The Church Needs To Evangelize

Jesus has called the church to make disciple as we go in our daily lives (see Matthew 28:18-20). What amazes me is some churches do not have the desire to evangelize. They only want to make programs that benefit the people that come in their building.

I will never forget talking with a pastor of a church I was staff with, sharing my concerns for the lack of zeal in witnessing. The pastor said, "He will talk with the church so we can pray about it." He was not saying, "We are to pray for other desire to evangelize to increase," but if they should evangelize at all.

A church should not pray to be evangelistic. Yes, they should pray for the lost and ask the Holy Spirit for direction what they should do to reach out to them, but no church should ever pray if God wants us to evangelize or not. Do we pray if we should give, worship, or even preach from the Bible?

Why does a church need to evangelize? Thom Rainer gives seven reasons why the church needs to have evangelism as a top priority:

1. Because Christ commanded it.

2. Because Christ is the only way of salvation.

3. Because Christ died for the world.

4. Because churches that are not intentional about evangelism typically are weak in evangelism.

5. Because churches tend to obsess inwardly when they fail to move outwardly.

6. Because churches become content and complacent with transfer growth.

7. Because evangelistic Christians actually grow stronger as better discipled Christians.

The church needs to evangelize because God has chosen the church to be the instrument to carry His gospel to a dying world.