Building and Rebuilding a Culture of Evangelism

T Time has a focus theme for: 2025

And that theme is evangelism. Now, if you are a part of Converge, which of course is a movement of churches committed to helping people meet, know, and follow Jesus, then you may be aware that the current vision and goal of the president of Converge, John Jenkins, is to build and rebuild a culture of evangelism.

And this year, we're going to be having dynamic guests who will be sharing about evangelism and the part that we all play. And so in light of that, I am so delighted to have our first guest of the year, who is Jonathan Dahl. Jonathan serves as the director of evangelism and discipleship at Converge.

He is a leader, a unifier, a developer, a pastor, and a coach. And Jonathan's passion is to help God's vehicle, which is a church to be optimized for his glory. Jonathan, welcome to T Time.

Jonathan: It's so good to be with you. And I appreciate the invitation. Excited to talk about evangelism.

Twanna: Yeah. Well, I'm excited too, but we've had some great conversations and so I'm really ready to dig in.

And I know that, you know, you're in this new role, relatively new role of, of director of evangelism and discipleship, which sounds pretty fancy. Tell us just about that role and how it came about.

Jonathan: I appreciate that. Yeah. No, I, it's not fancy at all. In fact, I view kind of myself as, a bit of a executive pastor, number two, number three person.

And, that's the role I'm filling. I mean, you said it very well in the intro that President Jenkins has the vision. Obviously he's a megachurch pastor. And, you know, Dr. Michael Henderson is the vice president of national ministries. He's also a large church pastor and they are leading Converge, but the time and energy that they have to make this happen, I think was the reason why they said, we've got to hire somebody that can wake up and think about this and, do a lot of the backend work to develop and, put some things in place so that it can be something that, you know, spreads throughout the whole of Converge, church by church around the country.

Twanna: Well, you know, I'm glad that we have you in some ways I'm kind of like, why do we need you? Because think about it. Evangelism is a commandment of Jesus. So how do churches and movements get away from this commandment?

Jonathan: Well, the easy answer, of course, is sin, pride, ultimately, I think, you know, just even on a personal, thing, we become distracted.

I think what settles in a lot of the time is, comfort, fear, and ultimately maybe just kind of a lack of owning that commandment, to go and make disciples of Jesus Christ. That's nice to say. I'm glad the pastor preached on that, but is, where's the ownership there? And, what is my part in that?

I think can often and does often fall away. You know, I think about, just church acts right around the country. It doesn't matter where it is, you know, First Baptist of wherever, becomes, what if they became, focused on, you know, just making disciples. I think the problem is that, you know, First Baptist wherever, ultimately, usually,

ends up being focused on facilitating, First Baptist. And even as a movement of churches, I think Converge, and you said it in the intro, we are a movement that is seeking to help people meet, know, and follow Jesus. I mean, that's, we express that. And yet as a movement that expresses that we exist to help people meet, know, and follow Jesus, even we can become focused on sometimes starting and strengthening churches, even sending missionaries.

And don't get me wrong, those are great things. In fact, those things exist for the purposes of, helping people to meet, know, and follow Jesus. But you see where just right there, it's a little bit different and distracted from that primary commandment. And, I think at times we do become distracted and, that's just the reality of it.

Twanna: Yeah, I think it is very easy to become distracted because we have so many things to distract us. So then why is building and rebuilding a culture of evangelism even necessary? Why is that necessary?

Jonathan: Well, I think it kind of comes down to what do we want to be known for? And again, I'm going to, encourage your listeners just to think in terms of a local church.

It is true that Converge has 10 regions, and in those 10 regions, we have hundreds and hundreds of churches, but the question is in the local church, your local church, as you process this, in the community that you're in likely has an identity for you. And the question is, what is it? What do you want to be known for?

What are you known for in your local community? Which then begs the question, what if, what if your identity, for you as a local church,

was that you discipled people? What if what you were known for, people in the community said about you, was that that's the church, that's the one that's truly reaching people in this community for Jesus. If, you know, if you want Jesus, if they were saying, if you want Jesus, you should check out that church. Now, I think, I think if that's what we're known for as a local church,

and then there's another church or two that come under that umbrella that is Converge, then we become, that movement, when multiple local churches kind of carry that same identity, those regions and the whole of the movement, it becomes what we're known for. And to be honest, Reverend Twanna, that's what I want to be known for.

I want to be known as a local church. I want to be known as a region. I want to be known as a movement of churches throughout the country that is helping people to meet, know and follow Jesus.

Twanna: Yeah, I think that's, that's really good, Jonathan, because, you know, just the whole idea of what we want to be known for, you know, a lot of times, you know, our churches want to be known for our music.

We don't, we want to be known for our children's ministry. We want to be known for the coffee and the doughnuts in the, in the, in the lobby. I mean, we, you know, we want to be known for a lot of different things other than.

Jonathan: And those things have a purpose and they serve a purpose. But the purpose behind them is to introduce those people to Jesus.

And if you've got great music that brings people in, or your coffee is better than the rest, that's great, but you've got to make that leap then. And there's got to be more than that. And yeah, so it's good to be known for positive things. It's best, I think, to be known that you're reaching people for Jesus Christ.

Twanna: Yeah, and that sounds like such a massive undertaking. I mean, it really does. What do you see as the biggest challenge of churches being more evangelistic?

Jonathan: Well, you know, nothing distracts people more than themselves, and I think nothing distracts churches, more than the perpetual running of that church.

I mean, we were even kind of just referencing it, and I do think it is distraction, because I think each and every, local church, they would want and have a desire to have an evangelistic an evangelistic impact in their local community. But I think, you know, the biggest challenge is that churches don't ask some of the key questions, periodically, such as "why do we exist?"

"What are we to do?" How do we go about doing that? And who are we impacting? And I think, you know, I think sometimes the biggest challenge is getting a church board or a local church lead pastor. Better if it's the combination of both asking those big questions and having the answers, point them and direct them back to what we would consider, you know, is a conversion culture of an evangelistic church, because we are called, it is a directive to go and make disciples of Jesus.

I do think that's why each local church exists. And, you know, then it becomes, well, how do they go about doing that. And are they, or who are they impacting? And if you get away from some of those core key questions, the challenge becomes greater to come back to them. And, I think answering those questions help get us past some of those things that distract us and, focus us on what Christ has called us to.

Twanna: Yeah, some may say that the pandemic was a, was a distractor, you know, because during the pandemic, you know, many churches took a big hit, you know, particularly our smaller churches. Would you say that church attendance is in a decline?

Jonathan: I think statistically around the country I've seen and read surveys that would identify that. And, you know, I think, I think that's a challenge. But it can be a challenge that takes some of those key questions of, is it our purpose to gather more people or is it our purpose to go and reach more people?

And to that extent, some of the metrics may need to be evaluated or looked at or examined, in a local church. There's not a lot of churches that, that ask, they may ask each other on a monthly basis, how many people did we average in attendance, but are they asking how many questions or how many people gave their life to Christ, or were baptized this month?

And, you know, those are two different types of questions. One of them is pretty easy to come up with the answer. The other sometimes creates guilt, shame, and you don't even, you know, the answer. So you don't want to ask the question and you kind of, you kind of skate and then the priority gets shifted because we're not really doing what we were called to do, even though we know what we're supposed to do.

Yeah. Now, I know that in your role, one of the things that you're working on and have been working on is a two year church culture change process. Can you talk about, just what that is exactly and how that initiative will really help churches with the challenges of being more evangelistic?

Well, we have, as a movement of Converge, partnered with Wheaton College, Billy Graham Center's, Church Evangelism Institute, and AACEI. And really, that is what they're all about is taking churches, through this two year church culture change process.

Jonathan: And, I gotta be honest right out of the get go. Let me be clear. Culture change within a church to be fully realized, takes at least probably three to five years, sometimes more. And so. We seek to get people aligned and started and find the right trajectory in those first two years. But just to go beyond the big picture and to get kind of detailed about, you know, the specifics of, you know, if a person wanted or a pastor, a church wanted to be a part of a cohort, what they would get or find in that two year church culture change process cohort.

You know, really for the first three months, and I say this really lovingly, but we're gonna mess with you as the lead pastor. And I, you know, when I say mess with, we're just gonna challenge you back to your calling. Chances are God called you as a pastor to reach people for Jesus Christ. I have found that

to be true almost 100 percent of the time, as I talked to pastors around the country. And yet what pastors find themselves doing, often is schedules and calendars filled with a lot of stuff that isn't necessarily allowing for that. And so we kind of get down to, you know, a challenge for that lead pastor.

Are you praying for those who don't know Christ and then where in your sphere of influence have you had a chance recently to, you know, to engage and impact people who are not part of your church? And are outside of that, that you could invite and enter in. And so in that first three months, I lovingly say we messed with the lead pastor, but frankly, in the next three months, we challenged the lead pastor to mess with one other influential person in that, in that church, whether it could be a staff member, or it could be a key influential volunteer and what the pastor is now praying and probably reaching out a bit more than he was prior to joining this cohort. Now he's challenging that other person to do the same.

And what develops out of that Reverend Twanna is stories. And, people find that God answers prayer. He provides us with opportunities and through that stories are born. Certainly stories of conversion, but, ultimately, just stories of engaging with the outside world, those two then in that last three months of that first year, kind of wrapping up the first nine months of year one is to process these kind of activities with your staff.

And you're board and kind of the key leaders within your church. And then, you know, there's a little bit of a break there. But then as you go into year two, together with those key leaders, you're identifying, well, we're doing this as leadership, how could we engage our congregation? What hurdles do we need in our local context?

What hurdles are there that we're going to have to navigate? And then ultimately you're figuring out in year two, how you can become hospitable. And hospitality is a biblical term that, I think all churches need to grow in to be honest, because when you have the stories and you're reaching people and then they're showing up to your church, there's churches that have got to work to be more hospitable when welcoming people in.

And that becomes a lot of the challenge in the second year of that two year church culture change process.

Twanna: So we're about like a year in now in that process. Right. So is that, is that, is that right?

Jonathan: Well, yeah, I'll say when, you know, when President Jenkins, began this vision, to bring this to the whole of Converge, I didn't really talk about that earlier, but, you know, we, we kind of created a catalytic cohort, which means we've got 30 plus pastors

that are engaged in that two year process right now. The neat thing is, not only are they in it and they're taking their churches through it, but they have said, when I'm done with this, I'm going to be able to coach and share this kind of activity with other churches in my region and around the country.

And so, what we've done in that first 18 months, which is a, you know, we're, we're about 18 months in, and we're going into, you know, session 14 out of 18 at this point, to answer your question, specifically. And, what that means is we will, you know, we'll, we'll complete that two year process

and then this infrastructure of pastors, we've got congregations and pastors from every one of our converged regions, that are involved in this. And we'll be able to, you know, connect them with other churches and pastors that want to jump on board and also be a part of a two year church culture change process.

Twanna: Awesome. So I know it's about 18 months and there's got to be some stories, some fruit from that. What's one story that stands out to you, you know, in this process over, over this time.

Jonathan: Well, you're asking for one. Can I give you four? I'll be quick about it. I know we don't have all too long, but you know, I want to, the first one is super simple and it sounds simplistic, but I think it matters.

And I, I want to say it first and foremost, I think, you know, the fruit that I'm finding is the pastors that become involved in this, they fall in love again with their calling and nothing gives me more joy than seeing the pastor engaged in what God called him to do. You know, a second thing is that I've got a pastor who is kind of in the middle of nowhere in a rural, area.

And, He is, he is just excited to watch his board, praying for unbelievers and, you know, and even sharing their stories you know, just the mindset of the board has been to share the gospel. They weren't doing that before. They were just focused on their little church and their little community and, that, that gets me excited and that's, that's significant change when the leadership and the core of the leadership kind of finds that mindset shift, to being a bit more, evangelistic.

A third story, is, in fact, we even shot a video about this, but a pastor in Yuma, Arizona, he challenged his church. to live out the principles behind an acronym called BLESS. And, we don't need to get into that necessarily, but just to live out these principles, five different principles, over a six week period.

So he got up, he preached, and said six weeks from now, We're gonna see as you live this out what God wants to do through that and without an event or programs, just the people, the congregation living intentionally with evangelistic mindset, and relationally connecting with people in that community they saw in that six week period,

52 salvations and they celebrated 73 baptism.

Twanna: Wow!

Jonathan: Flowing from their congregation that was just then living on mission. And so now that's an early adapter, right? So he did that early in the process. That's kind of the results that we're going for in the long run. And again, it's not about the number, but it is about the intentionality and the mindset of the congregation being shifted to have that evangelism at the forefront of what they're doing Monday through Saturday.

Twanna: Yeah, I think that's so amazing. I'm sure there are pastors that are listening to this, leaders who are listening, who want to share this with their pastors, how would a senior pastor, connect to this initiative?

Jonathan: Well, not to be simplistic about it, but from a communication standpoint, the easiest thing to do is to text me and we can connect you with your region and then connect you with a cohort.

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And the reality is I will text you back some links that take you to the Converge website to set up a time to process. I assume maybe we can put the link to that, which is hard to read out. But we can put the link to that at the bottom of the podcast, or we can have that linked in the information section.

But then the, the key thing is if you're just, you're hearing this but you need to find out more information. We have cohort preview events, which is what we call essentially, it's an FAQ live interactive one hour experience. And we do those every six weeks or so. And the next two are usually posted on our website.

Well, they will be posted on our website. So that's where , if you text me, I'll text you back the link. You check out that link and then you find out when the next preview event is, you sit through a free one hour event, and then you've got all those frequently asked questions and the answers to them, that you as a local church pastor can take back to your board and say, is this something that could be good for us in our church?

I'd like to believe the answer is yes, but timing does matter. And so the timing of it for you and your church may be a not ideal, but I will say we're launching new courts about every six months. And so coming up fall of 25 is probably the next big launch, which means right now is the right time to be thinking and praying and begin processing with you and your leadership team, whether or not this is a good opportunity for you and your congregation.

Twanna: Sounds good. And I love the idea that there are cohort preview events. So that, you know, people and leaders can just kind of figure out what this is, how does this fit and to take it back to their churches, their leaders, their boards and to see, you know, if this, this is something that they can, can implement.

And I think it would be, Very helpful. Before we close, you know, in his, in his book, you found me Dr. Rick Richardson. You may be familiar with it. He wrote something. I thought that was very interesting. He said that we must become re enchanted by the power and beauty of the mission of Jesus. As we get ready to close, Jonathan, can you pray for our listeners that we would become re enchanted with that mission?

Jonathan: It would be my pleasure. Father God, you are good and worthy of our praise, for you have allowed us to realize your unconditional love and grace. And Lord, it is a privilege to be re enchanted, as Reverend Twanna has put it, in the words of Rick Richardson, to be re enchanted with that mission, that directive, to help people to meet, know, and follow Jesus, to re engage in, and through our church, not even in our church, but through our church

with the mission that you've called each and every one of us to. Thank you for the privilege of being a follower of Jesus Christ, may we do much with that and live out what it means to be his disciple. By sharing, and praying for people in our sphere of influence that we can impact and, would we be motivated and challenged, to do what God's word calls us to do, Lord, challenge each of us in our hearts.

Even today, and if there are churches that you want to have this, experience and this challenge put forth Lord, give them the opportunity to process that in their local congregation and to connect with us so that they can connect with others and relationally see that culture change, take place over two, three, four, and five years,

within that local congregation. Lord, we love you because you first loved us. It's in your name we pray. Amen.

Twanna: Amen. Jonathan, thank you so much. It's been so good to have you, with us and I'm going to be praying for you and praying for this, entire initiative as we seek to build and rebuild a culture of evangelism.

To our listeners, I'm Twanna Henderson. Thank you for joining T Time. We look forward to seeing you again. Be blessed of the Lord.