The other day, I wrote a post about the church’s mission to make disciples. I particularly wanted to argue that, despite received wisdom, it is not actually being faithful to press on with ministries that are not actually making any disciples. At some point, we do need to have a little think about whether we are meaningfully being effective. I would encourage you to read that post here before going on with this one as it will give you the relevant context.

But today, I thought it might be worth putting a little meat on those bones. In the previous post, I was suggesting that pressing on out of a misplaced sense of faithfulness with coffee mornings that don’t serve anyone or gospel services that nobody comes to, we would do well to recognise that we are called to make disciples not to continue with particular mean come what may. If we have any concern about whether our churches might decline and close, we should pay some attention to trends like every church continuing as we are declining and other churches doing different but perfectly legitimate things growing. These things are not pragmatism writ large, they are means of being faithful to our calling to actually make disciples.

So, it bears asking what means are actually effective? Well, as it happens, the 2022 Talking Jesus Research has done some of that digging for us. Here are their key stats on how people came to faith:

• Growing up in a Christian family (34%)
• Reading the Bible (24%)
• Attending a physical church service other than a wedding or funeral (19%)
• Sunday School (19%)
• A spiritual experience (16%)
• Conversations with Christians you knew well (15%)
• A particular life event, whether positive or negative (12%)
• Responding to the gospel at a Christian event or service (11%)
• Attending a church school (11%)
• Visiting/praying in an open church building (not during a service) (8%)
• Youth Club (8%)
• Christian printed media (books, pamphlets, magazines) (7%)
• Conversation(s) with Christian(s) you don’t know well (6%)
• Attending an online service other than a wedding or funeral (6%)
• Going to an introduction Christian course eg Alpha, Christianity Explored, etc (6%)
• Christian content shared on social media by people you don’t know (5%)
• A church wedding or funeral, online or offline (5%)
• Christian Union at Secondary School (5%)
• Christian Media (4%)
• Christian content shared on social media you do know (4%)
• An individual church’s outreach programme (food bank, toddler group, etc) (4%)
• University Christian Union or other university programme (4%)
• Newer forms of church eg messy church or cafe church (4%)
• Other (2%)

Talking Jesus Report 2022

Clearly all respondents were able to note as many things as were involved in their coming to faith as were relevant. There may also be a few questions we might want to ask about some of these things. But I think they give a helpful overall picture of what seems to be the most effective modes and means of evangelism. And I think there are some general, simple observations you can make here.

Evidently the most likely place people will become believers is if they have grown up in a Christian family. Not much behind it is the role of Bible reading. And it doesn’t take a genius to see how those two things are almost certainly linked. As is the third most significant factor, attending a physical church service. Christian parents who bring their children to church regularly and who read the Bible with their children at home are by far and away the most likely to see their children coming to faith. Such children are the most likely to come to faith of all people. Contrary to popular belief, the youth group seems to come some significant way down the list and does not seem to be all that significant.

Given all that, I think these stats put paid to the theory that we reach families through the children. As I have argued here before a number of times, we want to reach the parents who will then disciple the children. If we can make Christian parents who want to live out their Christian faith at home they are likely to be the parents who then read the Bible with their children, bringing them to church regularly and putting them in the most likely of all camps to come to faith. If we want to see youth saved, it’s not the youth works that will do it, but the parents. Though this cuts against conventional thinking, it means we really ought to be taking our resources out of youth ministries and pumping them more directly into reaching parents and helping them to disciple their children.

It is also quite striking that of the top eight most effective things, all bar one of them is necessarily accomplished by getting people into church. If we take a broader view, the most effective means of bringing people to faith seem to be long term, relational and Word-centric. Apart from growing up in a Christian family (which we can at least try to effect by reaching parents first) the best things we can do for people is get them to read the Bible (or read it with them), get them into church to hear the Word and engage with them about matters of faith over the long term.

By contrast, amongst the least effective things evangelistically seem to be all the things that we frequently and regularly insist are evangelistically essential. Amongst the least effective things are cafe church and messy church and courses like Alpha and Christianity Explored are not much better. Even giving out Christian books and pamphlets is very low, with only 7% of people saying it was significant in them coming to faith. The courses and newer forms of church are only about half as good as that. To put it in context, even attending a church school had more impact (11%)!

Now, to be fair to those who do these things, I do think there is a way we can still view these things and not consider ourselves to be wasting our time altogether. But it comes back to what I said in this post the other day: these things are means to an end. I accept that our food club or English class probably isn’t going to be the vital element in someone coming to faith. We don’t even run these things and think of them as evangelism per se. They are pre-evangelism. They are means of meeting people, making contact with them, having ongoing conversations with them so that we can then speak about faith, read the Bible with them, bring them to church and do all those other things that will be effective.

But again, we have to be clear what our mission is and what we are doing. If we are running food clubs or English classes or anything like them as our evangelistic outreach, then the figures tell us we will be on a hiding to nothing (for the most part). If we are running these things not as our evangelistic outreach but as means of establishing ongoing contact with people, and making friends with them and then doing all these other things that might be effective, we might just have something that is part of a wider process that may do something valuable for the kingdom. But it all comes back to being clear what we are doing.

Our mission as a church is to make disciples. We therefore need to be clear how whatever we are doing is helping in that endeavour. If it isn’t helping at all, or we can’t explain how it is a stepping stone of any sort on the road to something more significant, then we may just have something on our hands that is taking up a significant amount of our resources that is likely to have minimal kingdom impact. When we think of the resources God has given us to steward well in terms of the parable of the talents, we must ask if we are pumping all our time, money and resources in youth groups, Christianity Explored courses and Christian Unions – worse, if we are doing events and outreach activities that are practically unattended altogether – in what way are we not just digging a hole in the ground and burying our talent until the master returns? Only, it is worse than that because the gospel riches we have in this country, we are like the servant given the most talents but still just digging holes and throwing it all in hoping that Jesus will be pleased with us.

But these are the kind of trends I was talking about here. The mission we have is to make disciples and it is legitimate to make use of any and all godly means. But good stewardship, particularly knowing we do not have unlimited resources, means building our strategy around those ordinary, legitimate means that are going to be most effective and not pumping vast amount of resource into those things that consistently have limited to virtually no impact for most people in their coming to faith. If we just carry on as we are, doing what we have always done, then all we have to look forward to is church decline. But if we are willing to buck the received wisdom, to focus our limited resources on effective means of gospel ministry – all of which seem to revolve around long-term relationships that involve engaging meaningfully with the Word – then we might start to see some gospel fruit. But we have to be willing to change and stop insisting we are being faithful when we are actually disobeying the call to make disciples and instead making idols out of legitimate vehicles for the gospel that Jesus hasn’t expressly asked us to do.