In my last post, I mentioned we (Jubilee Church) have spent more money on evangelism in the past, yet were less effective at reaching the lost and adding them into our community than we are now. The main reason why that's true is because we focused most of our energy on DOING evangelism versus BEING an evangelistic community (there's a big difference).

When you're focused on doing evangelism, the goal is to get people to act out certain behaviors or to do activities (passing out tracks, prayer walks, street evangelism, etc), while being an evangelistic community is about living out an identity that goes well beyond the activity itself. You can teach people to evangelize and they can go out and do it, but never know the heart behind evangelism.

What Is An Evangelistic Community?

An evangelistic community is one that is built around the mission of Jesus to seek and save sinners (Luke 19:10). In Acts 1:1, Luke tells his friend Theophilus that his first book (the gospel of Luke) dealt with all that Jesus BEGAN to do and teach, and was now (through the writing of Acts) describing the activity of the church which would finish what Jesus started. The mission of Jesus is the mission of the church. Whatever Jesus did (besides dying for sin), the church is meant to carry on doing; therefore, a key component is being a community that is built to attract and welcome in sinners. When part of the identity of the entire church is to be a place that welcomes sinners amongst them, that becomes a very powerful witness and very attractive to those who not yet believe. You become the kind of church that NATURALLY attracts sinners versus one that almost needs to pretend to attract sinners.

Without first building this into your church community, all the evangelistic activity in the world won't make a difference because evangelism won't be in the heart of your people.