6 Ways We Get Evangelism Wrong (And What to do About it)

In conversations between Christians, evangelism can be an interesting topic. For some, it is a must—a call to engage in the Great Commission to “go and make disciples among all nations…” (Matt. 28:19-20). For others it is a more difficult topic, conjuring images of charlatans on tv shaking people down for money or hell, fire, and brimstone preachers that rolled into the church you grew up in occasionally to preach revival services. Still others associate evangelism with getting everyone to behave a certain way or winning an argument proving the existence of God. At present, I want to tackle six ways I believe we get the subject of evangelism wrong and how we can right our perspective on this misunderstood, yet crucially important, subject.

1. Apologetics Evangelism

Apologetics has its place in Christian history and in the church, but it isn’t evangelism. Often, people mistakenly assume that arguing with people is a form of evangelism (or apologetics, for that matter). While the traditional form of apologetics evangelism is arguing with your relatives at family gatherings about religion and politics, now social media is the optimal mission field for apologetics evangelism… “arguing with non-believers in the comments for the glory of God.” Apologetics evangelism feeds our narcissistic desire to be right instead of being loving. If we win, we have successfully “evangelized the heathen”…if we lose, well…then I’m just being persecuted. Either way, Apologetics evangelism can give me the feeling that I’m a sort of Cyber-St.-Patrick, only instead of Ireland it’s Facebook, and instead of the the Celtic tribes, it’s my unsuspecting friends from high school. While apologetics has its value in academic settings and in discipling people who are already Christians, it’s not a form of effective evangelism. You simply can’t argue people into the kingdom of God.

The Solution? An evangelism that listens.

At risk of sounding corny, there’s just no better way to communicate the sentiment than the old saying: People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care. An approach to evangelism that prioritizes listening over lecturing allows you to connect with people in an authentic, loving way—the way Jesus did. The beauty is that when we open ourselves to listen to the story of others, it changes us for the better as well.

2. Legislative Evangelism

People don’t generally think of this as a form of evangelism but still engage in the political realm with evangelistic fervor. The underlying assumption here is that the chief task for Christians, particularly in America, is to codify Christian moral and ethical beliefs into law in order to keep/make America a Christian nation. If we outlaw this, and prevent that from being legalized, our nation will turn to God. So we pour millions into electing the right candidates who will (at least at face value) push the right political agendas to act as a bulwark against a coming tsunami of religious persecution and the removal of religious freedoms.

But people don’t get legislated into loving the Lord with all of their heart, soul, mind, and strength. While I’m all for cultivating a culture that reflects the goodness of the kingdom of God and is a foretaste of new creation—and that includes electing morally qualified leaders who will rule with equity and benevolence—that’s not evangelism. Jeremiah prophesied what the new covenant brought by Christ would be—a covenantal relationship where his law would be written on our hearts (Jer. 31:33) rather than tablets of stone. The work of the mission of God is to transform the heart motivations of people so that good, godly, and moral social frameworks are established from he overflow of those transformed hearts, not the other way around. When you start with social legislation, hoping it will result in personal transformation, you end up with oppressive Christendom. When you start with personal transformation that produces social legislation, you have the outworking of God’s people cultivating shalom in the societies in which God has placed them.

The Solution? An evangelism that’s focused.

An evangelism that is focused on touching people’s lives with love and service and understanding is more faithful to the missional heart of God than one that seeks to leverage earthly power to force people to conform to moral and ethical standards and calling it “holy.” Holiness is not “don’t smoke, don’t chew, and don’t run with the girls who do” (a popular saying from my Pentecostal roots). It’s not about moral excellence. It’s about unwavering and steadfast loyalty to the King, out of which flows a heart bent on upright living and building social frameworks that glorify God.

3. Separatist Evangelism

Separatist evangelism is an overly-literal interpretation of Paul’s words in 2 Corinthians 6:17 to “come out from among them and be separate.” Separatist evangelism assumes that by withdrawing from the world, we are somehow witnesses to the world. It is the “evangelist” who prides himself or herself on having no non-Christian friends or acquaintances or never spending time with someone outside of the faith. While Jesus does note that we are not of this world (c.f. John 17:14-16), we are most definitely in it. Separatist evangelism places so much emphasis on not being of the world that it sacrifices being in it! Hear me…you should have non-Christian friends. You should know both your Christian and non-Christian neighbors. That we are to be “separate” and “not of” the world refers to our ethical outlook…how we see and interact with the world, not how we choose our friends. In fact, being separate and not of the world has more to do with our tendency toward unflinching political loyalties than it does inviting our neighbor over for dinner. We should absolutely be in the nitty-gritty of life with others in our communities. That’s not only how we find opportunity to demonstrate the love of Jesus to others, but it actually enhances the quality of life for everyone involved.

The Solution? An evangelism that’s in the neighborhood.

Jesus himself “became flesh and blood and moved into the neighborhood” (John 1:14, MSG). We should, too. Jesus once said that if salt loses its saltiness, it’s no good (Matt. 5:13)…but unapplied salt isn’t worth much either. It requires proximity to be of any use. So too our lives have a preserving and flavoring effect on the communities around us…if we’re willing to be in the neighborhood.

4. Assimilation Evangelism

Assimilation evangelism tacks on pork barrel additions to the gospel message. It says that in addition to following Jesus, one should also change one’s cultural distinctiveness to become something more familiar and comfortable to the one engaging in evangelism. One classic example was during western frontier expansion in the Americas, Christian missionaries would travel to Native American tribes and talk about Jesus. However, coupled with the gospel was the expectation that Native Americans would dress like the European settlers. They would also sit in rows, like a European church, instead of in circles as the Native Americans were accustomed.

In modern American Christianity, this often comes with the expectation that someone new to the faith will adopt a particular way of voting, of choice in media, the adoption of patriarchy household codes, of condemnation or alignment with certain political or social groups, etc., etc. Esau McCaulley, Jemar Tisby, Kristin DuMez and Beth Allison Barr have written extensively recently about the pressure to assimilate and conform that is placed on women, people of color, and others who fall outside of the traditional perception of “norm” among American evangelicals.

The Solution? An evangelism that’s pure.

John’s vision in Revelation 7 of a redeemed people from every tribe, nation, and people group is a post-resurrection vision. Meaning, John is seeing what will be after the final resurrection of the dead and what he sees is a representation of the wonderful and incredible cultural diversity represented within the global and historical Church. Coming into the family of God does not mean conforming to Western perceptions of cultural norm. Instead, it’s a matter of the Spirit of God redeeming and transforming cultures into his likeness while still retaining the beautiful distinctiveness with which he created them. We shouldn’t confuse the two.

5. Content Evangelism

We, Information Age Americans, love content. We’re inundated with content like a kid trying to get a drink out of the garden hose only for his friend to turn up the water pressure to the max. But giving content to people and being faithfully present with people are not the same thing. Evangelism is not a one-way dissemination of information. We’re not giving people a sales pitch, hoping they’ll buy. But that’s more-or-less what a content driven approach to evangelism is.

The Solution? An evangelism that’s incarnational.

My doctoral research has shown showing that, while quality content is a good component within the scope of spiritual formation, there are significant other factors that are associated with people deepening in their sense of identity and calling in Christ. Among others, two of those factors are a relational presence and shared space. Meaning we can’t throw content at people and call it evangelism or discipleship any more than I can throw seeds on the ground and expect a garden to grow. Both a “gardener”…a faithful and trusted presence in someone’s life and “good soil”…a space for life to be shared between people, are needed for growth to occur.

Content evangelism is an easy go-to because we dan do it without the difficult and messy work of relationships. But all of the information in the world cannot replace the richness of someone willing to sit at our table, listen to our story, and be authentically loving and hospitable to us as we wrestle with life’s big questions.

6. Conversion Evangelism

One of the most significant misunderstandings about evangelism is that it is for the purpose of “closing the sale”, that is, getting a person to pray a prayer, raise their hand in a church service, or fill out a response card of some sort. Once this milestone is reached, then the evangelistic work is done. But that’s not true. Evangelism and discipleship are two interlinked components of the same process: participating with God to birth new spiritual life into the world. Evangelism is the prenatal care that naturally gives way to the loving, parental work of discipleship (in fact, that’s why the Church throughout history has often been referred to as “our mother”). Both prenatal and postpartum care of a child is parenting. While the functions are slightly different, the vocation is the same.

The Solution? An evangelism that’s committed.

My wife and I have three beautiful daughters. They’re great kids. When we found out Tara was pregnant, the expectation was never, “Well, we just gotta get to that delivery room. Then we’ll hand them off to someone else to raise them!” That’s crazy! But Conversion evangelism implicitly views evangelism/discipleship that way. “If I can just get them to church, the church will raise them!” But what people need, both leading up to and following their decision to enter the faith, is someone who will walk with them as chosen kin throughout their maturation as a Christian. Using the frameworks from Don Everts and Dough Schaupp’s I Once Was Lost as well as Robert Webber’s Journey to Jesus, I’ve developed two outlines that describe how people walk along the evangelistic and discipleship road and what they need from us in the process.