Is Evangelism Really the Church’s Primary Role?

So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up ." Ephesians 4:11.12

I am going to make a statement that may seem controversial but I hope you will follow my logic for making it after you see it. 

It is not the primary role of the church to engage in evangelism.

For a long time in North America many churches met on Sunday morning for a worship service and then they held a second church service in the evening. The evening service was focused on evangelism. These services were designed to attract people from the community who did not attend the regular morning worship service. 

When my wife and I first became Jesus followers, Sunday evening evangelistic services were becoming less popular and many churches were abandoning them all together. The church we attended was a hold out and maintained these services for a long time. As new disciples we really enjoyed the relaxed evangelistic emphasis of these Sunday evening services. The building was usually packed because people from other churches came to participate in these amazing services of music and preaching. 

Finally, even this church abandoned the evangelistic service on Sunday evenings. For a long time I lamented this loss. I saw it as a lost opportunity to preach the Gospel to non believers. Then I realized the target audience was not attending these services anyway. Secondly, I realized that I was relying on a gifted preacher to attract people to come and hear about Jesus and my only responsibility was to invite people to these services. 

Over time church leaders (including myself ) have allowed ourselves to become more and more aligned with the concept that making disciples and building the church is location focused. By this I mean that most church activity is based in the building where the people also meet for worship. 

My personal journey led me to examine two statements made by Jesus which I think we have often misunderstood. 

In Mathew 18 Jesus says: "I will build my church." When Jesus made this statement He was not talking about physical locations but rather building his church in the hearts of people who would gather together for worship. 

In Matthew 28 Jesus says: "Go and make disciples." With this statement Jesus is sending all of his followers on a mission of evangelism to make hew disciples. 

Jesus intends for his followers to go and make disciples and through this method He will build his church as the new disciples are folded into the corporate worship experience. 

Our captioned verse from Ephesians 4 clearly indicates a specific and critical role for church leaders. The church is supposed to be a place where Jesus followers are equipped to do the work of ministry outside the corporate gathering. Apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers all have roles in equipping Jesus followers to do the work of ministry through service in the communities where they live and work. Note the promise at the conclusion of the Scripture verse: 

"So that the body of Christ may be built up." 

That is why we are engaged in helping churches and church leaders to equip Jesus followers with the tools and training they need to start discipleship groups where they live and work. From these naturally occurring groups it is our vision that many people will become Jesus followers. When non believers become Jesus followers they become part of the church where they will find nurturing, worship, fellowship, instruction and training to be the next wave of disciple-makers.