Relationship Evangelism is not Enough

Believe me, I’m for relationship evangelism.  We must connect with our community so that we are able to share the Gospel outside of the church context.  Church members should be light in their attitude, values and lifestyle.  That light should bring people to the savoriness of the Savior.  I’m married to one of the world’s best at this, and I try to learn from her constantly.

However, I’d like to submit three reasons that relationship evangelism is not enough for a local church’s outreach efforts. 

1.        We don’t do relationship evangelism well.

I’m writing this article for reason number two.  But I’ll start with this one.  If you believe in relationship evangelism then how many people have you connected with to bring to Christ?  Name them.  Don’t include those who came into your church and you befriended.  I’m not saying it doesn’t happen.  It does. Rainer’s research states that 57% of unchurched had been reached by another person who brought them to church.[i]  They may not have brought them to Christ but at least they brought them to church where someone preached the Gospel.  But what about those we have not reached?

Church leaders, we don’t do a good job of equipping our people with opportunities to bring their friends to faith.  Not just that we don’t equip their mind with a canned type approach to sharing their faith-at times churches do that.  But we don’t walk them through steps and scenarios , keep them accountable for the steps, and make an effort to provide functions in which the Gospel is proclaimed to unbelieving friends.

Another reason we are not able to do relationship evangelism well is that there are certain people who will hate the light that you are radiating no matter what light shade you wear.  They do not want to befriend a Christian.  Jesus was the best Christian…  There is no debating that.  And people killed Him with great joy.  A big chunk of our community cannot be won by friendship they are won by Gospel (See point three below).  You may be able to be a surface level friend, a facebook friend with them.  But they don’t care to be with you because you are different.  Or at least you better be different.

2.        We don’t have relationships with everyone.

My biggest reason for writing this article is this point.  It is simple; you don’t have relationships with everyone in your community.  And yet I still get this Q & A with fellow pastors.  “Do you have any systematic, Gospel outreach to your neighborhood?”  “Not really, we just teach our people to share the Gospel with their friends and neighbors.”  I’ve had that conversation too often and I’m tired of it because it is wrong.  It is wrong practically, historically and theologically.

It is wrong practically.  Again, you won’t meet everyone.  Perhaps my mind goes to this because I minister in a city with millions of people.  Here in Queens, I have a few hundred thousand people within a walk (albeit a decent walk) from where we meet for worship.  Can I really believe that our people will be able to befriend hundreds of thousands of people?

If your outreach efforts are only with people whom you know then how can you reach the thousands you don’t know?  Practically speaking this is not possible.  You say – “Well God will send others.”  Which sounds to me like, “if God pleases to convert the heathen, He’ll do it without you or me.”  Are we not responsible for our entire community and not just our circle of friends and acquaintances?

Which brings me to why this is wrong historically.  People tell their conscience something like this: “God will send these whom I don’t know other people whom I don’t know who will start a friendship with them and then bring the Gospel to them.”  This is why Carey wrote “An Enquiry into the Obligations of Christians to Use Means for the Conversion of the Heathens.”  Friendship and relationships are one factor, one means (although I’d like to appeal to the third point below).  But perhaps God would use the proclamation of the Gospel from person to person as He did in the ministry of the early church.

So let’s examine the Gospel expansion as recorded in Scripture.  I think relying entirely on relationship evangelism is wrong Biblically.  If you follow every chapter of the expansion of the early church through the book of Acts you would have to say that connecting with friends in the bar or t-ball league and then winning them to Christ ten years down the road was the one option that the early church planters never used, never. 

Peter’s preaching is to his enemies and the Gospel saves them (chapters 2-5).  Stephen is stoned, so perhaps he should have made friends first (I really don’t think so Chapter 7).  Philip meets an Ethiopian in a drive-by Gospel conversation and baptism (Chapter 8).  Our Lord’s ministry with Saul/Paul was one of preaching first relationship next (Chapter 9).  Paul’s missionary journeys are quick Gospel proclamation tours from city to city and God miraculously sparks regeneration through the seed of the Word sown on hearts he had not met previously (Chapters 13-20). 

I am not saying that we should not engage in relationship evangelism.  But if that is all you are doing to reach the lost, then you are not following some very helpful Biblical examples here in the book of Acts.  And I don’t believe you are reaching your neighborhood and community as you could.  Perhaps we have relegated our responsibility to others – bigger churches, more talented people, those who might connect more and make the Gospel more winsome.  But that is the biggest problem we should have with this idea theologically and that is my third point.

3.        The Gospel regenerates relationships do not.

I’m surprised at how some of my friends sound on this topic.  They are sound theologically, but the application of this concept seems wrong to me.  Can we really make the Gospel more pretty through cleaning streets or shaking hands?  Can we can make ourselves socially acceptable and relevant enough to where an unbeliever will finally accept the Gospel message?  Absolutely not.  I’ll concede the fact that God uses means.  And, He may use the means of your appearance, or your’ cleaning up someone’s yard to make someone listen to the Gospel.  But we should never slip into the error of thinking that this makes the Gospel more winsome. 

“… you have been born again not of seed which is perishable but imperishable, that is, through the living and enduring Word of God” (1 Peter 1:23).

The Gospel converts the soul.  Those Words of the Gospel are the sperma, the seed of God’s Sprit, which must be sown on the heart in order for the New Birth to occur.  There is no spiritual life if the Gospel seed has not been sown in the heart of an unbeliever.  Gospel proclamation precedes faith.  We must rely on the Gospel.  We cannot rely on my relationship or my friendship to make the Gospel take root in a hardened heart. The Gospel’s regenerating power is not predicated on a friendship a relationship or anything so surface as that.  Its power is intrinsic.  It is the Gospel message that breeds, that generates.  My friendship, in the whole scheme of things is nothing.  And if I’m relying on anything but the Gospel to convert the soul then I’m deeply mistaken.

So get out there!  Establish more relationships for the Gospel.  But go beyond that.  I want to encourage you to find ways to proclaim the Gospel to those in your community that you don't know.  Take upon yourself and your church the responsibility to reach everyone in your community, whether you know them or not through disseminating the spiritually, life-giving words of the Gospel.

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[i] Surprising Insights from the Unchurched.  Tom Rainer, Zondervan.  But Rainer mentions too that many do not come because of relationships.  What about the other 43%, and what about the billions who have not heard?  Overall, we are doing a horrible of reaching the world.