Evangelising Effectively 

For too long the Church of England has either considered evangelism something that other churches do (before a few lucky souls graduate to our obviously superior brand of Christianity!) or simply waited till people come through the door, placing far too much confidence in the hope that our traditional ministry of hatching, matching and despatching will bring people into the church. Of course some people do join us through all of these routes, and it is important to offer these ministries as faithfully and generously as we can. But I have increasingly begun to wonder if it might be better if no one joined us this way. At least it would focus attention on the woeful inadequacies of this as the only approach to evangelism. 

So let us begin from first principles. God is the Evangelist. God longs for reconciliation with the whole of the creation and with every person on earth. His great love for the world and his purposes for the world have been revealed in Jesus Christ, and through his death and resurrection Jesus has already done everything that is necessary for us to enjoy eternal life with God. The ministry of  evangelism is our sharing with others the good news of what God has already done in Christ and the transformation it can bring to the world and to our lives here on earth and in eternity. 

In the end each individual will have to make their own decision about whether to accept and receive what God offers us in Christ, but it is the responsibility of the Church to issue the invitation: “As the Father sent me, so I send you” says Jesus on the first Easter Day (John 20:21). We call this ministry evangelism, which is best understood as our sharing in the ministry of Jesus to make God’s offer of reconciliation and new life available to everyone. In recent years we have re-discovered that for most people becoming a Christian is like a journey. This changes the way we approach  evangelism. For the most part it will mean accompanying people on that journey. This is another reason why the story of Jesus on the

Emmaus Road is so instructive. It involves specific ministries (such as a place of nurture where people can find out about Christian faith), but is also shaped enormously by the witness of individual Christians as they walk with others in their individual daily lives. 

There are many different ways in which all this can be done, but in every case it must involve an intentional desire to share with others the good things that we have received from Christ.  

There is no guarantee that as a result of this the Church will grow. Similarly, because God is the Evangelist and Lord of the Church, the church may well grow without our efforts or even in spite of them. Nevertheless, there is plenty of evidence to suggest that where a church gives itself to an intentional ministry of evangelism then people do come to faith. We therefore commit ourselves to be faithful in this ministry not because it is a recipe for success, but  because it is of the essence of what it means to be faithful to Christ. 

By 2025 we need to have become a church where evangelism is in our DNA and where we have learned ways of doing evangelism that work in the different and varied and fast changing contexts that make up our diocese.

In order for this to happen we need to develop the following priorities and also begin to set ourselves some bold targets:  

· Every benefice should have at least one diocesan trained Evangelist and preferably a group of people around them who, under the leadership of the Incumbent and the PCC, are responsible for enabling evangelistic ministry to happen in their locality.

· Every benefice should have a place of nurture (that is a ministry given to enable people who are enquiring abou Christian faith to find out more.) It should become as normal as running a Lent course.

· Every benefice should regularly put on evangelistic events to enable people to have some experience of Christian community and be challenged by the Christian faith. It should become as normal as holding a Summer Fete or a Harvest Supper.

· Clergy and lay training in the diocese must prioritise evangelism as a core skill that every Christian leader must   understand and be ready to lead in. This does not mean that every priest or lay leader will themselves be an Evangelist; but it does mean that every one of them needs to be a leader in mission.

· Training needs to be offered in every deanery for people to be able to talk with confidence about their faith. It should be as easy and natural to talk about Jesus as it is to talk about football or EastEnders.

 

Serving with Accountability 

Making spirituality and evangelism two clear priorities inevitably begs the question, what should the other priorities be? Or put it another way: is there a bottom line? Is there a set of ministries and  activities that we should expect to find in every Christian community, whatever its context and circumstance, and about which we should hold ourselves accountable?  Is there a rule of life for the local   Christian community? Are there a set of ingredients that constitute a faithful, healthy Christian community? 

I believe it would be helpful for the diocese if we could agree on this. Just as we take it for granted that every church will be holding services every Sunday, what else should we take for granted? And just as if one church decided to stop worshipping and cancelled all its services you would expect the bishop and the diocese to hold that church to account, how might we hold ourselves mutually accountable over an agreed core of ministries and activities which we hold to be essential to our faithful witness to Christ? 

There has already been lots of discussion about this, and although most people agree on the attractiveness of working this way, actual agreement on the ingredients themselves is more elusive. There is a danger of over simplifying the ministry of the church and reducing it to a number of tickable bullet points; but an equal danger is over complicating the task and hemming ourselves in with a thousand sub clauses. Therefore what is probably needed is a process as well as a list. 

Discussions are already beginning to see how the annual Archdeacon’s Visitation might be developed to become the place where this sort of accountability to each other is expressed. To a certain extent this is already happening, but there is a definite attraction in taking something we are already doing and seeing how it can deliver more. Therefore the list of ingredients might be better understood as a list of questions which relate to a sort of health check of the local church. 

Let me stress again: for this to work there needs to be agreement – agreement about the process and agreement about the questions. I will leave the process to the group that I hope we will set up to take this forward. But the questions that are emerging are these:  

• What are you doing to teach people to pray?

• What are you doing to teach people the faith and help them in their discipleship?

• What are you doing to share the faith with others and what have the results been in the past year? And does your church have a place of nurture?

• What are you doing to nurture and develop the ministry of the whole people of God including enabling people to come forward for authorised lay and ordained ministry?

• How is your church a blessing to the community you serve? And how is it witnessing to God’s kingdom of justice and peace?

• What are you doing to ensure your church is a place of safety and welcome for all ages and for people of all backgrounds?

• How are you working in partnership with other Christian communities in your locality and at the diocesan, national and global levels?

Of course there could be more, but these seven questions seem to represent some sort of agreed bottom line that our churches should be places of prayer; places where people learn about the faith and are active in discipleship; places where there is a ministry of     evangelism; places where ministry is shared and developed; places which serve the local community; places that are inclusive and   welcome to all; places which are seeking the unity of all God’s church and working with their neighbours locally and globally.  

The way the questions are worded is designed to start a conversation. There won’t be forms to fill in nor boxes to tick, but at the end of the conversation there would be agreement on certain priorities for the coming year, and an expectation that something now has to be done about it. If this happens alongside the annual Visitation where other matters of church life are discussed and inspected there is every hope that, in time, we might develop a culture of expectation and accountability where everyone knows that to be a Christian community in this diocese requires us to      develop theses ministries, activities and attitudes. Much of this is already happening. It would be beneficial to all of us if it happened more. The gospel of Jesus Christ is far too important and precious for any of us to think we can go it alone. It is also worth noting that at the Bishop’s Council away day in March this was the other recommendation that received the most support. 

This is a culture change for the church, there is no point in pretending otherwise, but it seems to me to be one that is cried out for, and which is consonant with the need for us to live a distinctive Christian life as individuals and as communities of faith. 

By 2025 we need to have become a church where there is real  clarity about what it means to be a faithful Christian community. Just as worship is expressed in a huge variety of ways, so these ministries will also be expressed differently according to the circumstances, context, personality and ethos of each community. But we must move to a situation where it is no longer possible or acceptable for a church to say, for instance, ‘we don’t do children or young people’ or ‘evangelism isn’t our thing.’ Each community will, in its own way, be developing a common set of ministries so that we might be a church that is faithful to its apostolic calling. 

And if, as your bishop, I am asking that every priest and every parish be held accountable for the ministry that God calls us to, then I too except to be held accountable myself. With my colleagues in the Bishop’s staff I will ensure that each of us has an annual ministerial development review and that we are reporting regularly to Synod about progress towards this vision. It is Christ himself who entrusts his mission to us, and it is mutual accountability for the sake of the gospel that I seek. It is about our faithfulness.