Building Evangelistic Vision and Strategy into a Church Plant
Graffiti Evangelism by Nathan James
About the Author -
Chris leads Life Church Southampton, which was planted in April 2007. He was formerly an elder at Winchester Family Church.
This Article
Friday, 20 March, 2009 - 16:07Chris has loved the adventure of building something from scratch, and in this article he gives some practical guidance on strategy for turning prophetic vision into a reality.
There comes a point in a church plant where dreams become reality and vision becomes action. In order to build a solid, gospel centred foundation for our churches, we have to be ready to get stuck in, both practically and physically. Someone once said that if you aim for nothing, then nothing is what you’ll reach. If the scope of the gospel is to the end of the earth then we need to set our sights on that, which in turn requires effort!
When we are considering evangelistic strategy in church planting we need to consider dedicating significant portions of time, resources, and volunteers to local mission. We need to be prepared to endure hardship in order to witness for Christ. It’s fascinating that even small things can cause our efforts to wane. In Southampton we have an initiative called ‘Life in The City’ where we are aiming to personally deliver a booklet about church and the gospel to every home in the city. When it is sunny we have a big team out. When the rain comes, the numbers drop. Such is the measure of our dedication to doing the work of an evangelist!
Here are a few pointers to help build strategy into your evangelistic foundations.
It all begins with prophetic vision. What specifically has God told you to do?
Vision is the most profound and beautiful part of the church plant leader’s relationship with God. To think that God would breathe aspects of His preferred future to us is deeply humbling. It’s also exceptionally practical. As God reveals things to us we can move forward with great confidence in Him and His ability to accomplish His purposes. Before we act, we must weigh the key prophetic words that have been spoken over us and act on them. In this way, our schedules are based on vision not tradition.
Prior to planting Life Church Southampton, Julian Adams (Jubilee Church,Teesside) prophesied that we would be a church that was ‘Baptised in signs and wonders.’ This was a provoking word, in order to realise it we had to make space for God to operate in this way. In our first year we hosted a specific ‘Gospel and Healing’ Sunday celebration every month. (We couldn’t think of anything fancy to call it, so we just decided to name it after what we were doing!) Needless to say, people were saved and healed.
Another example is that it was prophesied that we would be a ‘church that reaches a city.’ This again was quite a tough word when there were only 30 of us! We sought to put it to action and bought a big map of Southampton. We felt from God that we were to begin to visit every home in the city. (Southampton has an approximate population of 250,000). We decided to begin near the building we were using and make a start. Two years later we had covered about half the city, delivered 30,000 leaflets about the church and the gospel, and had countless doorstep conversations. People have come to Christ on the streets and in the church meetings. There may only have been a small number of us, but with God’s vision in our sights we have been able to wholeheartedly give to this work and will continue to do so.
Leadership is vital – in attitude and action
Having been on staff and in leadership of a larger church I had been operating as an evangelist, which then helped shape our priorities as we started Life Church. My own salvation is a constant source of amazement to me and really motivates me towards reaching others. Finding and releasing leaders with an evangelistic gifting seems to be a real help in getting church plants active in evangelism. For those leaders who wouldn’t put themselves into the evangelistic category there needs to be a real commitment to find those with this gift and stand alongside them with words and actions.
Cultivating courage – People can grow in evangelism
When church planting, it’s fun to do things together so everyone can be involved. We don’t all feel that evangelism comes naturally for us, but we can make it so by helping individuals develop confidence and faith for God to use them in this way. Telling stories helps, but so does training sessions to sharpen our skills and use of the Bible, as well as opportunities for people to learn from others. In our mission work we always pair new people up with those who have greater experience. It’s a wonderful joy to see someone develop confidence and return with stories of their own.
Events can set the church alight
Whilst we constantly need the ‘drip feed’ of friendship evangelism, mission-focussed small groups, Alpha and gospel-centred Sunday meetings, it has been our experience that specific high profile events can really help the church plant to be effective in mission.
In June of last year we decided to take our gospel meetings out into the public arena. We put up a large marquee in a park in the centre of the town and publicised what we called ‘Park Life’. It was simply a few days of giving out invitations in the shopping streets for people to come to either a lunchtime or evening meeting where we would preach the gospel and pray for the sick. Everyone got stuck into giving out invitations and then coming along to the meetings. We saw some healings and 25 people made first time responses to the gospel.
Communication counts
One of our biggest investments as a small church plant has been the time and money we have spent on the public material we use. We design, print, and distribute high quality literature about the church and the gospel. The quality of our communication matters if we are to hook into the city centre culture. A photocopied flyer with drab artwork and clichéd phrases will make us seem outdated and irrelevant. I know something like this may sound shallow, but it’s well worth putting effort and resource into quality printed material. It will be integral to reaching the lost.
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