BY ALAN RATHBUN, EPD DISTRICT TEAM
It’s likely that a significant part of your call to ministry included a deep desire to see non-believers come to Christ.
You have a deep desire to lead people to Christ and to lead a church family that regularly sees new people receiving the beautiful gift of salvation through Jesus.
And then ministry happens. People in the church have their own crises. Programs need leaders. Meetings need to be planned and led. And the need for sermon preparation marches on week after week. And your people seem just as busy too.
And if this is you, I’m guessing today you have nagging questions in your mind like “Why aren’t more people coming to know Jesus through our church?” or “Why aren’t more of our people sharing the good news of Jesus with their friends, neighbors and coworkers?”
Those questions nag us on the district team, too. We desperately want to see increasing gospel impact in Eastern PA and these questions drive us to pray and think and work to find answers to these questions.
And one tool we can offer to help answer these questions is in the form of our “Making Evangelism Normal in Your Church” Development Track. It’s a two-year cohort in partnership with the Church Evangelism Institute (CEI) at the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton College. The track is not just evangelism training. It’s a combination of evangelism and leadership training that seeks to change the whole culture of a church so that the joy and passion of sharing the good news returns to whole congregations, not just a few random people.
We’re just about ready to complete our first two-year cohort, and we are seeing some very encouraging fruit. One of the churches being impacted by the training is State College Alliance Church. I’ve asked their lead pastor Aaron Henning to share how the cohort has been helpful to his leadership and their church as a whole.
Alan: Aaron, what needs in your church led you to consider participating in our first evangelism cohort that began in 2021?
Aaron: The simple answer is that we wanted to do a better job of developing a Gospel culture. We were troubled at the amount of energy and time we were putting into maintaining the machine of church ministry. Sensing a hunger for more, we jumped into the CEI experience— and God has been blessing us through the journey!
Alan: What piqued your curiosity about the CEI cohorts that made you think it would be helpful to your church's needs?
Aaron: I spoke with one of the cohort coaches who was leading a church situation that was very much like ours. Plenty of good things happening, but not a lot of new commitments to Christ. As he described the journey that their team underwent, I was excited to think that this kind of thing could happen with our church as well. I was curious and my hunger increased. I was fascinated to learn that the cultural shift toward evangelism requires about 16% of your church to buy in and this felt like an attainable goal.
Alan: What fruit have you started seeing in your church since you started in the cohort?
Aaron: Personally, our family has found great joy in making better, intentional connections with our neighbors, and we have seen some fruit on that front. Additionally, our leadership teams get a monthly "outreach temperature check," and that has caused some wonderful God stories to unfold as they are becoming more active in sharing their faith, praying for those who need Christ, and developing more intentional relationships with their FRANCs (Friends, Relatives, Acquaintances, Neighbors and Coworkers).
Alan: What was most helpful about the format or strategy of the CEI cohorts?
Aaron: I liked the fact that we met monthly. This was frequent enough to keep us gaining momentum, but not so often as to be overwhelming. The coaches did a great job of reminding us that we were in a process and not to be discouraged if the progress was small.
Alan: I'm happy to say that you are going to be one of our coaches for the second CEI cohort that launches this January. How do you hope to be helpful to the pastors in the next cohort?
Aaron: I hope that the participants in the group will see that our church is on a good journey and that God is moving in some special ways. We have a lot of growing to do, but we're moving in a good direction. If that inspires some of our CEI members to dig in and take some risks, I think it will be a fruitful journey for us all.
If you’re interested in learning more about this track, you can find more details here or send your questions to alan.rathbun@epdalliance.org.