4 Benefits To Street Evangelizing

At Axess Church, we practice street evangelism in and around our local community of Glen Ellyn. For us, street evangelism is an essential part of being a Christian witness in our community and a core aspect to church growth, as it was in scripture. Our churches should grow as the kingdom grows. If our churches are growing and the kingdom isn’t, that means we’re just transferring Christians from another church into our own. We hope these four benefits inspire you and your church to begin making street evangelism a regular part of your routine.

#1 - People get saved!

In today’s world, people are turning in every direction except the church in their times of need. It used to be that the church was the first place that people would go in times of crisis, but this is just not the case anymore. This means that now, more than ever, we need to be going to them. People need to hear the good news and they are unlikely to position themselves to receive it without us going out to find them.

In the parable of the sower found in each of the synoptic gospels, the sower spread seed everywhere. The seed, as Jesus defines it, was the Word of God. There were four different soils and only one soil was actually ready to receive the word the way that God wanted it to be received. What can’t be missed is that the sower threw the seed on the other soils anyways. We can learn something here - evangelism is first about quantity, which then reveals the quality. Talk to as many people as you can, and as you do that, you’ll begin to discover the people who are ready to receive God’s Word and eternal salvation.

#2 - It stirs up your faith.

Oftentimes people complain about feeling spiritually dry or empty, and this is a reality that we can face as Christians. The solution to it is simple though - go out and evangelize. Evangelism stirs our faith in a unique way in which other spiritual practices don’t. Evangelism takes the focus off of ourselves and places it onto others while actively engaging us in God’s will and purpose.

It’s while practicing evangelism that our faith comes to life and we are reminded of our very testimonies. As we speak to people, we begin to remember the plethora of things that God has done in our lives. As people hear the word of God, we are also being reminded of the truth of who he is and what he does. As we walk people into salvation through the renewal of the Holy Spirit, we ourselves are renewed as well. Even the bystanders get wet when someone jumps into the water!

#3 - It brings the Word out of you.

One of people’s biggest fears when it comes to evangelism is that they believe they don’t know the word of God enough to do it. We often believe that we need to be a theologian with a master’s degree in theology before we share the word of God. These assumptions are based on subjective assessments that are being done without any proof that it’s true. The fact is, once you go out and begin talking to people, you’ll realize how much more of God’s Word you know than you first estimated. Evangelism has a way of pulling things out of you that you didn’t know was there in the first place.

Obviously we need to have a relationship with God’s Word for this to happen, because God can only pull out of you what you have first put in you, but it doesn’t take much. If you are someone who has a habit of reading scripture, even if it’s a little each day, that’s enough! Get out there and watch how God will use you and pull things out of you that you didn’t even know was there.

#4 - You become in touch with what people are going through.

When we become out of touch with the world, we begin to lose our ability to impact the world. This doesn’t mean that we have to become like the world, Jesus explicitly taught against that, but I mean being in touch with their struggles, feeling, challenges, questions, etc. Jesus spent time with “sinners” and you better believe that he was learning all about them in the process. A doctor cannot diagnose a problem without first listening to the patient and we can’t preach the gospel well without first understanding what people are facing and feeling.

Evangelism gives us an opportunity to learn about people in a constructive and personal way. The more we do this, we begin to sense the pulse of our cultural moment so that we can speak clearly in today’s world.