UBCentral

Thom and Sam Ranier, writing in the January-February issue of Outreach Magazine, talk about a church’s conversion ratio as one way to tell if a church is evangelistically healthy. Their research indicates that an evangelistically healthy church maintains an annual ratio of at least 20:1. That means that it takes 20 people within that church to win one person. They further state that of the estimated 400,000 US churches, only 3.5% are effective evangelistically. That means that four churches out of 100 maintain a conversion ratio of 20:1 or better.

The nation’s population is now 300 million. If only 3.5% of the churches are healthy in evangelism, there is only one healthy evangelistic church for every 21,400 persons in the United States. (Outreach Magazine, Outreach Inc., 2230 Oak Ridge Way, Vista, CO 92081, January-February, 2007 issue, page 16. NOTE: You might want to subscribe to this magazine.)

One of our emphases on healthy churches is that they are effective in their evangelism as evidenced by influencing unchurched persons to place their faith in Jesus Christ. Jesus says in Luke 19:10 that he came to seek and save the lost. A lot of churches are proud that they are fundamental, conservative and evangelistic, but they never really reach many unchurched, unsaved persons. I hear of wonderful altar services where Christians pray and make commitments to a deeper life. But rarely does the deeper life result in their leading lost people to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ. To me, and I think I’ve said this before in this blog, that spiritual depth is not measured by what you know, but whether you are using what you know to make new disciples for Jesus.

So, how are you doing in your outreach?