Used church member testimonies to celebrate key wins. One hundred percent of pastors interviewed showed emphasis in using church member testimonies to celebrate

Table 7. Themes noted among interviewed pastors

Recurring Themes Frequency of

Response Used church member testimonies to celebrate key wins 12/12

Planned evangelism training 12/12

Preached emphasis on gospel conversations 10/12

Communicated clear mission and vision of the church 9/12

Prioritized setting the example for evangelism 7/12

Maintained slow culture shift & awareness of on-going revitalization

progress 7/12

Motivated by Biblical truths 7/12

Focused upon prayer 7/12

Emphasized relational evangelism 6/12

Displayed an awareness of the Holy Spirit 6/12

Instituted intentional membership 5/12

Scheduled off-campus outreach events 4/12

Connected evangelism with discipleship 3/12

Changed worship style 3/12

Shaped a sending culture 2/12

Used church member testimonies to celebrate key wins. One hundred percent

including beach baptisms as a major win.

¹⁹

Charles Petty of Second Baptist Church, Ogden, Utah, spoke to the significance of their annual Great Commission Service where they share pictures, videos, and testimonies all in celebration of how God is helping the church live on mission. Another unique form of celebrating key wins comes from Joshua Geopfrich of Warsaw Baptist Church in Warsaw, Indiana. Geopfrich discussed using the offering time during the church services in the following way:

So a big celebration, for example, is just last week, Saturday night. One of our families, one of the dads just led his youngest son to the Lord. So we’ve made a huge deal of that during our “Take 5” time on Sunday. Mainly because that’s something in a celebration thing, we talk about getting prayer requests from people and he had specifically asked the entire church to pray for his son’s salvation and he responded.

So we had time to praise, which we don’t generally get. And so we make that a priority. We are renaming our Sunday service too, similar to what other churches do with Weekend Celebration.

²⁰

Goepfrich’s “Take 5” moment is one of many ways these pastors intentionally use member testimonies to celebrate successes in building a culture of evangelism. Cory Thomas of Flat Creek Baptist Church in Blakely, Georgia, further made this point as he stated,

If I feel like someone . . . if God is moving in their life and I feel like the church needs to know about it, I’m going to ask them, say, “hey, would you be willing to share this with the church?” Because I believe that that’s how we grow and I believe that’s how God gets glory and credit, but that’s how we grow. People must see, they can hear me preach all day long, a simple message on salvation, but if they see lives changed in what God’s doing in people’s lives, that moves more people than all the preachers put together in the world preaching messages.

²¹

Using member testimony was not the only key theme that these revitalization pastors discussed at a 100 percent rate. Evangelism Training also received the same frequency of mention during the interviews.

scheduled to baptize 22 people in one service alone. Jim Jackson, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

19 Jeff Robinson, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

20 Joshua Goepfrich, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

21 Cory Thomas, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

Planned evangelism training. While the above-mentioned theme displayed itself as a result of the primary question about developing a system of celebrating key wins, the discussion concerning evangelism training surfaced during the initial survey instrument in the evangelism specific questions. One hundred percent of pastors interviewed showed emphasis on frequent trainings for gospel conversations among their church members and attenders. These training times varied in where they were placed throughout the week and also frequency on the annual church calendar. While some would think that Sundays and Wednesdays are the most natural weekly times in a church to train the membership to share their faith, one pastor discussed Friday nights being their outreach night with yet another choosing the third Tuesday of the month. That said, all twelve pastors consistently had a plan to train their church to share their faith in Jesus Christ. Jeff Robinson of Grace Fellowship A Church for All Nations in West Palm Beach, Florida, incorporates evangelism training as part of their church’s membership interest class. Beau Lamb of FBC Santa Rosa, New Mexico, stated,

As we grow relationships then that’s what propels us to be able to go beyond just being a friend, but then to actually be obedient in sharing the good news with them.

So we’d have some practice times and this is with our group as a whole was willing to learn how to share, whether it be 3-Circles or Answer Track or Roman Road or Share Jesus Without Fear.

²²

Although pastors mentioned several tools,

²³

many agreed with the sentiment that while the method may change, the message stays the same. In response to this phrase, Charles Petty shared, “The message is always the same because the news is Christ’s death, burial, resurrection. Well, the message is the same, but the messenger could certainly change.”

²⁴

A strategic plan for evangelism training was a priority for all churches interviewed, while

22 Beau Lamb, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

23 As noted, 3-Circles (6 occurrences), Sharing Jesus without Fear (3 occurrences) and No Place Left (2 occurrences) were the only repeated responses, yet several others included Evangecube, Evangelism Explosion, The Difference Maker, and The Answer Track

24 Charles Petty, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

an additional theme discovered was the preaching emphasis on the importance of gospel conversations.

Preached emphasis on gospel conversations. In the shepherding ministry of leading a local church, the pulpit is a central place of teaching and vision-casting among the congregation. Ten out of the 12 pastors interviewed mentioned this in connection with encouraging their church to have gospel conversations. Paul Eckley of Sonshine Baptist Fellowship in Bremerton, Washington, affirmed, “Well, number one, lift up Jesus. Preach about him and his ministry and the mission of the church as a whole.”

²⁵

He later added,

The church isn’t just something that somebody thought they would begin or start or it was a great idea, and that kind of a thing, but the church, the bride of Christ, the individual that’s a believer of Christ baptized and all, that person is just as important in the church as the next person. So I try to preach or teach the fact that every member of the church is vitally important in carrying out the plan of God during this period in which we live.

²⁶

Brad Delaughter of Satsuma Baptist, Livingston, Louisiana, agreed: “Personal evangelism is in almost every sermon I preach. Every single sermon I do the shotgun approach of we’re called to go share the gospel.”

²⁷

Phil Westenbarger of Glouster Southern Baptist Church, Glouster, Ohio, makes similar references to the importance of his preaching:

The only other thing I would say is in the beginning and here and there, I will end my preaching constantly pushing that idea of we’ve got to be the people that take this out—it’s our mission that we’ve been given. Um, it’s good. . . . I gear, a lot of preaching toward that.

²⁸

Not only has the pulpit ministry proven to be a priority in the church revitalization process, but pastors also shared the importance of communicating the mission and vision of the church clearly.

25 Paul Eckley, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

26 Ibid.

27 Brad Delaughter, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.

28 Phil Westenbarger, FaceTime interview with author, September 2018.