Dear Small Church Pastor,
At a recent pastor’s meeting, one of our network leaders gave us a startling statistic. According to recent research on church attendance in this country, only two percent of new attenders to churches were new converts. Two percent!!!
It is my opinion that the greatest obstacle to church growth that must be overcome is not the facility needs or design, not the programs offered to families, not the charisma of the pastor, not the flashiness of the music team, not the version of the Bible being used and not the use of screens versus song books. The greatest obstacle to church growth is the lack of personal evangelism. The average modern-day person sitting on a pew or chair in a sanctuary for worship is not sharing his/her faith with people outside the church building.
I once asked a congregation how many of them had ever led someone to faith in Jesus. About 30% of those present raised their hands. Except for one individual, those hands belonged to people who were over 60 years of age. The sad thing is that none of those conversions were within the last few years.
I am also of the opinion that the Christian church in this country has somehow been convinced that sharing their faith with non-believers is offensive, and, as was reflected in a meme I saw last year, “The greatest offense is to offend.”
Where is our boldness under the anointing of the Holy Spirit? Where is our outspoken commitment to the cause of spreading the good news about Jesus? Where are the Christians who turned the world upside down? Have they all died and left no one to continue the work of sharing what Jesus has done in people’s lives?
Allow me to share what I consider to be the most ignorant, excuse-making, growth-destructive comment I have ever heard that came from a long-standing member of a church. In talking about evangelism and leading new people to Christ, the comment was made, “That’s what we pay the pastor to do.” Your greatest obstacle to church growth is getting your people to understand that if they do not share their faith with others who don’t know Jesus, then the next generation of people will never hear the gospel. Their own grandchildren will grow up in a place where Jesus is never mentioned. They will be implicit in condemning future generations to a life without knowledge of God.
I will be honest with you, getting your people to being willing to share their faith is going to be a challenge. You will have to pray, preach, encourage, lead and even blatantly challenge them to become involved in sharing their faith. You won’t be able to convert them quickly or in great numbers, but you will be able to make a difference in how many of your attenders do share their faith.
This concept of not being offensive to sinners has been so entrenched in our culture that it will take time and persistence to overcome it. You have to overcome the social pressure to separate faith from public demonstrations of that faith that became prominent in the early 1960’s. You will have to consistently preach and teach about personal evangelism. You will have to spotlight and commend anyone who brings a new person to faith. You will have to always challenge your people to stop relying on someone else to lead people to faith in Jesus and to start talking about their faith to new people themselves.
Notice this—the devil will not like it that you start doing all this. He will fight you any time, any place, any way he can. He’ll use people, politics, social pressure and even threats of violence against those who speak out in public. He might even use some of your own attenders to try to distract you. But you are going to have to make up your mind that you will encourage your congregation, regardless of the opposition you receive. Remember, you have God the Father, God’s Son Jesus, and the Holy Spirit on your side.
I ran up against this obstacle more than once when I was pastoring, and I have had numerous other pastors relate their own experiences with it. However, there is hope for any congregation. There is a fantastic experience waiting for you when you are told by a member that he/she had prayed with someone to receive Jesus. That will make your efforts with it. It won’t be easy, but you can overcome this obstacle.
Sincerely,
A Small Church Pastor