Canadian seminary president William H. Harrison, moved by the “irremediable damage” done to indigenous peoples by a primary focus on numbers in Christian evangelizing, writes of moving to a different understanding of evangelism. Dr. Harrison, president of Lutheran Theological Seminary in Saskatchewan, describes his approach to teaching what evangelism can look like in today’s pluralist world.
Christians have become aware of numerous—and very recent—examples of the destructiveness of the Christian inclination to prioritize numerical growth above other considerations. The terrible and irremediable damage done to Indigenous peoples, their world, and their belief systems stands out in my country of Canada and elsewhere. In the United States, these wrongs are too rarely noticed, hidden behind the evils of slavery. However, in Canada, Australia, New Zealand, much of Africa, and elsewhere, Christianity’s purposeful destruction of Indigenous peoples has been at the forefront of public and church reflection for decades. Christian churches have participated, both officially and unofficially, in efforts to destroy traditional societies and beliefs, eliminating the ancient dances, songs, and stories. Churches ran residential schools; in the Canadian context, these were purposefully assimilationist and often abusive.
Many churches have apologized for this deeply evil work, and some have begun specific efforts to change their approaches to the world as a result. We cannot claim spiritual authority or expect everyone to join us when we have such sin in our lives. The numerical growth model has much for which to answer.
We are changing, moving away from that model. When I teach evangelism, I teach it in a way that differs dramatically from the training of my youth and childhood. ln the evangelical (and fundamentalist) context in which I was raised, evangelism was essentially a one-way street: I was there to distribute biblical truth to a world in need of God, a world that was destined to find itself in hell after death if it did not find a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The point was to share these words with others and bring them around to my perspective, as formed by my church community, increasing the numbers destined for heaven and decreasing the numbers destined for perdition.
Today, I teach evangelism as a very different movement, with a different goal. I distinguish three steps. The first is an appeal to God to enable the other to speak God’s word transformatively to me, such that the other’s story, heard attentively, becomes a way of changing my life-and position. In other words, far from beginning with the assumption that I have something to teach, I begin with the expectation that the other has something to teach me about who God is and what God is accomplishing in the world.
The skeptical reader is, of course, correct that I have a difficult time living up to this approach, which is entirely counter to both my instincts of self-assertion and my training as a scholar expected to defend my every thesis. Nonetheless, I believe that it is the right starting place. Only when the other has been heard and knows that they have been heard, will it be (step two) time to speak my story, with the prayer to God that I may truly be a transformational divine word to the other; importantly, this will not necessarily mean that the other becomes a Christian, let alone a member of my denomination.
If there is some element of success in the first two steps, then we may pray to reach the third which is the moment where together in deed and word we become shared participants in God’s loving justice in the world. Again, this will not necessarily result in the other becoming a Christian; indeed, it may make me more engaged with the insights of some other religious tradition. However, both of us, if there is some success, will be more deeply religiously transformed, in the specific sense of having a somewhat recognized and understood encounter with the loving God.
I wish to make certain that this is not read as a disincentive to sharing the good news of Christ Jesus. I intend precisely the opposite. I encourage people to live and speak the gospel as, and because it is, good news. If that attracts people, then so much the better. My concern is with Christianity’s unfortunate tendency to play the numbers game, to define itself in terms of a narrative image as a numerically growing body.
The numbers narrative, the focus on membership growth, has lost its impetus in many places. It is failing because people no longer join volunteer organizations. It is losing its power because it is no longer a credible expression of people’s theological and historical beliefs. That has created extraordinary stresses for contemporary church leaders, who are still in the grip of the numbers narrative and have responsibilities to traditional church structures that depend upon large—preferably expanding—memberships.
In addition, the emphasis upon membership numbers has ceased to be a helpful way to define church goals for many Christians. The numbers narrative tends to weaken the credibility structure of the story. We need to understand our situation accurately, and we need to redefine success. The numerical growth narrative is not the only, not even the most important, account of what God is doing in and through the church.
This article is adapted from Leadership in a Shrinking Church: Finding New Vision in Unlikely Places (Seabury Books, 2025) by William H. Harrison. The book is available from the publisher, Amazon, and Cokesbury.
Related Resources
- 5 Essential Qualities of Effective Evangelism by Priscilla Pope-Levison
- 4 Characteristics of Biblical Evangelism by Doug Powe
- Evangelism Today Requires New Wineskins by Doug Powe
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