Evangelism and Missions

What Would Make Your Church More Missional? Student’s Name Institution of Affiliation Course Instructor Date What Would Make Your Church More Missional? A missional church is involved in both domestic and international evangelism, and develops a culture for evangelization. For a Reformed Presbyterian church in the PCA denomination, being more missional means assessing the congregation's current level of involvement in local and global evangelism and missions and finding the gaps that need to be filled. Hence, this paper focuses on the various endeavours the church is adopting to foster a missional and evangelistic mentality and outlook in the current missionary scenario, as well as the various difficulties it experiences in such a context. Based on these fundamentals and under the light of missionary and theological principles as encapsulated in Timothy Keller's Center Church, Larry Hurtardo's Destroyer of the Gods, Stefan Paas' Planting Church in the Secular West and Alan Noble Disruptive Witness, the main arguments of this evaluation will lay down how the church can better relate to the unbelievers. Further, this paper will discuss how the existing ministries can be improved and indicate other forms of outreach that can be initiated in line with the theological perspective of the church. Lastly, the desire is to find practical things that would assist the church in achieving its mission and ministry of taking the gospel of the Lord to the world. Current Involvement in Evangelism and Missions The church partakes in works of evangelism and missions locally to portray the facets of the gospel locally and globally, and the church programs involve evangelism through ministries that provide services to people while at the same time presenting the message of salvation. These are collaborations with local ministries such as ministries dealing with homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, and mentoring of the youths whose doors are opened for evangelism through service. Moreover, the church mobilizes people into fellowships, with one of them focusing on the geographical community in which people celebrate festivals and holidays; members are encouraged to invite anybody and everybody with no church background to come and hear the message. Bible studies and small groups also contain some evangelism in their programming so that members are encouraged to spread the word of God in their everyday environments.[Keller, Timothy. Center Church: Doing Balanced, Gospel-Centered Ministry in Your City. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 2012.] At the global level, the church supports missions in partnership with specific missionary societies operating in different parts of the world. These works are based on collaboration in terms of sponsorship of missionaries, sponsorship of mission teams for a short term for purposes of church planting, medical missions, and community development projects in contexts that have not been reached with such services. The church also urges its people to take up long-term missions and offers support and training to anyone interested in cultural missions. In a concerted effort to develop such a perspective among the congregation, the church regularly emphasizes evangelism and missions. The principle of the Great Commission and the mandated work of the church on evangelism at home and abroad are recurring themes in sermons. Moreover, the church offers Chain of Evangelism classes and workshops for its members to teach them how to share their faith with acquaintances. There is a strong emphasis on missional living, where every member's activity is viewed as an opportunity to share the word of God.[Noble, Alan. Disruptive Witness: Speaking Truth in a Distracted Age. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 2018.] [Paas, Stefan. Church Planting in the Secular West: Learning from the European Experience. Grand Rapids, MI: Eerdmans Publishing Company, 2016.] Challenges in Evangelism and Missions in Your Church Context Since the church is concerned with evangelism and missions, some challenges limit its efficiency in responding to these vital callings. There are several of them, but one of the most important is the tendency towards the post-Christendom or post-Christian culture in which the church is located. Finally, it emerges that the more society gets to be apathetic or even openly hostile to Christianity, it becomes even harder to start talking about faith-related matters. People can be either indifferent to religion or have a bitter experience with Christianity that ultimately prevents them from engaging with the gospel productively. Such cultural resistance may cause church members to develop a discouraged feeling, as if they are surrounded by useless individuals who are preparing for hell and are unable to interact with non-believers because of fear of being reprimanded or laughed at. One internal threat is that congregation members become complacent over some periods. Although the church prioritizes missions, some members may not possess the personal incentive to do so. Lack of time, other interests, and the perceived stability or wealth of people in the church may water down the cause of evangelism, especially in a church setting that can easily lose touch w...