Last week we looked at the "Big Three" methodologies that effective churches are using in their evangelism — preaching, prayer and Sunday School/small groups. While these emerged in our study of some 600 evangelistic churches as significant evangelistic tools, the number of additional methods reported was incredible. God certainly is not limited in how He chooses to draw the lost to Himself!

Statistically speaking, however, seven methodologies emerged as major instruments of evangelism. You have read about the first three. As we examine four other methodologies, you may be as surprised as we were!

Relationship Evangelism

It is difficult to distinguish between Sunday School and relationship-building as methodologies for evangelism, because so much of the building takes place in Sunday School classes.

According to one pastor, nearly 90 percent of his church's baptisms were adults and youths who had developed significant relationships with Christians in their Sunday School classes. Nevertheless, we separated relationship evangelism as a methodology since some of the relationships develop in the workplace, schools and homes, apart from the Sunday School environment.

Relationship-evangelism responses showed significant statistical variance at different church sizes. The larger the church, the more likely leaders were to consider relationship evangelism a significant factor in the church's evangelistic effectiveness.

Delving further into responses according to church size, we discovered important insights. First, most pastors considered their personal evangelistic efforts to be important to their churches and to their own spiritual growth. Often 15 to 20 baptisms per year resulted from one pastor's own soul-winning efforts.

Members of smaller churches perceived that number of baptisms to be a significant evangelistic harvest. Unless the pastor was persistent in his attempts to train and recruit others for witnessing, the responsibility of soul-winning remained primarily with him. The congregational attitude of "that's what we pay him for" often resulted in little church-wide enthusiasm to develop relationships with the lost. After all, "our church is evangelistic enough with our pastor's efforts. We can focus on other ministries."

In the larger churches, the pastor, again, was often used of God to bring 15 to 20 people to Christ. Yet that number of baptisms was not perceived to be a significant evangelistic harvest for the total church. There seemed to be a greater motivation on the part of the congregation to "do my part."

No one person, not even the pastor, could carry the evangelistic responsibility alone. Thus the larger churches tended to emphasize all church members developing relationships with the lost.

Traditional Outreach

Students of church growth have heard for years that traditional outreach is declining as an effective growth tool. The arguments are well known: People resent their homes and privacy being invaded by religious fanatics. You cannot motivate church members to gather every week to go visiting and share the gospel. Cold-call visitation is dead.

I recently read some literature by a supposed church-growth authority that made similar remarks. Interestingly, almost everything he said about traditional outreach was contradicted by the data we received. Much to my chagrin, I was that writer!

But what about other studies of growing churches that made the conclusion that traditional outreach is on the decline?

When I read again those earlier studies, I discovered something significantly different from this one. The other research was based on growing churches, but not necessarily churches that were increasing in size by conversion growth. In fact, many of the churches were hardly growing at all through new converts, but by Christians who were leaving one church to join another. Additionally, the other studies rarely looked at more than 40 to 50 churches.

We heard from the leaders of nearly 600 evangelistic churches. More than half (50.2 percent) ranked weekly outreach as one of their most effective evangelistic tools. Only four other methodologies fared better.

When we asked about church-growth studies indicating such visitation was no longer effective, their responses were very similar. They agreed that people often resist receiving church members who knock on their doors, yet the attitude of the lost should not hinder the obedience of the church to fulfill the Great Commission.

An associate pastor of a medium-sized southwestern church responded, "People have been resistant to the gospel for two thousand years. It's not a new phenomenon. But the responses of the lost should not determine the obedience or lack of obedience of the saved."

Youth Ministry

One pastor was rather frank about the declining evangelistic effectiveness of Southern Baptists with youths in America. He said that we must reach out to those who are the most receptive to the gospel. "Ninety-five percent of [all] those who get saved are below the age of 18. It's time to get busy in the business of evangelism that works! We need quality youth pastors! We have dropped the ball too long."

He reflected the sentiment of a large number (50.1 percent) of leaders who use intentional youth evangelism as one of their primary evangelistic methodologies. A key principle of the church growth movement is one of receptivity.

C. Peter Wagner explains "that at a given point in time, certain people groups, families, and individuals will be more receptive to the message of the gospel than others."

George Hunter calls church growth's awareness and evangelization of receptive peoples "the Church Growth Movement's greatest contribution to this generation's world evangelization."

Many church leaders fail to recognize that adolescence is a critical time of receptivity to the gospel. The teenage years are a time when a large segment of our population will receive Christ and be discipled in a local church. Resistance to the gospel typically increases once one leaves adolescence.

Many evangelistic churches in this study place a significant emphasis on youth evangelism, not just youth programs. Both staff and lay leaders seek to reach teenagers for Christ in everything they do.

A youth lock-in, then, becomes more than a fun evening for the teenagers. The Christian youth are encouraged and motivated to bring their unchurched friends with them. Open invitations are given to public schools, and a motivational speaker will present clearly a plan of salvation before the evening concludes. Youth evangelism is highly intentional in many evangelistic churches.

Emphasis on youth evangelism is high in churches of all sizes. However, larger churches generally place a higher value on this method of evangelism than smaller churches. They are more likely to have a staff member who devotes significant time to evangelizing youths.

Leaders of smaller churches should not despair. We received numerous testimonies about lay leaders who took up the call to reach the youth for Christ. When one or more laypersons exemplified that passion, baptisms among youths increased at an astounding pace. Perhaps one role of the pastor in a smaller church should be to vocalize this needed leadership.

Music Ministry

Our study led us to two significant conclusions about music ministry. First, music can be an effective evangelistic tool. Pastor Steve Thompson of Crown Point Baptist Church in Jacksonville, Fla., shares his philosophy of music for evangelistic results: "Our music is high energy with significant congregational involvement. We tend to use that music which encourages people toward commitment to salvation or to evangelism."

A second significant conclusion is that no single music or worship style predominates in these evangelistic churches. About the only consistency we noted was that a formal, liturgical style was unlikely in most of these churches.

Around 40 percent of the church leaders described their services as "traditional," 30 percent as "contemporary," and 30 percent as "blended," with the latter category being the fastest growing. Surprisingly there was general aversion to services designed explicitly for seekers.

We will continue to send you this research in many of our future reports to you. May God use you and your church for an evangelistic harvest.