Imagine that you’ve invited a non-believing, unchurched friend to the worship service at your church this Sunday. You’ve explained about the old-school songs that he or she won’t know, prepared them to let the communion plate pass, and even given them a heads up that the sermons can be kind of long. Now, as the preacher gets up into the pulpit, Bible in hand, you nervously shift in your seat, thinking about how your friend might receive what they’re about to hear.
Think about that moment. What do you hope the preacher will say? What do you hope the preacher won’t say?
The church growth gurus say that they know how that sermon can best reach your unchurch friend. The truly evangelistic preacher needs to address the life issues of your non-believing friend, preferably using up-to-date movie illustrations. He should preach about issues of injustice and present community concerns. Less judgment, more affirmation, less Bible, more conversation, and so on. You’ve heard it all before. The advice sounds, in summary, like this: “Leaders should focus on who they want to reach, not who they want to keep.”
According to the apostle Paul, that’s painfully backward. What preachers must say to reach non-believers in the pews, and what we should desperately want our unchurched friends to hear at church, isn’t necessarily what our unchurched friends want to hear. It’s what the church needs to hear.
The best way to evangelize the unchurched at church is to build up the church.
The logic of edification as evangelization seems counterintuitive to us, so let’s hear Paul explain it in his own words to the confused Corinthian Christians:
Brothers, do not be children in your thinking. Be infants in evil, but in your thinking be mature. In the Law it is written, “By people of strange tongues and by the lips of foreigners will I speak to this people, and even then they will not listen to me, says the Lord.” Thus tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers, while prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers. If, therefore, the whole church comes together and all speak in tongues, and outsiders or unbelievers enter, will they not say that you are out of your minds? But if all prophesy, and an unbeliever or outsider enters, he is convicted by all, he is called to account by all, the secrets of his heart are disclosed, and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you.
1 Corinthians 14:20-25
Without explaining this whole passage, let me note the relevant pieces to reaching the unchurched at church. First, notice that the context of Paul’s exhortation is when “the whole church comes together” (1 Cor 14:23), a description of the Lord’s day assembling of the church for worship. Paul uses this same word for “come together” five times in 1 Corinthians 11 in discussing the practice of the Lord’s Supper, and again in 14:26 about the regular worship of the church. So, what Paul has to say applies to the Sunday gathering of the church, not another setting. If it were an evangelistic campaign, or street evangelism, or another venue, then Paul’s instruction would probably sound more like 1 Corinthians 9:22 “I have become all things to all people, that by all means I might save some.” But here, we’re just dealing with what believers should do when they come together as a local body on the Lord’s Day.
Second, notice that Paul makes a distinction between gifts meant for evangelism and gifts meant for edification. Paul says, “tongues are a sign not for believers but for unbelievers” (14:22), meaning that God gave the gift of tongues to the early church for the purpose of reaching people from different language groups with the gospel. This happens first at Pentecost (Acts 2:1-11), then again with the household of Cornelius (10:46), then again in Ephesus (19:6), and the purpose, as Paul notes, is to convert non-believers through gospel-preaching in their own language.
In contrast, Paul says that “prophecy is a sign not for unbelievers but for believers” (1 Cor 14:22). Whether “prophecy” should be understood as preaching from God’s revelation or delivering fresh revelation from God (I think it’s the latter, but either way), Paul’s point is that the intended audience of prophecy is believers. Therefore, unlike tongues, the aim of prophecy is not evangelism, and Paul even accents this by saying it is “not for unbelievers.” So, what’s the aim of prophecy if not evangelism?
- 14:3 “On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.”
- 14:4 “The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.”
- 14:5 “Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy. The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.“
Building up. Edification. Maturing believers. Strengthening the church. Christian growth. Prophecy was given to the early church for the purpose of sanctifying believers as they were conformed ever more into the image of Christ.
Finally, based on the context and the nature of the gifts being employed, here’s Paul’s argument: Don’t have everyone use the gift meant for cross-cultural evangelism in the church service, otherwise the unbelievers who enter will say “you are out of your minds.” Instead, everyone should use the gift that is aimed at the church at the church’s gathering, the gift of prophecy, so that if an unbeliever enters, he is “convicted,” “called to account,” and exposed, resulting in his worship toward God. Notice that Paul isn’t only concerned about building up believers in this passage, but he understands that the best means to also reach the unbeliever at church is to minister to the believers. Meaning, if the unbeliever can intelligibly understand what’s being said from one believer to another about the glory of God and the gospel for their upbuilding, then he will see himself for what he is – an outsider condemned before a Holy Creator – and come before that Lord in repentance and fear. The unchurched are reached at church by building up the church.
Now, you may say, “That’s fine for the early church, but as a card-carrying cessationist, I don’t believe that the gifts of tongues or prophecy are in operation in the church today (or at least not in the same way). That’s an application for their context with their gifts, but not for ours.” While I agree that God does not continue to bless the church with those apostolic era sign gifts, I would disagree with that conclusion based on the last words in this passage: “and so, falling on his face, he will worship God and declare that God is really among you” (14:25).
“That God is really among you.” Paul’s unbeliever is convicted of his sin, undone before the Lord, and prostrate before the throne of heaven because he perceives by the sanctifying speech of God’s people to one another that God is in their midst. And friends, the presence of God with his people is not restricted to the 1st century. The revelation of God to his people is both encouraging towards Christian growth and terrifying to the overhearers in every age. To hear the voice of God is to sense the presence of God, either for comfort or conviction. That’s how God reaches unbelievers at church: by exposing their alienation from him and his covenant people through his Word. The glory of the God of Sinai, manifest in the delivered revelation of God through his people, draws his people nearer and strips bare those who come unclothed in Christ’s life.
Just ask yourself this question: If a rebel against God wants something in a sermon (more justice talk, movies quotes, and the like), will that something cause him to stammer from a naked heart that “God is really among you?” Or is it more likely that for our unchurched friends to encounter the living God they must be introduced to a kind of holy, earnest, God-besotted speech like they’ve never heard before?
Of course, the wise preacher’s eye will rove across his congregation and address diverse spiritual states appropriately. It is right and blessed, even necessary, for the faithful pastor to directly address the unbelievers in his hearing to call them to come to Christ. And yet, according to Paul, the primary obligation of the minister who wishes to reach every pew from front to back is to preach the unsearchable riches of Christ to build up his body, knowing that the manifest presence of Christ through his preached Word will bring dark hearts into the light of his glorious grace. The unchurched see Christ in his church being made more like him. And that happens as men of God expound the Word of God to the people of God for the praise of God in his church.
So, what do you want your unbelieving friend to hear in that sermon as you’re nervously sitting next to them on that Sunday morning? Let them hear hammer and nail, brick and mortar, steel and stone as Christ builds his blessed church into his likeness, calling all men to fall down and worship him.