happened my church or someone else’s church grew and that was what it was all about.

It wasn’t long before I began to receive hate mail from colleagues who said I had sold out to the Devil. I didn’t understand at the time that they were referring to the work of McGavran.  They hated McGavran because in their mind all he and the church growth movement were concerned about was numbers and growing large churches.

Well, that’s only because they hadn’t taken the time to read McGavran. If they had, here is what they would have learned.

1. He challenged people to think in terms of reaching “people groups” with the Gospel instead of individuals.
2. He called for converts to immerse themselves in the culture rather than be extracted from the culture into mission stations as many churches do today.
3. He emphasized calling people groups and individuals to faith in Christ rather than building large churches (most of his work was done on the mission field where large churches didn’t exist).
4. The term “church growth” and the emphasis on numbers were always used in relationship to salvation.
5. The ultimate goal of the Gospel is not building churches but advancing the Kingdom of God.
6. Most of his ministry was done outside any relationship to a congregation.

What many don’t know about McGavran is that much of his work was done in the field totally apart from any form of institutional church. So numbers were never his concern- fulfilling the Great Commission was what drove the man to all that he did.

It’s time we recognized one of the great men of the faith- Donald McGavran- and quit saying all he was interested in was numbers.

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
easum@aol.com

“The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Pray the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”

Jesus directly asked us to pray that more leaders would be sent out into their networks to reap a spiritual harvest.  Yet, I find most pastors seldom pray for leaders to go into the harvest. Instead they spend hours trying to find people who will volunteer to serve in some church capacity.

When was the last time you prayed for leaders to emerge in your church who are willing to go out into their networks and share the Good News?

So, what is it that makes a pastor pray for leaders of the harvest instead of spending time taking care of the church? The answer is simple. Just look at the text. Prior to Jesus’ statement he was going through the country preaching and healing because “he had compassion on them.”

The primary thing that separates the thriving pastor from the not-so-thriving pastor is their understanding of the difference between compassion and caring.

There’s a thin line between compassion and caring. Pastors in thriving churches tend to have so much compassion for the lost that their hearts are broken;  whereas pastors in dying churches tend to have a desire to care for the people period.

I’ve found that pastors who care for church people as opposed to having compassion for the lost usually have a deep seated need to be needed.  I’ve also found that these pastors avoid controversy with all costs. As a result, their prayers are mostly for the survival of the institution rather than the salvation of people and the creation.

Finally, Jesus wasn’t behind a desk or the four walls of the temple. He was out among the people who were the harvest. Pastor, no one ever comes to Christ in your office.  If you spend more than a couple of hours a day in your office the odds are your church isn’t growing. If you want to be lead more by compassion than caring, get out of your office and into the harvest and see what happens.

If you need help with ideas how to make compassion and outreach more a part of your church go to the Hitchhikers Guide to Evangelism website.

Bill Easum
www.churchconsultations.com
www.21stCenturyStrategies.com

It seems my article “Six Tactical Mistakes Churches Make” hit a cord. Several commnents have been made both on and off my Blog.  One of the most important comments came from Matthew:  “How would you “combine evangelism and social justice into the fabric of the church?” Help me understand what that would look like.”

Here’s my response:

Matthew, this is an excellent question that goes to the heart of much of one of modern day Christianity’s most deadly heresies. I’m glad you asked the question because it shows you care about the issue.

The Dream Center in Los Angeles is one of the best examples I know of embedding social justice into the fabric of the church. The pastor, Matthew Barnett, used to be Assembly of God and is now a Four Square Gospel pastor, which means personal evangelism is high on his priority list. However, every week hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of food and medical supplies is sent out by the church and its hundreds of volunteers from all over the world.

And what about Saddleback’s war on Aids or Ginghamsburg’s fight to aid the suffering people of the Sudan. The list of churches the combine evangelism and social justice is long so I will l list only one more  church- the church I was pastor of for 24 years. 

We had a strong outreach ministry both in evangelism and social justice. We never did a social project without introducing Jesus in some way. We were part of the first churches to begin Project Free which became Meals on Wheels (we included a pamphlet with the meals). We were the first church in the U.S. to raise all of the money and build a house for Habitat (we had a bible study during lunch and invited the neighborhood). As a result of our efforts in community organizing in San Antonio 500 million dollars was invested to insure West side homes didn’t flood every time it rained. 

Matthew, I believe the Scriptures teach us  you can’t feed the soul if you don’t feed the body; and it doesn’t do any good to feed the body if you don’t feed the soul.

The separation of social justice and evangelism is one of the worst forms of reductionism in the history of Christianity. The long-standing fight between liberal and conservative Christianity is one of the major blights on Christianity.  It has simply truncated the church to the point that in many cases the church is a useless piece of junk that should be discarded. To say one is more important than the other is to discredit the words of Jesus found in the Great Commandment and the Great Commission. Social justice and evangelism are simply two sides of the same coin. One without the other is vain, stupid, and downright useless.

Over the years I’ve heard many conversations about which one is most important, evangelism or social justice. As if one could choose? Such stupidity! Such lack of understanding of the Gospel! You can’t choose one over the other and be a follower of Jesus. Not possible! Both are required for a whole Gospel.
Reductionism has hurt our witness over and over through the centuries. It’s time we quit truncating the Gospel.

I’ve also heard this argument “Evangelism isn’t always social justice but social justice is always evangelism (if you want to know more click here).” I don’t buy this argument either. I’ve seen too many people use such an argument as an excuse not to verbalize the Gospel when the time is right. I’ve dealt with a lot of church people who want to “do good” but have no interest in people coming to faith. And you know what Jesus said about being “good.”

So you see evangelism and social justice go hand in hand. When they don’t, you really don’t have a biblical church.