As our society has changed have we lost the capacity to mission together? I want to suggest a simple and powerful way to re-capture some of the best of the past days of mission.

A Quick History

Before we consider a new way to mission let’s think about how we have missioned in days gone by.

Australia’s earliest days saw mission conducted by erecting church buildings in new areas and waiting for people to attend, or by the evangelist ministering in difficult places such as the goldfields and gathering new church communities. For over a century, mission could be conducted within our church buildings to those who came but did not know Jesus, through Sunday Schools and services.

During these times groups did minister outside their church buildings, such as Open Air Campaigners and Campaigners for Christ. Other parachurch ministries like Beach Mission gave opportunity to take the gospel outside our buildings to campers over summer. This type of mission had the great benefit of training people in evangelism by engaging side by side with others who were seasoned in the task.

Evangelism within church walls dwindled due to the decline in the numbers of unconverted people in our churches. This coincided with an increase evangelistic ministry through these parachurch organisations and the development of newer groups whose evangelism focused around geography, interest and stage of life: for example groups that evangelized in workplaces, sporting groups, and at universities. By the very nature evangelism springing from these groups was often personal evangelism. Partners in the group would be trained in evangelistic tools, prayed for by other partners, but the evangelism would be person to person. So today we have the blessing of many trained evangelists, equipped to be able to proclaim Christ wherever they are.

Church Evangelism?

But what about evangelism from our churches? Does the group in relationship with each other week by week in church not have an communal evangelistic opportunity?

One important and powerful community activity that our churches still engage in is Scripture teaching. But we tend to find a few people who are willing to minister in schools and send them off to do our mission. By doing things this way we are in danger of losing both the training and communal element of evangelism; not to mention the greater impact we might have on the lives of young people.

So here is my suggestion.

How about we arrange that through Scripture, once a term we run an extravaganza that any student may attend. The week by week ministry of Scripture teaching continues through the faithful ministry of those committed to it, but alongside that activity we invite congregation members to give up a day’s holiday each term and join in working on and delivering Scripture Seminars. This would involve committing to the weeks beforehand in preparation for the seminar and in skills of ministry and child appropriate behavior as well as the day. The result, under God’s good hand, would be a memorable addition to normal Scripture, congregational participation in evangelism that may lead to greater prayer and concern, an opportunity to use the evangelism skills they have developed, and encouragement for the Scripture teachers.

Just a thought.