Is planning personal evangelism effective

On a recent missions visit to Russia I had the great pleasure to visit and preach at the evening and morning meetings at the thriving and rapidly expanding New Life Church in Kirov, Russia. During that Sunday God moved powerfully over the congregation where many souls were saved. Glory to God! The memories of my visit, the love and welcome of the people there will stay with me forever.

I spent two days with Pastor Alexander and his wife discussing in depth about his church, evangelism and related subjects. At one point in our talks I asked him, “Why do you believe that your church has grown so quickly?”

I must admit I expected an answer that would bowl me over. However the answer was very simple and to the point. “Oh, we encourage our members to invite their families, friends and work colleagues to church”. I thought to myself, “We do that at out church”. The truth is that many churches do the same as well.

I wanted to discover if there was anything different about the way that they went about doing this so I asked him exactly what the church did. What he told me may come across as radical to some, or could even make you feel under pressure if your church adopted the same programme.

What was undeniable when I was there was seeing the love and passion in the people as a whole to win souls for Christ. The church had what I believed was an evangelistic lifestyle. This stemmed right from the top to the bottom and Pastor Alexander exemplified this.

The question I want to ask you is, “Shouldn’t all of our churches be like that?”

“Then, leaving her water jar, the woman went back to the town and said to the people, “Come, see a man who told me everything I ever did. Could this be the Messiah?” They came out of the town and made their way toward him” John 4: 28-30

Key Point: All churches should have an evangelistic lifestyle so that the lost can find Christ. Otherwise how will they find out about Him?

The scripture above really is a true representation of what we should do as believers in Christ. Thinking about it, the lady didn’t need to be told by Jesus to go and bring people to Him. Rather she was so impacted by what He said that she immediately went off to encourage others to meet him.

So then what is the method that this growing church uses? Is it just simply asking and inviting people along to meetings? Yes it is, but the difference is that go about it in a planned and strategic way.

From what I gathered there are four important key elements to their activities. Are the methods really different from your own church’s evangelistic activities?

Encouragement and training: The first area that the leaders in the church concentrate on is to encourage and train people in simple and effective ways to invite people to church meetings. Pastor Alexander made the point that they don’t train people to preach at people because it can put up barriers and make it difficult to go back to the person in the future.

Added to that, my own thoughts about are that the person who invites people will clearly be showing that their life has changed and from that comes an enthusiasm for people to hear the good news.

List writing: The second element involves writing a list of people including, family, friends work colleagues and acquaintances. On completion of this the list is broken down to months with contacts placed in each month.

Some of these months may involve using the church calendar for periods like Easter and Christmas. In addition there are Mothers’ Day and Fathers’ Day meetings, outreaches, special events, guest speakers, men’s events, ladies’ events, youth, and children’s meetings.  

Praying: This is very important and links in with the prepared list. The people in the church then pray regarding the people being invited each month. This provides a prayerful focus for the people written on the list. Church leaders and house group members join in with the prayers for the lost. In addition to this the church holds all night prayer meetings five nights a week from 11pm to 6am from Mondays to Fridays every week.

Having thought about this, it in all likelihood this section explains the rapid growth of the church.

Strategic and planned invitations: Finally the fourth part of the plan, involves inviting the people whose names were initially listed, placed into months and prayed for. Prayer makes a way for this as the church members use a proven method of asking people to come along to meetings.

Having looked at this, the three elements of encouragement,  training and making a specific plan of invitation backed up by regular prayer, makes the difference. It was really very refreshing to be in a church where there was an overall passion for the lost. Newly saved will quickly recognise that it is a natural thing to invite people to meetings. They will do the same. My old boss used to say, "Moray, like breeds like, so set an example for people to follow. Don't just tell people what to do. Show them and encourage them to do the same". Pastor Alexander has done exactly that. There a plenty of examples and roll models in scripture that can inspire us to step out in faith. Jesus being the best of all.

I personally learned a lot from being there and will never be the same.