This past week I was asked to write a short article for the Outreach North America summer newsletter on the subject How Evangelism and Renewal Relate.  My first response was sadness that such an article was even necessary.  I am a bit weary of the division between the outward focus of the church, i.e. evangelism, and the inward focus of the church, i.e. discipleship, that is usually tied in with how church leaders think about renewal.

If you know my ministry at all you know that I push very hard for outreach and evangelism.  The vast majority of American Protestant churches are in plateau and decline.  Why?  The leading cause is self-focus that manifests as the pouring of the lion’s share of its resources into congregational ministry, that is, ministering to ourselves.  If we are to become renewed, it will not come from additional commitment to ministering to ourselves.  Rather, renewal will come through the commitment to minister beyond ourselves by focusing our ministry on reaching the lost, those outside of our community, through outreach and evangelism.  I preach this one-point sermon again and again.

Early last week a church leader in a church where I recently  presented training sent me this quote from Dallas Willard:

It is, I gently suggest, a serious error to make “outreach” a primary goal of the local congregation, and especially so when those who are already “with us” have not become clear-headed and devoted apprentices of Jesus, and are not, for the most part, solidly progressing along the path.  Outreach is one essential task of Christ’s people, and among them there will always be those especially gifted for evangelism.  But the most successful work of outreach would be the work of in-reach that turns people, wherever they are, into lights in the darkened world.

I am assuming that the bold type was this leader’s doing and not the author’s.

So what am I supposed to do with this?  Should I throw my approach out, forget about outreach and evangelism and dive into in-reach as the most successful work of outreach?  I don’t think so.

I’ve not had an opportunity yet to connect with the sender of this email to discuss exactly what he’s trying to tell me, but on the surface he seems to be saying that I have somehow missed the point, at least as far as Dallas Willard is concerned.  I could buy Willard’s perspective philosophically, theoretically and perhaps even theologically.  The problem is that this approach to reaching lost people through in-reach doesn’t work.  Why?  Because most in-reach does not result in turning people into lights in the darkened world.  It does not result in the making of clear-headed and devoted apprentices of Jesus.

In-reach, per se, is not the problem, but for Willard’s premise to hold sway, we have to change what we do with in-reach.  Ministering within the church should be focused on obedience to all that Jesus commanded (Great Commission) and not on expanding our Bible knowledge inventory.  Jesus came to seek and to save the lost (Luke 19:10) and the Great Commission tells us to do the same in the phrase, Go, therefore, and make disciples (Matthew 28:19).

If our in-reach was driven by equipping and empowering our congregations for biblical living, featuring outreach and evangelism, that would be great and I would be pushing church leaders to focus on in-reach.  But this is not how our in-reach is driven; it is not producing light in a darkened world.

I have found that when church leaders focus on outreach and evangelism, in-reach (discipleship), in fact, turns more toward equipping people to be salt and light.  Internal issues within a church in plateau or decline tend to self-correct or disappear altogether.  Perhaps we’re caught in a chicken-egg dilemma here, but at least for now, I am convinced that healthy in-reach begins with a commitment to outreach and evangelism.  The result is that the lost are reached and the found are renewed.