I have it on good authority* that churches with a healthy evangelistic culture would typically expect to see five adults** converted each year for every 100 members of the church. Let me present that metric to you in a table, so that you can quickly personalize it to the size of your own church:

Now, as a reformed evangelical, if you think the whole idea of setting goals in church evangelism (and tracking how you are going with those goals) is anathema, then I urge you to read Growth and Change and be deeply and biblically challenged about your assumptions.

But if, like me, you recognize the need for your church to do better in evangelism even without tracking the numbers, the big question is: what do we do about it?

Enter Dave Jensen.

That’s kind of Dave’s job these days—helping churches know how to do better in evangelism. Though it’s not just the fact that it’s his current job that makes him worth listening to; he’s spent the last decade leading evangelism efforts in various churches in Australia and the UK . Dave has lots of experience. And as Dave would readily admit, if you learn from your mistakes, he might be one of the smartest guys going around! But it’s not just his mistakes that he’s learned from. He’s also done a lot of talking to churches that are seeing many people become Christians, and he’s learned from what they’ve done.

You may not be able to get Dave to personally come to your church to help you figure it out, but here’s the next best thing: the talks Dave gave at Matthias Media’s Evangelize 24 Conference in October last year. The conference video playlist is on YouTube, but here are the direct links to Dave's talks:

• Getting and keeping the church on mission (Talk 2 on the playlist)
• The first conversion: How do people become Christians? (Talk 5 on the playlist)
• From disciple to disciple-maker (Talk 7 on the playlist)
• Plus a useful Q&A (Talk 8 on the playlist)

Dave is no mere pragmatist chasing the desired evangelism KPIs. He knows and believes the true gospel and he knows and believes what the Bible says about the gospel and evangelism. He is deeply conscious of the dangers of pragmatism. But he does want our churches to put more priority, effort and resources into evangelism, and he has some very helpful ideas on how to do that well—and in such a way that it helpfully transforms the ecosystem of your church in other healthy directions too.

I hope it makes little difference to you, but just to be clear: these videos are available for free. Matthias Media is delighted to be able to make them available, and we are praying that they will be of great help to you and your church as you pursue your responsibilities to make Jesus known to your local community.

If you are a pastor or a lay leader in your church, or just someone with a passion for seeing people saved, I strongly encourage you to make the time to have a listen (with a notebook and pen in hand). Better still, set up a little group to listen, talk and plan together about what it might look like for your church to follow some of Dave’s suggestions.

There are some other really helpful and encouraging talks on that conference playlist, and they all interconnect (very intentionally!). So please don’t limit yourself to just Dave’s input. The whole conference was specifically on the topic of how to see more effective evangelism taking place in and through our churches. I’m sure you’ll find all of the talks very stimulating and helpful.

Ian

* It is one of the metrics used by Reach Australia in their church consultations. See this podcast for more information: What your church should be tracking.

** That is, we’re not including baptisms or confirmations of youth group kids growing up in the church.