Last Monday was one of the best days of my life. I was able to celebrate God's story in my life and how others have had such a positive influence over me. Something else happened on Monday. Now I will forever be a pastor and for evangelism purposes this really hinders me.
When we use the word "evangelism" many people get nervous. In fact in the last church I served I was the only one identified through spiritual gift inventories to have the gift of evangelism. I think results can be very skewed by the negative stereotypes that are associated with the word evangelism.
I believe that I, like most pastors, are the worst evangelists in the church. I say this realizing that many people have started attending and making decisions in their faith at St. Matthews UMC after becoming friends with my family. Even though we have seen success in our evangelism efforts I would still say that my family and I are the least likely to lead unchurched people to Christ.
Why is this? It is because I'm an ordained pastor! I spend my days at church, in the hospital, preparing for sermons, planning missions and doing other church things. I'll spend most of my life doing exactly this and I have to get very creative on how I engage people outside of the church because a lot of my times is spent inside the church and its social circles.
This is why the laity are much more effective evangelists than their pastor. I wonder a lot of times if people share or not? When was the last time you shared your faith story with someone? When was the last time you invited someone to church or youth group? If we can't remember then we can't blame the decline of our church, youth group, etc on our pastor or youth minister. Pastor after pastor...youth minister after youth minister...the church stays the same size and we still hope that when the next pastor or youth pastor comes then it will click! No. Laity are in the workforce, schools, town groups, neighborhoods and laity have the natural relationships with people who need to know Christ. When a pastor shows up everything gets weird!
This being said I am not a pastor who sits in the office and waits for people to come to me. I go to the people, but you are with the people. It is natural for you to share your story with your coworker or neighbor. You have relationships all ready where you could extend and invitation. Do you? Why or why not?
Churches that depend on pastors for evangelism efforts will never reach their full potential. My job as a pastor is to be active in evangelism through developing relationships, but more importantly training lay people how to engage their world for Christ. I do this because you, laity, will always have a leg up on me. I'm ok with that!
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