Sometimes people say that our stress on evangelism means that we are opposed to social welfare and the good of our community. It is also suggested that our emphasis on the church leads to a ‘huddled flock’ idea, where Christians become introverted and only concerned about the life of their own institution.
In fact, both these concepts are travesties. It is certainly true that we must give a priority to evangelism as it is true that we give a priority to faith over works. The greatest need of any human being is a relationship with God through Jesus. There is sometimes a danger that social action is identified as part of the gospel and the reform of society is identified as the coming of the kingdom of God. Such suggestions confuse faith and good works.
But true faith always leads to good works, including social action. The Bible tells us that this is a test for authentic faith (e.g.: James 2:14). In fact, Christians who live a Christian life in obedience to God – speaking the truth, giving money away, loving others, forgiving – are already a blessing in the community.
Such good works are not, however, a substitute for the gospel, and there is no hope in this life that we will be able to bring in the kingdom of God on earth.
Becoming a Christian should make us far more sensitive to the physical, emotional and spiritual needs of our whole society.  Christians are ‘communalists’, not individualists. We wish to be known as men and women who value and exercise both justice and compassion in all human relationships.

Sometimes Christians speak as though their whole task is to prod governments to have social welfare programs. More fundamentally, however, we are ourselves to be a blessing to the community in which God has set us.
If we are committed to evangelism, this will necessarily draw us out of our Christian huddles and into the wider community. The loving evangelist will have eyes to see the real needs of people, whatever they may be. Genuine evangelistic work (as was the case with Whitefield and Wesley, for example) will be accompanied by practical help for those who need it.
Likewise, a life of compassion in the community will lead to true evangelism as we recognise that the fundamental problem of humanity is a spiritual one. A social welfare program which intentionally stops short of addressing such problems will be less than fully helpful. We should be interested in the whole person.
There is a further important connection between our evangelistic Mission and social welfare work. Historically, the good works of Christians have been extremely valuable to the community as a whole. But this will only be the case as long as there are sufficient Christians. At the present time it is vitally important that we make evangelism our priority, since a church in numerical decline cannot continue to bless its surrounding community. In that sense, the division between evangelism and social welfare is an unhelpful one. There is a proper order with evangelism coming first, but no disjunction.