Craig Whitney of ELI Church Planting talks about the role of relational evangelism in planter effectiveness:
“One of the four characteristics the ELI measures [in church planters] is relational evangelism. One of the things we asked in our research was what percentage of those attending a new church were previously un-churched. We discovered that the higher the ISA score in relational evangelism the higher the percentage of un-churched people in a new church – and this relationship was statistically significant.”
If you’re going to be reaching people for Christ, then that becomes part of the DNA of your church. If not, then not. That’s a critical issue of confirming church planters. That’s why I’ve always recommended that planters have their first converts before groups and their first groups before worship services—it embeds the DNA right from the beginning. And relational evangelism is definitely a quality you want embedded right from the beginning.
Is there a corollary for groups with a lower ISA? Are they better at another form of evangelism or something else? i.e. are they better at developing faith or reaching “de-churched” people or serving or ??? I ask as a hopeful now ISA leading a congregation with a low ISA (or at least I assume we are low ISA)
Tom – great question. Unfortunately, our research wasn’t designed to explore every habit and strength. The ISA measures relational evangelism as one of four characteristics for potential church planters. We were thus very curious if the planters scores correlated to the churches evangelistic effectiveness. We tested for this and discovered a statistically significant correlation.
I describe this characteristic with an axiom, “The habits of the founders will become the culture of the congregation.” I would expect (and have observed) that this is true of habits other than evangelism. If a church planter or pastor is an avid Bible student, the congregation will have a strong Bible study focus. If the planter or pastor is very involved in compassion ministries, the congregation will have a strong ministry serving needs in their community.
The implication being if you’re leading a congregation they will imitate your habits – whatever they are. The question is thus, are you modeling habits you want your congregation to imitate?
BTW – Stop by http://www.churchplanterprofiles.com and take the ISA. It’s free. If you send me your report, I’ll be glad to discuss it with you.