I was heartened to see Tim Hill’s piece (reproduced by ourCOG) on this topic. As many of you know, I worked in the Department of Lay Ministries from 1996 to 2010, which came out of the Department of Evangelism and Home Missions in the early 1990’s (something that Tim Hill mentions.) What many of you don’t know is that I was also the webmaster for Evangelism and Home Missions (EHM) during much of the 2000’s. By that time its agenda had shrunk (as Hill notes) and its funding was lean. I got to work with some great people but the prime of this part of the church was past.
Without rehashing many of the issues Hill brings up on the topic, based on my experience if the Church of God is serious about bringing this department back (and on its face I think it’s a good idea) we need to address two issues:
- We need to bring back the role of the laity in evangelism. Too much of the mentality in the Church of God (and every other church in the revivalistic tradition) is that evangelism is the work of a special cadre of preachers who come into town and “blow in/blow up/blow out.” I think part of the reason why Charles Beach and Leonard Albert had the Lay Ministries Department separated from EHM was because of its focus on preacher evangelism. There’s no evidence in the New Testament that Our Lord intended to entrust the entire work of evangelism to such a ministerial cadre. In all churches but especially in church plants the laity plays an important part in spreading the gospel, and to do that effectively they need training.
- We need to link evangelism and discipleship. The Great Commission is about making disciples; evangelism is a necessary means to that objective but not a sufficient one. A Christian culture does some “pre-evangelism” discipleship, but irrespective of the merits of the culture we don’t live in that kind of world any more. In a culture like ours–and especially with some of the groups we are missional to–evangelism comes in the middle of two stages of discipleship, both of which are on us to do. Unfortunately the way our church is structured–and the proposal of bringing an evangelism department back into being doesn’t help–the two are handled separately. That needs to be addressed.
It is my fervent hope and prayer that the Church of God will be rightly guided in this part of its mission.
Positive Infinity 
Thank you. Your experience lends special insight to this topic as it is coming up for formal discussion. I have heard several different “takes” on this topic; your thoughts provide a needed perspective. I would agree, generally speaking, with your two points involving laity and discipleship. I would add the need to keep, if it is approved, a reformed Evangelism Department focused and streamlined. For some reason, the tendency of this department in days gone by to become a kind of “catch all” was prevalent. If we reinstitute the a revised Evangelism Department, it needs to do evangelism.
Thanks.
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Thanks for your thoughtful comments. I agree that avoiding “mission creep” or a department becoming a “final resting place” for unrelated agendas is a good thing. The only problem I see is that, somehow, we need to organise ourselves in such a way that evangelism and discipleship can come out of the same source. I’m not sure the exact best way to do this but if we don’t do it this way in the current culture both will suffer.
When I was in men’s ministries, we differentiated between “wide” events and activities (geared to a broader group, more evangelistic) and “deep” events and activities (geared to a more focused audience, more discipleship.) The key was getting the wide events to feed the deep events and not have them disconnected. That’s what I’m thinking about as we move forward.
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