The Lack of Evangelism

By Brian Mitchell
    “In so little time the harvest will be over and our reaping will be done, we reapers will stand before the Lord of the harvest and hope He says well done. How many times should I have strongly pleaded, how often did I fail to strictly warn; Oh had I only pled for Jesus, but now the grain has gone, too many lost ones never to be reborn.    Despite the heat, the toil and hardship, the broken hearts over those we cannot win; misunderstood because we are peculiar still no regrets save for our sins. A day of pleasure, a feast of friendship; a house, or car or some small fame; will all be trash when souls are brought to heaven there to face the slackers blame.    The harvest white, with reapers few is wasting and many souls will die and sadly never know; the love of Christ, the joy of forgiveness; oh let us weep, and love, and pray, and go. Today we reap, or miss our golden harvest; today is given us lost souls to win. Oh let us go to save some dear soul from dying, today let us go to bring some sinner in.”    The Apostle Peter exhorted the Lord’s followers to “Sanctify the Lord your God in your hearts, and always be willing to give a defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear.” If we are honest, we will all have to admit that most individuals, and thus most congregations composed of those individuals are woefully lacking in the area of Personal Evangelism.    “It has been estimated that 95% of church members have never led someone to Christ.” “In places, the shortage of personal evangelism is so critical that it threatens the very existence of the local church.” Now don’t get me wrong! I am well aware that there are a number of good congregations that are actively involved in evangelistic efforts—one I heard about had baptized more than 50 people a year for more than a decade.    There are also other congregations where a handful of members are genuinely motivated and quite active in trying to reach the lost. While this in itself is good, the problem is it tends to make us think as congregations, that we are doing better than we are. There is an aura of excitement that is produced when some members of the church are actively involved in bringing souls to Christ. But this also makes it more difficult for us to admit our collective shortcomings.    The problem with the lack of evangelism is a specific problem in itself, but is also Satan’s greatest tool when it comes to hindering the effectiveness of the church. It is the one way our enemy is hurting us the most and our lack of evangelism is directly tied to every other problem we have discussed over the last 2 months. We often do not evangelize because we are too busy making and spending money, or we are too busy entertaining ourselves or filling our schedules with anything but personal work for the Lord.    So let each of us get personally involved with personal evangelism. God will not hold us accountable for those who do not obey, but He will hold us responsible if we never tell them.

-Brian Mitchell serves as a minister with the Jackson Church of Christ in Jackson, MO. He may be contacted through the congregation's website at https://www.jacksonchurchofchrist.net

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