Dr. Robert Coleman; The Master Plan of Evangelism
 
“The great failure of the church today is its preferred strategy of waiting on non-Christians to walk through the door of the local church building in search of the Gospel.”
 
It was church growth expert, Ed Stetzer  who said, “Inviting people to church is not evangelism.”  He said some of it might lead to it down the road, but telling our people they are doing evangelism when that is all they are doing is inadequate.
 
My friend Jim Larsen told me that he used to do what he calls Hyena Evangelism. I asked what that was.  He asked me who do hyenas go after when they hunt.  The answer I gave and that I get from everyone I ask is “The weak.”  That is right.  They go after the old, the wounded, the new born or the ones separated from the herd.  They try and avoid the bulls, the big tough ones.  Jim said that for years his ‘evangelism’ was working with the new family that walked through the sanctuary doors on Sunday morning.  Easy pickins’.  They already had interest.  They were maybe already believers.  He knew what to do with them and had classes etc. for them.  Then he would send 20 kids off to camp in the summer for a week of teaching, camp fires, singing (more in a week than they might get in a whole year back home) and praying. “Oh, they come home and it is easy to ‘dunk’ them.”
But then Jim went on to say that he learned he had to go way beyond that.  He had to learn how to wander among the ‘herds’ OUT there, how to approach the ‘bulls’, the tough ones and connect with them and share the Gospel with them ‘out there’.  And oh, how it changed his life.
 
So the question is obvious.  If we and our people aren’t equipped and trained how to ‘walk among the herds out there’ and connect with people in a kind, respectful way and share the Gospel with them out there, we are tremendously limiting ourselves in what God has called all Christians to do. 

And considering that some say that less than 95% of all Christians ever share the Gospel with another human being, it is obvious we are doing something wrong.
 
How many of your people are you training and equipping to ‘walk among the herd’s?’