Evangelism is making disciples

In our attempts to define evangelism, sometimes we can make it so narrow that it’s no longer connected with the holistic mission of the Church. Overnarrowing has affected both evangelists and “regulars”.

Evangelists have decided that their sole focus is to scatter seeds of the gospel far-and-wide but leave discipleship to whatever church community an interested person happens to walk into. Much of their work is misspent because they don’t get close enough to their hearers to understand their pain or misconceptions.

Regulars aren’t remotely interested in acting like the evangelists and conclude that they’ll leave the preaching to them. Like an assembly line, the evangelists direct people towards local churches and then the regulars find and disciple the newcomers.

Instead of our over-narrow definitions, we must merge our thoughts about discipleship and evangelism into a cohesive vision. Jesus didn’t command us to evangelize or even Plant Churches, His fundamental command was to make disciples.