As I mentioned a few weeks ago, let’s pursue this subject and take a look at some of the reasons why people no longer think public evangelism is effective anymore. Let’s look at reason #1–
REASON #1– IT COSTS TOO MUCH
This I can honestly say is only partly true. Yes, it does cost money to conduct a quality meeting. Printing and mailing handbills is a significant expense. Typically it will cost $265 per thousand brochures. It costs money to rent a hall. It costs money to purchase books and giveway materials. There’s no doubt expense is involved. But here’s the question– HOW MUCH IS TOO MUCH?
A church that’s committed to the gospel commission will probably not consider the cost to be too much. But an inward focused church that concentrates only on pleasing members and spending money on programs that benefit only themselves will probably not be interested in spending significant amounts on public evangelism.
The truth is, any form of organized outreach and evangelism is going to cost money. That’s a given. Churches want to get things for free– and it’s nice when that happens. But the fact is that if we want to be an evangelistic church, we are going to have to spend money, wisely of course.
No one ever complains about paying the light bill, or the electric bill, or the heating bill, etc. Churches spend money on Sabbath School quarterlies and all kinds of SS materials. Members give lots of money to have nice new buildings, soft carpet, and padded pews. But most of these things are inward focused, or focused on making members feel comfortable. What about spending money on the lost? Spending money on these other things is OK, but not if it’s causing us to neglect the lost. When churches spend most of their money on themselves and very little on evangelistic outreach, that’s a bad sign. In fact, there’s a name for a church like that– DEAD. I don’t mean to be harsh, just trying to churn the waters a bit. (Look at your church budget and see where you spend most of the money).
The truth is, that if public evangelistic meetings were conducted the right way, it wouldn’t cost a lot of money. Public evangelism works best when a church spends 1-2 years in preparation and planting seeds. How? By taking time to build relationships in the community. By doing personal Bible studies with people. By doing health seminars or following up media interests. When a church is already doing that, and doing Bible studies with people, then a public evangelistic meeting becomes a reaping meeting (and the length probably wouldn’t need to be five weeks long).
A church doesn’t have to spend thousands of dollars mailing handbills because they will already have interested people they’ve been working with. Public evangelism is only expensive when a church doesn’t have current interests. And if a church doesn’t have current interests it’s because the church isn’t active. Then the church has to spend a lot of money and advertising to get people to the meetings. It seems churches would rather do no pre-work (that’s a term meaning preparation and seed planting), conduct a meeting for 5 weeks, then stop working. That doesn’t work very well.
Let me give you one other thing to think about. A good public evangelistic meeting doesn’t cost the church anything. It pays for itself in the long run. What do I mean? Let’s assume a church spends $15,000 on a meeting (most of which comes from the conference). Then let’s take someone who comes to the meetings and is baptized and becomes an active member who begins returning tithes and offerings. Let’s say that person makes $40,000 a year. That would be about $4000 in tithe annually (not including offerings). If 4 people were baptized from the meetings, they would be returning $16,000 in tithes in one year (again not including offerings). That means the meeting would pay for itself in about one year. It’s all in our perspective and attitude.
One last thought— Many years ago Ellen White wrote that in the 11th hour of earth’s history many people would come into the truth. Who are these people? I have a hunch these are people we had Bible studies with but they weren’t ready to make a decision then, or people who come to our evangelistic meetings but weren’t ready to be baptized yet. And we complained because we thought we wasted our time and money. But in the 11th hour, those seeds which were planted in their hearts rise to the surface and they come to Jesus. Was it worth it? Or did it cost too much?
Hi David,
I am glad you raise the topic. From my experience, I have never seen a church become impoverished due to an evangelism campaign. I also have never seen in my experience a church that had less in the evangelism budget after the campaign was over than before the campaign was even planned.
I remember a church in Pennsylvania that had about $700, if I remember correctly, in the evangelism budget before I talked to the board about holding a campaign. The board members did not think that the church could afford it. I pushed hard to hold the meetings and even made a few folks upset in doing so. Nonetheless, the campaign was approved. I seem to remember spending around $20,000 for the campaign in a church that routinely had 50 in attendance. After the campaign was finished and the folks were baptized and all the bills related to the campaign were paid, the evangelism budget had about $3,000 in it. The church was richer by about $2,300 and 12 souls. It is similar to the tithe principle. Return to God what is His, and he promises to open the windows of heaven for our benefit. And … the kingdom of God increases and we hasten the return of our Lord and Saviour.
May God bless you and your family as you push forward.
Wes McDonald
Wes,
Thanks for sharing. A church is richer for doing evangelism, not just financially, but most importantly, spiritually. For some reason, we seem to have a hard time with the outlay of money and we allow look in the short term. But Jesus gave us the Gospel commission, and as far as I can see, it is not optional. “Go preach the gospel” is a command, not an option for when it is convenient. A church not preaching the gospel is a church living in unfaithfulness to Christ. Keep sharing.
David,
I am a full-time Bible worker in the Alton, Illinois area. We hosted the Youth Challenge Students form Andrews this summer and had great interest generated for Bible Studies and Health related seminars. I currently have 60 Bible Studies on going from their efforts. The Illinois conference assisted our local church board with $5000 dollars for evangelism outreach and advertising. We have currently only spent $278 on a local newspaper ad for free Bible study guides, $450 on Amazing Facts Bible guides and $3500 on the Youth Challenge. I am currently studying with one of the interest from Youth Challenge a Church of Christ pastor and their entire congregation on Tuesday night’s prayer meeting at their church. September 10th 40 of the Church of Christ members have kept their first Sabbath at the Greater Alton Seventh-day Adventist church. They loved the service and are going to join our church soon. It doesn’t take a large investment to see a great return if the local church is spirit filled and willing to work for evangelism and soul-winning.
Dan,
Thank you so much for sharing such good and encouraging news. Evangelism doesn’t always have to cost so much. When the church works, evangelism works. We pray continued success in the efforts in Alton. I’ll have to make my way over there sometime. Keep us informed. Thanks for reminding us the evangelism does still work and God does still open doors. (-:
Hello David,
I have sat through board meetings that this very topic has been discussed and even argued about. I don’t think there is a limit on what to spend on evangelism… if you have the funds and as you said, spend it wisely. What is the price of a soul? And how have we become the judge of that? If God has blessed us with the means to keep everything else running in the church, why would we limit the cost of evangelism? I hope that when Jesus returns, all of our churches will have a negative balance on the evangelism line on our treasury report. I remember reading what Ellen White wrote about the Eleventh hour converts and agree 100%. We can’t measure our success until the resurrection day. Keep the topics coming!!
Blessings
Tom,
You are so right. It’s too bad we have “argue” over such a subject. Many churches want to save their money, but when Jesus comes it will just burn anyway. Sometimes this is why I think people don’t give to their local church, because they church doesn’t use it for evangelism and just tucks it away in an account which will either grow dust, or be used to spend on the church rather than the lost. People want to give when they see things happening.