Enrichment Journal: Evangelism in the Smaller Church

I stood alone, scanning the parking lot of my new church. It was 3 minutes before Sunday school and not a single car containing visitors had turned down the gravel lane. I thought of Zechariah 4:10, where God asked, "Who despises the day of small things?" (NIV). At that moment I despised the day of small things. My new post had a 35-year history and 33 people. Morale was low. Our building was secluded on the back of the property. Everything from the burnt-orange carpet to the peeling vinyl entryway to the crooked sign said, "Stay away."

Worship was stifled and awkward. I didn’t have a novel strategy to help the church grow. Evangelism programs I knew about didn’t seem to fit this congregation, and I was too inexperienced to make appropriate modifications. On that second week in September, I didn’t want to stay at Calvary Church. I wanted to eat a Sunday brunch and start packing. I might have, except for the tan Chevy I saw turning down the lane. I smiled, waved, and slipped inside.

As I remember, we had a banner day that Sunday. Our rule was: If it breathes, we count it. That day we counted 39 people. People seemed pleased with the turnout. That was 15 years ago.

Today Calvary Church is healthy and vibrant. Some transfer growth helped us along the way, though I have learned that people who drift in from other churches usually drift out in short order. A wise elder defined these short-termers as scaffolding. They help you build for a while, and then they fold up and move on. We experienced good growth as people moved into the community and became part of the church. But by far, the most solid growth came through personal evangelism and the joy of the new birth radiating from new believers. Read more