Church Evangelism Training Resource: The Church Calendar

Church Evangelism Training Resource: The Church Calendar

3. Church Leadership Evangelism Resource John Teter - Evangelism Team Leader of the Evangelical Covenant Church My friend and mentor Darrell Johnson first introduced me to the church calendar. I was a young Christian. I had just converted at age 22 through a campus ministry and I never knew the church calendar existed. Today, I cannot imagine my life without the annual calendar of the church. When I first began attending Glendale Presbyterian Church, Darrell was the senior pastor. Pastor Johnson possesses a remarkable teaching gift and uses it powerfully in his preaching ministry. As I listened and grew from his sermons every week, I began to realize that he utilized the church calendar for deeper impact within his local congregation. Even as a young minister in training, I realized that leaders can use the church calendar for the growth of the church. While Darrell would regularly preach through large sections or even entire books of the Bible, he often framed his preaching with an amazing blend of biblical text and church tradition. A second friend and mentor, Ray Bakke, introduced me to living out the church calendar in a personal way. On a visit to his home in Seattle, I saw how Ray and his wife, Corrine, decorated their home with colors, music, and smells that signified the season that we were in. Darrell used the church calendar to frame the feeding schedule of an entire congregation. Ray and Corrine used the church calendar in a deeply personal and private way for their own spiritiual growth at home. From both of these experiences I learned the practical functionality of the church calendar. 1

As an evangelism leader, I have discovered that using the church calendar can bring about much evangelistic good to the local church! Let us first define the seven seasons of the church calendar. 1 Season Length Description Epiphany Five to Eight Sundays beginning first Sunday after Jan 6 A time to focus and celebrate the earthly ministry of Jesus Lent The five Sundays before Palm Sunday A time to focus on the death of Jesus and embrace the pattern of losing life to save our lives Holy Week Palm Sunday and Easter Sunday Palm Sunday celebrates the unexpected King and Easter celebrates the resurrection and the death of death Eastertide Six weeks following Easter Sunday A time to focus on the life implications of the resurrection Pentecost Fifty days after Easter A time to focus on the third person of the Trinity and the Holy Spirit s work in our lives Advent Four Sundays before Christmas day A time to focus and celebrate Jesus first and second coming Christmas Christmas Eve and Christmas Sunday A time to focus directly on the incarnation and promises of God Two Evangelism Anchors As a senior pastor who guides the mission, here are the practical ways I use the church calendar to lead my flock into evangelism. I already use the church calendar to form my preaching schedule. This helps me stay at least one year ahead of the current preaching schedule. Using the seasons, helps my preparation, my prayer, and ensures a steady feeding schedule for the flock. The calendar keeps me honest, and helps me preach texts or topics that I would otherwise not be naturally drawn towards. Knowing that the preaching schedule for the church is set, I will then look at the year and make sure that evangelism is in the calendar. As the pastor who guides the mission, we must never assume that church-wide evangelism will just happen. It must be scheduled! As I survey the calendar for a given year, I immediately put two anchors as evangelistic harvest events. The first anchor is Easter. The second anchor is Christmas. (Due to our congregation s travel and hectic holiday schedules, our big evangelistic event for Christmas takes place two weeks before Christmas. If it works in your context, Christmas eve or Christmas day on a Sunday might be preferable. But we like our event a bit out from the actual holiday, while enjoying the growing anticipation of the Christmas season. 1 Darrell W. Johnson, The Glory of Preaching (Downers Gove, IL: IVP Academics, 2009) 208-209. 2

We usually combine the event with a performance of our children s choir to help more folks come out and experience our church. After putting the harvest events in the calendar, I will then highlight six to eight weeks of preparation time on the front and back end for each evangelistic event. At Fountain of Life Covenant Church, we establish five weeks of follow-up for each evangelistic event. We want to make sure any new births the Lord brings are given proper care and attention. Outreach By doing this simple exercise, you have now insured that there will be at least two evangelistic events. Each willing participant in your church, now has a focused time period of 12-16 weeks of personal evangelism and ten weeks of follow up and integration new disciples into your church. We have found that clarity is a great need in regards to evangelism leadership. The congregation is more flexible and willing to risk and grow when expectations and calling are clear. Having all of your people going hard as witnesses for 12-16 weeks of the year is reasonable, doable, and will likely help them engage in a personal way. If the communicated expectation is zero weeks a year, that is likely the result you will enjoy. Clarity and building training into the church calendar creates momentum for evangelism. And we all know what a great friend momentum is for church leadership! During the minimum of six to eight weeks before the harvest event, the pastor guides the mission in a variety of ways. The pastor prays from the pulpit for our evangelism relationships to take off in this outreach period. The church organizes prayer in the congregation for lost people in a corporate crying out to God. The pastor can encourage the congregation from the pulpit to run the triangle and try and meet as many people as possible to find out if they are interested in Jesus. Some will certainly be interested and personal Bible studies with non-christians can begin immediately. The more non- Christians are exposed to the Bible and their thinking formed by it, the better convert they will make at the harvest event. (Please see our God Search evangelism resources at covchurch.org/72. The goal of every Christian during this six to eight week outreach sprint is to include as many people as possible into the process of conversion funnel. The harvest event then be a logical next step for the non-christian, and not the place where they are starting from scratch. A seeker who is familiar with church and enjoys a trusting relationship with a mature Christian can commit to Jesus. We have found that the unbeliever is more ready for commitment then we might think they are. 3

Follow-Up Leading another sinner to faith in Christ is not the end goal. A decision for Jesus, while exciting and inspiring, is a very fragile moment. The real work has just begun. For new parents, while the birth is incredibly significant, the next fifty days are vital to the survival of any new child. So it is with our friends who have chosen the new birth. For follow-up we like to take our most friendly/evangelistic leaders and have them lead a foundations life group. These life groups run five weeks and begin the week after the harvest event. They are the central commitment that we call for from the new believer. The groups are designed to build community with other new Christians, while establishing the basics of faith in Jesus. Every convert needs a strong foundation and must be taught how to become a lifelong disciple of Jesus in the local church. Closing Exhortation As a pastor who guides the mission or a Christian who tells the story, may the church calendar help you bear evangelistic fruit! While the Holy Spirit is always moving and evangelism can be creative and spontaneous fruitful, we have found this to be most true with individuals gifted for witness. What we are proposing is a vision where the church does not have people fishing with poles, but the church itself is the ship that fishes with a net. In this model, we have found it is much easier for people to understand their roles and put evangelism into their calendars. Luke 15 describes evangelism as a process of increasing joy. As you incorporate the Christian calendar in your evangelism plan, may God give you great joy, and may the Shepherd give great joy to your local church. 4