I love the local church. In many ways, the Lord used her as the main instrument of my conversion 9 ½ years ago, when I was 22 years old. Many people had personally witnessed to me beforehand, and no doubt each of these personal witnessing experiences was important in my conversion. But I think the Lord used the local church, and its corporate witness of love, purity, and unity, to convert me. I had known many individual Christians my whole life, and had extensive conversations with them about the faith. But God converted me only after I experienced those conversations and relationships within the corporate context of a local, biblically healthy church. And this leads to my main question:

“What is the role of the local church (i.e., corporate witness) in our personal evangelism (i.e., individual, personal witness)?” As I read books on evangelism, survey the landscape, and observe the “success stories” of people coming to faith, it all seems to center on “Personal Evangelism.” Is the focus on Personal Evangelism faithful to the Bible’s teaching on this topic? I fear that the importance and role of the local church is so much assumed in our evangelism today that it’s largely forgotten, or at best, not relevant to a non-Christian until he “makes a decision for Jesus.”

In light of Jesus’ words in Matthew 5:16, Peter’s words in 1 Peter 2:12, the message of 1 Corinthians and Ephesians – indeed the whole New Testament – perhaps Christians, pastors, and local churches should consider personal evangelism within the context of our corporate evangelism, so that we testify and witness to the whole gospel. I’d love to hear any thoughts you all have on the relationship between personal and corporate witness, as well as some practical ways that the local church can develop a biblical understanding of corporate evangelism.