Rick Billingsley is author of the Truth Commentary on Zechariah and a workbook on World Religions, but he is probably best known for his successes in personal evangelism.

When I hear how many congregations are having internal strife, splits, and personality conflicts it hurts me to no end. The apostle Paul stated, “Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches” (2 Cor. 11:28). Paul was explaining the difficulties that he experienced for his service in Christ, but what disturbed him the most was his concern for the churches. I, too, am concerned for the church in general; not so much about the outside pressures, but the internal difficulties that face many congregations today.

When churches are not busy converting their community, then strife, personality conflicts, and fighting take place. If churches were busy reaching out to find lost souls, they would not have time for such things. My philosophy has always been to keep the congregation busy with some means of evangelism so they don’t have time to fuss and fight among themselves. Another important factor is we don’t sacrifice truth for numbers. We should never compromise God’s word in order to help the church grow. We don’t compromise on marriage, divorce, and remarriage, work of the church, or immorality. In fact, these topics need to be preached on and taught in the congregation on a regular basis. You will find that many people in this world appreciate truth and desire to learn more about God’s word. We don’t need gimmicks and the social gospel to attract people to Christ. The gospel can and will do that for us.

There are three types of congregations that most of us have been involved in:

There is the monarch congregation. The work of this kind of church is centered on one or two families, whether intentionally or non-intentionally. Nevertheless, these families make the decisions and are the ones who are involved. Outside people will notice this as soon as they are acquainted with this congregation. This church may grow to about 50 or so.

There is the preacher syndrome congregation where the work is centered on the preacher. Much of the decisions and involvement are focused upon the preacher’s desires. Even though the congregation has elders, he makes many of the decisions and controls most of the subjects being taught in the congregation. This church may grow to 100 or 150.

Then you have the corporate congregation. This work is centered upon the whole congregation, where the members, elders, and the preacher work as a unit. Elders make decisions based upon the needs of the members and allow the preacher to work with the members in reaching out to their family and friends. In this type of congregation, the teaching is being done by the elders, members, and the preacher. Members of the congregation share the pulpit and other members besides the elders and the preacher teach the classes. This type of congregation can grow to infinity. How do you create such a congregation as the corporate church? There are four essentials for growth. It does not matter whether you are talking about a church or a business, you must have these four essentials or the organization will not grow.

1. Motivation. Members must be encouraged by the elders to participate in the growth of the congregation. Elders must expect members to work. Expectation is a must. If elders don’t expect members to be involved in the work – they won’t be involved. Parents are good examples. If parents expect their children to obey and get good grades, they will. However, if they don’t expect their children to do these things, then they won’t. Elders must expect members to participate and encourage them to get involved.

Cults are very successful in motivating their recruits. Why? Because they make them feel needed and wanted. When a new member is brought into the Hara Krishna’s cult, right away he is given a task or a job to do and he is expected to do that job. They make their people feel needed and wanted. Part of our human makeup is that we need to feel needed and feel that we are contributing to a cause. These new members feel that they are contributing something to their faith. Unfortunately, when new members are brought into many congregations, there is a very low expectation of them. Most of the expectation is for them to be faithful in their attendance. There is work to do and even new converts can contribute to this work. We must find out what they are willing to do and what they are willing to learn to do, and then help them to develop their talents (Personal Growth Sheet will help in this matter. We will discuss this later.)

Training – must have adequate training to help equip members with knowledge to do personal work. Jesus spent three years (26,280 hours) training His apostles before He gave them the great commission. We need training classes to teach us how to teach others. The Jehovah Witnesses and Mormons do this, so why don’t we? Members must learn how to duplicate themselves. In 2 Timothy 2:2, “The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.” The Greek word able is hikanos which means sufficiently trained, who are sufficient in teaching others. Notice 2 Timothy 2:24, “The Lord’s bond-servant must not be quarrelsome, but be kind to all, able to teach, patient when wronged.” The Greek word here is didaktikos meaning “apt and skillful in teaching.” Classes can help train members to teach the lost.

On hands training – Never go to a Bible study alone. Always take another person with you. This is a good practice for the one who is conducting the study so he or she can train others to do what he does. We must be able to duplicate ourselves. As a preacher you must be duplicable. The lessons that you use must be simple and easy to teach so others can do the same.

2. Dedication. Personal evangelism should be the elders, deacons, preacher, and members aim in their Christian life. The work of the church is to save souls. Members must realize spiritual growth comes only when they are involved in teaching others (Heb. 5:12-14). There must be 100% dedication from the elders and preachers (leaders of the congregation) when it comes to personal evangelism.

Give the preacher time to do personal work. It is a must that the preacher has time to be involved in personal work. Too often a congregation expects the preacher to be in the pulpit every Sunday and to teach every class on Sunday and Wednesday. Sometimes they even have to write articles for bulletins. This takes a tremendous amount of time to do and leaves very little time for the preacher to be involved in reaching the lost in the community.

Have members to teach classes and to preach in the pulpit. At Walnut Street our men preach on the fifth Sunday and teach Wednesday evening classes during the summer. I am expected to teach only Wednesday evening and preach three times during the month. Our men and elders share in the work of preaching and teaching. This allows me time to do personal work during the week.

3. Participation. The ideal situation is to have 100% involvement from the congregation; however, realistically 50% should be the goal for the congregation to strive for. Elders, deacons, and preachers must be involved in personal evangelism. People generally will follow when they are led by example from the leadership of the congregation. If the leadership does not get involved then the members will not be encouraged to get involved. There are different things you can do to reach the community to find people:

Following up on Visitors. Be sure that visitors are sent a thank you letter and are visited. At Walnut Street we have an intense follow up program for our visitors. Members send out cards thanking them for coming. I personally send them a thank you letter with a survey card and a first lesson of four lessons that we use to teach others. Then elders, the deacons, members, and I personally contact our local visitors and personally visit them.

New residents in our community. Newcomers are often lonely, looking for new friends and a church home. In the past we have purchased zip codes in our area and have sent out welcome letters to these new comers. Then we (elders, preachers, deacons, and members) of the congregation would visit them personally and welcome them to our community.

Around town Bible studies. These are studies that were conducted around the towns where our members live. They were conducted at coffee shops, bookstores, and restaurants. One of our deacons or members would conduct these studies with three or four of our members who would sit in for the study. They were conducted on Thursday evenings studying the same topic at these different locations.

Working the university campus. Myself, an elder, and a few of our members work on Thursdays at North Carolina State campus passing out literature. The key to participation is to have different things going so people can participate in these programs. To get people to participate in these programs don’t ask for volunteers. Seldom will people volunteer; however, when asked to participate, seldom will they say no. I don’t ask for volunteers to sit in on a study. I will ask a person to go with me.

4. Organization. For all of this work we must have organization to keep track of spiritual and numerical growth.

A work group agenda – work groups are a must. Our deacons are leaders of our work groups and we have a work sheet or what we call a group agenda sheet. These sheets are filled out by our group leader (deacons) and later are reported to our elders at our elder, deacon, and preacher monthly meeting. Work groups are required to meet once a month and send out cards to visitors and sick members. They are required to help with meals of those in our congregation who might need them. Members are encouraged to host a potluck dinner in their home for their group on the second Sunday of the month. This helps with communication between the members and the elders.

Personal growth sheet. Every member is required to fill out a personal work growth sheet. All new converts and new members who place membership with us are required to fill out this sheet. This is for the elders to find out what these new members would like to do now and be willing to learn to do later. These sheets also help the elders to keep track of the growth of individual members.

This personal growth sheet also helps the congregations to utilize the work force, putting people to work now and train for future leaders and teachers.

Bible study follow up sheet. This sheet is a must in order to keep track of the number of baptisms. It informs the elders who is leading the study and who is helping in the study. It also reveals how the person was contacted. This is extremely important for it tells the elders what method or methods are effective for finding contacts. This also helps the elders to identify with new members in the congregation.

A copy of these work sheets is available upon request. These four things, Motivation, Dedication, Participation, and Organization are vital for church growth. In fact, without them it would be impossible to grow. There are many things that we can do to help the local church to grow, but it all starts with us personally. “If it is to be, it is up to me.” That should be the slogan for every Christian. However, these are things that the church as a whole can do to help encourage Christians to evangelize their community.