What Evangelism Means in Mainline Congregations

The word "evangelism" carries baggage in a mainline congregation. Say it in a committee meeting and watch two or three people look at their shoes. Yet the practice behind the word is older and plainer than the argument around it, and most of what pastors in mainline churches actually do with it fits inside a normal week of parish life. What follows is a working account of the term, drawn from the encyclopedic record of it, and a look at how pastors teach the practice of witness without turning the pews into a sales floor.

What the word itself means

According to the Wikipedia article on evangelism, the term names the act of sharing the Christian gospel, the message and teachings of Jesus Christ, and it is typically done with the intention of converting others to Christianity. The same page notes the forms it commonly takes: personal conversations, preaching, and media, with a strong historic association to missionary work. People who specialize in it are called evangelists, at home or abroad, though some traditions call such people missionaries in either case.

That definition is broad enough to cover a great deal. It is also the place where mainline discomfort usually starts, because the phrase "intention of converting" is doing a lot of work. Hold that thought; it returns below.

Where the word came from

The encyclopedic record traces "evangelist" to the Koine Greek word euangelion, which came into Latin as evangelium and appears in the canonical titles of the Four Gospels, attributed to Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, also known as the Four Evangelists. The Greek word first meant a reward given to a messenger for good news, then the good news itself. The word "angel" comes from the same root.

That etymology matters for congregational life more than it first appears. The word names a message before it names a method. A messenger carries something that already belongs to someone else.

What the New Testament says about the calling

The page points to Ephesians 4:11, where Paul the Apostle explains the calling of some believers to be evangelists, alongside apostles, prophets, pastors, and teachers. It also records that Jesus sent out his disciples to evangelize by visiting people's homes in pairs of two believers, a detail drawn from Luke 10:1-12. In the same text, Jesus mentions that few people were willing to evangelize, despite many people being receptive to the message.

Read those two verses side by side in a church basement and the conversation changes. The pattern is a pair, a home, and a message. Not a stage and a crowd, though the page notes that large meetings exist too.

Is evangelism the same as proselytism?

Not everyone treats the words as synonyms, and the page says so directly. Some consider evangelism to be proselytising, which is protected in the United States but illegal in some countries. Others, where it is suppressed, argue it is merely free speech. The page records that evangelicals speaking about their faith in public is sometimes criticized in the media and often associated with proselytism, while evangelicals themselves say freedom of religion and freedom of expression allow them to discuss their faith as they would discuss any other topic.

That is the friction a pastor has to name out loud, because a congregation will feel it whether or not anyone explains it. Naming the difference between a conversation offered and a pressure applied is most of the teaching work.

How the traditions differ

The page separates the traditions rather than blending them. In Catholic practice, proclaiming the Gospel is not an exclusively clerical role, but it is highlighted by the Catholic Church as a sacred duty which priests are required to perform; the Second Vatican Council's decree on the life and ministry of priests, Presbyterorum Ordinis, is cited for the wording that through the apostolic proclamation of the Gospel the People of God are called together and assembled.

Among Protestant bodies, the page records that the Presbyterian Mission Agency was founded in 1831 by the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America. Under the evangelical heading it lists a long line of missionary organizations and their founding years, from BMS World Mission in Kettering, England in 1792, through the American Baptist International Ministries in 1814, OMF International in 1865, SIM in Lagos in 1893, and Gideons International in Janesville, Wisconsin in 1899, which distributes free Bibles to hotels, motels, hospitals, military bases, prisons, schools, and universities.

Methods a small congregation already owns

Common forms of evangelism, the page says, include preaching or distributing Bibles, work in tracts, newspapers, and magazines, electronic media, and street evangelists. It also notes the child evangelism movement, which focuses on children between the ages of 4 and 14 and began in the 20th century, and the strong-man entertainment genre that grew out of the 1970s group known as The Power Team.

Notice what is missing from that list. Almost none of it requires a budget line. A congregation that prints a plain invitation, preaches the text it was already going to preach, and visits a neighbor already has the machinery.

Does new technology change the assignment?

The page records that new opportunities for evangelism have been provided in recent decades by increased travel opportunities and by instant communications over the internet. It gives concrete examples: Aimee Semple McPherson, the Canadian evangelical evangelist and founder of the Foursquare Church, was the first woman to use radio to reach a wider audience in the United States, in 1922. Billy Graham and Baptist producer Dick Ross founded the film company World Wide Pictures in 1951. The Christian Broadcasting Network was founded in 1961 in Virginia Beach by Baptist minister Pat Robertson. TopChretien, an evangelical web portal, launched in July 1999. GodTube, a video-sharing site, was founded in January 2007 in Plano, Texas.

The pattern is consistent: a new medium arrives, someone puts the same message into it, and the message outlives the medium. A parish newsletter, a Facebook page, and a recorded sermon are the same move at smaller scale.

What the numbers do and do not show

The page offers a few figures across its history, and it is worth seeing them together rather than in passing.

YearWhat the page records 1922Aimee Semple McPherson is named as the first woman to use radio to reach a wider audience in the United States 1960More than half of Protestant American missionaries were evangelical 2004South Korea became the second-largest source of missionaries in the world, after the United States and ahead of England 2007Over 10,000 Baptist missionaries served in overseas missions around the world 1974Billy Graham and the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization organized the First International Congress on World Evangelization in Lausanne

The page does not publish attendance figures for ordinary congregations, and it does not publish any count of weekly visits made by mainline members. Anyone who tells you otherwise is going somewhere this page does not go.

Where the pressure problem actually sits

Christian films made by American evangelical production companies are regularly associated with proselytism, the page reports. It then gives two responses worth reading slowly. Sarah-Jane Murray, a screenwriting teacher at the US Film and Christian Television Commission United, is cited saying that Christian films are works of art, not proselytism. Hubert de Kerangat, communications manager at SAJE Distribution, which distributes these films in France, is cited saying that if Christian films count as proselytism, then all films are a form of proselytism, since films of every genre could be said to carry a message.

That second argument is the useful one for a pastor. A message carried is not the same thing as a message imposed. What makes the difference is the freedom of the person receiving it, and that freedom is something a congregation can protect by habit.

What a pastor can teach in four weeks

Start with the definition, in plain words, and let the room react. Name the difference between sharing and pressuring before anyone has to defend a position. Then move to the pair in Luke 10, because two people going to a home is a shape most congregations can copy without new programming. Then spend one session on the criticism, including the point that the page records it plainly and does not settle it. Then ask each person to name one neighbor they already know.

The encyclopedic account of the practice will keep giving you the long history and the founding dates. What it will not give you is the name of the person on your street who would come if asked. A congregation's practice of witness and outreach begins exactly there, with one name written on a slip of paper and a pair of people willing to knock.

Entity note: Evangelism is the act of sharing the Christian gospel, the message and teachings of Jesus Christ, typically with the intention of converting others to Christianity. The encyclopedic page describes its forms, including personal conversations, preaching, and media, and its association with missionary work. It traces the word to the Greek euangelion, records the New Testament calling in Ephesians 4:11 and the sending of disciples in Luke 10, and separates Catholic, Protestant, and evangelical practice. It also lists the organizations, dates, and controversies attached to the practice. The Parish & Pew editorial team, contact@evangelismconnections.org