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In this episode of the Lead On Podcast, Jeff Iorg discusses the importance of churches adopting three key evangelism strategies: attraction, engagement, and infiltration. While many churches focus on attracting people to events or engaging them through programs, Jeff emphasizes the often-neglected yet crucial infiltration strategy. This involves deploying church members into secular environments, like sports leagues, workplaces, and schools, to build relationships and share the gospel in everyday contexts. He encourages leaders to lay a strong biblical foundation for infiltration through preaching and personal example, support initial efforts with recognition, and train members to share the gospel. By adopting these methods, churches can break out of the Christian subculture and impact the broader community more effectively.
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Welcome to the lead on podcast. This is Jeff Ward, the president of the executive committee of the Southern Baptist Convention continuing our conversation about practical issues related to ministry leadership. Last week on the podcast, I talked about breaking out of the Christian subculture. I was motivated or inspired by a recent article I read by a friend of mine named Chuck Lawless, in which he, wrote 8 questions which were resonating with him about his his need to be more intentional about engaging people with the gospel. Now, I I know Chuck, and I know how missional he is and how committed he is to sharing the gospel with other people.
Jeff Iorg:And so, if he were struggling with that issue, I thought, Lord, what does this say to me? And as I read through his questions, there were a couple of them that really stood out to me, and I talked about them on the podcast last week. And then I worked through some material with you about what it means for a Christian leader, to break out of, if you will, the Christian subculture and to be much more intentional about building today on today on the podcast, I wanna expand that a bit. I wanna talk about what it means to lead a church to be more intentional about infiltrating the community and about taking the gospel into those kind of places. In order to do that, I wanna first start out by talking about 3 broad categories of evangelism strategies that are being used by churches today.
Jeff Iorg:Now before I outline these 3, let me say a
Jeff Iorg:couple of additional things about them. First of all, all 3
Jeff Iorg:of these have value. This is not a good, better, best, or a 1, 2, 3, or a bad, bad, good. This is 3 strategies that all have value. And these are 3 strategies that when they work together, the synergy of them often produces the best results as a church tries to reach new people. Having said that, however, I do want you to listen carefully to the third of these strategies because it's the one that I think is most neglected by churches today and actually given the world in which we're living.
Jeff Iorg:And the progression of our Western culture away from its Christian moorings is the one that's gonna be most needed in the future. So what are these 3 broad categories of evangelism strategies that churches are using today? Well, the first are attraction strategies. Attraction strategies. The definition is a Christian event or program designed to accommodate unbelievers and introduce them to Jesus Christ, an attraction strategy.
Jeff Iorg:A Christian event or program designed to accommodate unbelievers and introduce them to Jesus Christ. The second broad category are called engagement strategies. These are an event or program designed to extend ministry to unbelievers and introduce them to Jesus Christ. An event or program designed to extend ministry to unbelievers and introduce them to Jesus Christ. But the 3rd category are infiltration strategies, and these are the deployment of believers throughout the culture to introduce unbelievers to Jesus Christ in their context.
Jeff Iorg:Infiltration strategies. The deployment of believers throughout the culture to introduce unbelievers to Jesus Christ in their context. So attraction, engagement, infiltration, those are our 3 big words. And remember, they're all 3 valid. They can all 3 produce results.
Jeff Iorg:The synergy of all 3 working together is actually the best approach. But most churches emphasize the first one or the second one, attraction or engagement, without doing as much with infiltration. So let's talk about these a bit more. Let me give you some examples of what
Jeff Iorg:I mean to help crystallize these definitions in your mind. Let's talk first
Jeff Iorg:of all about athletics or sports. An attraction strategy would be having a rally with a prominent athlete. For example, you, invite the local high school, basketball star to, come and speak at your church, give his personal testimony, and you invite all the teenagers in your community to come and hear this person talk about Jesus. That's an attraction strategy. But an engagement strategy might be operating a youth sports program, where your church puts on a a a basketball or a volleyball league, and the church owns it, controls it, sets the standards for it, and, invites people to come and participate.
Jeff Iorg:That's an engagement strategy. But in infiltration strategies, the church is saying, we're going to send our members into the community to be little league coaches. We're going to go out there in that program or in that organization, and we're going to place people who can then build relationships and share the gospel. So attraction is, you guys all come and hear this star athlete give his testimony. Engagement is, you are all welcome to come and play in our league that we will own, control, and supervise.
Jeff Iorg:But infiltration is, we're gonna send our members out, our people out into the community to make an impact where they go. Well, what's an example related to to Bible study? Well, Sunday school would be an attraction strategy. We're having a class and we invite you to come and participate. Starting a bible study where you work, that could be an engagement strategy.
Jeff Iorg:We're going to take the bible study to where you are and put it in a context, where where where you live or work. And then the third one, infiltration, would be volunteering as a corporate chaplain. I'm going to go into a secular company and share the gospel there, teach the bible, lead bible study, do what I can in that in that regard, in that context.
Jeff Iorg:Alright. Let me give you
Jeff Iorg:one more set of illustrations and that would
Jeff Iorg:be in relationship to caring for children. Opening
Jeff Iorg:a children's home, that would be an attraction strategy. We want you to come to us and we will take care of you here. An after school mentoring program would be an engagement strategy. We're going to, open our church building after school every day, and we're going to provide tutoring and recreation and, some, light refreshment. And we're going to provide a safe place for you to be after school every day in this mentoring program.
Jeff Iorg:But an infiltration strategy would be sending trained people into the foster care system operated by your state in order to make a difference there. Infiltration is going there and infiltrating into their context with the gospel. So these are some illustrations to help you see the difference. Now again, which one's best? That's not that there's no answer.
Jeff Iorg:They're all good. They work best when they work together. And so it's not an either or proposition. It's trying to do all 3 of these as a fully orbed outreach or evangelism strategy for a church. Now as I've already said though, I think most churches today are putting far too much emphasis on attraction strategies, having services and expecting people to come in order to hear the gospel.
Jeff Iorg:And then, some churches, not as many, but some are putting a lot of emphasis on engagement strategies, meaning that they're offering need meeting ministries to their communities and welcoming unbelievers to participate. But the third strategy, infiltration, where we're equipping believers and sending them into the culture. I wonder if we're doing that as well as we can and with as much focus as will be required in the coming years.
Jeff Iorg:The sad reality is what we're doing in attraction strategies for evangelism is really not that attractive to most people. You say, oh, you don't understand.
Jeff Iorg:Our church has 300 people that come every Sunday, and there's probably 30,000 people living around your church who aren't coming. You say, oh, but you don't understand. We we have, a wonderful out afternoon program of mentoring of of youth in our community, and we got 20 kids that come every day. That's really great. But there's probably 2,000 students in the schools around your church that aren't coming.
Jeff Iorg:How are we going to reach the thousands of people who are not being attracted or engaged by our current strategies? Well, at least part of the solution is infiltration. It's training, equipping, supporting believers who go into secular context for the purpose of building relationships, sharing the gospel, and winning people to faith in Jesus Christ in their context. Now, let's talk about this for a few more moments. How can you lead your church to be more, committed to infiltration?
Jeff Iorg:I'm not against attraction. I'm definitely not against engagement. These are good strategies for evangelism. But if you're looking at your community and realizing that there are 100, if not thousands of people that you're not touching, how can you do a better job with that? Well, let me give you, 4 suggestions.
Jeff Iorg:Number 1, lay the foundation and reinforce initial efforts. Lay the foundation comes from preaching and teaching. Now it's important that you lay a biblical and theological foundation for infiltration work in the lives of your church members. Too many of them, either by teaching or by example, believe that attraction and engagement are the only ways that the church can make a difference in the lives of people who do not yet know
Jeff Iorg:Christ. Teach about infiltration. Show the infiltration models from the Bible.
Jeff Iorg:Help people understand the theological and biblical mandates that we have to go with the gospel, that we are not simply to passively wait or even program programmatically wait for people to come to us, but we have an a responsibility and obligation and really remarkable opportunities to go with the gospel. And so teach and preach biblical and theological models and insights on what it means to be deployed as Christians into the community or into the culture. Too many Christians think of themselves as dispersed every week and then coming back together to the safety of the Christian enclave once or more times per week. They're dispersed, meaning they're scattered until they can get back together. But when you're deployed, that's different.
Jeff Iorg:You're not just scattered, you're sent. This is the kind of mentality the church must adopt today. When Sunday service ends and we are dispersed into our communities, it's not to hold out, and avoid any contact with anything that might taint us or any person who might distract us until we can, get through the dispersion and get back together, the following week or sometime during the week. That's having a dispersed mentality. We have to teach church our churches that they have a deployed mentality, that when you leave on Sunday, you're sent.
Jeff Iorg:You're sent. You're going out with a purpose, with a mission. You're going out to do something intentional, and that something is to take the gospel with you wherever you're going and make a difference with it in that place. Teaching and preaching this mindset is essential that you are deployed, not dispersed, and that the biblical mandate is to go, not to gather people to hear the gospel. And then, part of laying the foundation is
Jeff Iorg:not just teaching and preaching preaching, but it's setting a personal example. That's what we talked about last week
Jeff Iorg:on the podcast. Breaking out of the Christian subculture as a Christian leader so that you are modeling what we're talking about today,
Jeff Iorg:that you are modeling being an infiltrator. You know,
Jeff Iorg:one of the most powerful things I was able to do while I was a pastor was stand at the front of a worship service and say, this is my friend Jeff and his wife, Judy. And they have come to faith in Jesus, and they are coming this morning to declare that and to ask for our church to baptize them as a testimony of their newfound faith in Jesus. And, you know, I met Jeff and Judy while I was coaching t ball. And our children were playing together. And through that means, we established a relationship which led to me sharing the gospel with them and them coming eventually to the place where they, committed themselves to Jesus and are standing before you here today.
Jeff Iorg:When you are able to set that kind of personal example where people see you not introducing someone you led to faith in Jesus because they came on Sunday to hear you preach. Not hearing someone that you led to faith in Jesus because they took advantage of your after school mentoring program and you're able to sit down with them in your church basement and talk with them about Jesus. Nothing wrong with both of those. But it is so powerful when you say, I met this person in the community while I was there with the gospel. And as I built that relationship and shared the gospel, the commitment resulted that causes them to be standing before you here today.
Jeff Iorg:When you do that repeatedly, it's a powerful example for people to follow as they understand what it means to infiltrate community with the gospel. So not only teaching and preaching, but also personal example lays the foundation. And then I said, lay the foundation and reinforce efforts, especially initial efforts at infiltration work toward evangelism. There's so many ways I've seen churches do this. Let me give you 2 or 3 examples today.
Jeff Iorg:I was, in a southern state large church, and they had a point of light banquet. And this point of light banquet was their annual banquet where they celebrated all the people in their church who were infiltrators with the gospel in their communities. They had so many different ways of doing this, and it was so exciting to see it happen. There were, you know, a couple of 100 people that got recognized that night in various ways, in various capacities, all of which were being recognized, not for teaching Sunday school or singing in the choir, but all were being recognized for some specific infiltration work they had done in taking the gospel into their community, either in a personal basis, a 1 on 1 basis by joining a group or an activity or by participating in something that enable them to have a relationship with and a direct impact on lost people. Wow, that banquet was so inspiring to be asked to be a part of and to even speak at it and to challenge people and to celebrate people who were infiltrators in their community.
Jeff Iorg:Another church does something that's much simpler. One of their sets of infiltrators is their public school employees, teachers, administrators, people like that. So every summer, they have a, commissioning service where they celebrate, commission, and publicize these people in their church that are working in the public school system and who have a commitment to taking the gospel with them into that context. It's a powerful service that they do every summer to highlight, not just the kickoff of the school year, but we are deploying these church members into the public school system to teach and administrate in such a way that they gain credibility and then have the opportunity to share the gospel with people in that context. Another church does another thing.
Jeff Iorg:They they have a support group for parents who coach youth sports. They've pulled together the parents in their church who who coach volleyball, basketball, soccer, baseball, all these different sports. And they meet once a month, just for about an hour after a church service. And they talk about, here's what we're doing to reach people with the gospel through these secular sports teams that we're coaching. Here are some strategies we're using.
Jeff Iorg:Here are some approaches we're taking. And then we hear testimonies who of testimonies of who's been able to share the gospel, who's been able to build a relationship. And then prayer requests that are able to pray for different people involved in these different teams and pray for each other to be bold in our witness of the gospel through that. You know, it's a simple thing. I was in that support group for a while.
Jeff Iorg:And one of the things that, that I did every year when I got a a new roster of players is I just made them a part of my prayer list. And I start praying for every player by name and for their family and working through that every week, praying through that list, Asking God to give me opportunity to share the gospel, to give me entree into the lives of people in moments when they were perhaps in pain or hurting, He gave me sensitivity and knowledge of how to connect with different people with different needs and from different backgrounds. And it was through that prayerful, consideration of each family before God that he would then start giving me opportunity and creating circumstance that could get open people up to the gospel. That's just one idea that we that I shared and and that, that that I was able to contribute to the group. And the group just, you know, meets to share and talk about how it can strengthen the infiltration work that it's doing.
Jeff Iorg:Now remember, these people are not coaching a youth league that the church is sponsoring. These people are coaching in secular leagues and they come together once a month to pray for, encourage each other, share mutual ideas, and talk about their victories and their challenges of getting the gospel into community through this means. So the first step in leading your church to engage the culture more with the gospel is to lay the foundation through preaching and teaching a personal example and then example, and then reinforce the initial efforts that people are taking or reinforce these efforts that you see being made and reinforce it with public recognition, with some kind of, a resourcing, with the opportunity to share and pray together with people who are doing similar work. This is the step, the first step. Lay the foundation and reinforce the effort.
Jeff Iorg:The first step toward getting your church more focused and being an infiltrating church with the gospel. Okay. A second thing you can do is choose a small group of people who will initiate this process more aggressively through your church. Now, one of the worst things you could do is make a big announcement. We're all going to become infiltrators.
Jeff Iorg:Well, they're not all gonna become infiltrators. Alright? It's just not gonna happen. But some people in your church will get the vision for this and will understand how they can do it and take the initiative to follow through. I think about one person, who did this.
Jeff Iorg:I had been preaching and teaching and modeling it, being an infiltrator and challenging people in our church to find ways or to create ways to go into the community with the gospel. This guy came up to me after church and said, well, I I've got an idea. I said, okay.
Jeff Iorg:He said, I wanna rent a gym and open it up for a recreational volleyball night for young adults. I thought, yeah. Okay. Right. I don't know how that's gonna work.
Jeff Iorg:I don't
Jeff Iorg:know how you're gonna fund that. I don't know who would be interested. I don't know how you'd share the gospel with anybody. But what came out of my mouth was, okay. Well, give it a try.
Jeff Iorg:All the while thinking, this won't turn into much. So a few weeks later, he put out an announcement that starting on Tuesday night, 7 to 8:30, there would be an adult recreational volleyball game. Anyone was welcome to come and play. It was, I think something like $5 a couple, and I thought, okay. Okay.
Jeff Iorg:Well, dozens of people came.
Jeff Iorg:People said to their friends at work, hey, we're playing volleyball Tuesday night at this at this, school gym. $5.
Jeff Iorg:You wanna go? Yeah. We we'd like that. This went on all that fall on Tuesday nights, this spontaneous, no league, no competition other
Jeff Iorg:than the game that they played. No no, referees. No just adult recreational volleyball. I asked him, how are you going to use this though with the gospel? He said, oh, that's easy.
Jeff Iorg:He said, at the, at the beginning, I just say, hey, this recreational volleyball night is sponsored by our church And it's sponsored by a group of us that are are from our church that just really wanna do something great for the community. And so so we're gonna play volleyball for volleyball for a while, then we're gonna take a drink take a break and have some water and stuff. And when we do that, one of us would just like to tell you this our story about why this matters so much to us or why we wanted to do this. And he said, so we play volleyball for about an hour and then we we take a break, and and I just say, someone that I've prepared beforehand, would you please just tell tell us your story and and tell us why this night, is so important to you that we do it this way? And then they just give their Christian testimony.
Jeff Iorg:And at the end, I say, you know, that's a great story. If anything like that if something like this has never happened to you and you'd like to talk about it, I'm gonna hang around after volleyball and I'd be glad to talk with you 1 on 1 about how you could have a similar experience to
Jeff Iorg:what you just heard with Jesus Christ. Let's get back to the game.
Jeff Iorg:Out of that volleyball night, several people
Jeff Iorg:came to visit our church, and some came to faith in Jesus. An inexpensive, intentional way to reach into the community. That's what I
Jeff Iorg:mean when I say start small. One person with an idea, we were hoping a few dozen or or or not even dozen, a few people would come. It turned into a really good and remarkable outreach and infiltration strategy
Jeff Iorg:into the community. Now don't expect everyone to sign up for something like this. It's not
Jeff Iorg:a big program. But choose a small group that wanna start in infiltrating and go with them in the process. And then the third thing I would say is when you start this infiltration approach, find a way to involve people at their level of comfort, participation, or effectiveness. One great example was a a a church that in Washington state that wanted to reach into their into their local school and infiltrate that school with the gospel. Now, I'm gonna tell this story rapidly here on the podcast, but this actually took place over about a 3 year period of time.
Jeff Iorg:So the the pastor approached the principal and said, we'd like to serve your school. We'd like to help you. And the principal said, no, not really. We don't really think there's you could do for us. But the pastor was persistent and over a period of months, the school finally said, yes, you could help us.
Jeff Iorg:We need some after school tutors in reading and the church stepped up and provided those. And then it went on from there. But what the pastor came back and told me was, I made a mistake early on of trying to get everyone in our church to go into this school and make a difference. And I realized fairly quickly that wasn't going to work. I had a lot of people who their schedule didn't line up or their interest didn't line up or frankly, they weren't really sure that they wanted to be in a school doing this kind of work.
Jeff Iorg:So I said, well, would you provide backpacks? If you don't wanna be a tutor, would you provide a backpack? Would you be a prayer partner? We're gonna put together teacher support gifts or teacher support bags. Would you like to organize that or contribute to that?
Jeff Iorg:And then later on, the the school asked for some other help. They said, you know, we need some painting done. Well, anyone in our church wanna be a painter? Another one another time they came and said, you know, we when we have special activities at particular or special events, we need some more safety monitors in the streets because we just don't have enough traffic control people. Well, we we probably could help you with that.
Jeff Iorg:What I'm saying is, this church decided we're gonna infiltrate our community by going to this local school and doing everything we can to be to to take the gospel there by building relationships, serving in Jesus' name. And then as we do that, share the gospel with people, students, faculty, staff. But what they found out as a church was that not everyone could do that the same way. Not everyone could be a tutor. Not everyone could go into the school on a regular basis.
Jeff Iorg:But they found a lot of other ways. They could bring send in a painting crew, send in a monitoring safety crew during events. They could have people donate for backpacks or school supplies or or teacher appreciation gifts. And over time, a significant number of people from the church were making a significant investment in the community by infiltrating into this school with the gospel. And you know what happened.
Jeff Iorg:People started coming to faith because of these relationships that were established in that school context. So find a way to involve people at their level of comfort. Not everyone's gonna feel comfortable being on the front line of going into a secular context and sharing the gospel there. But they will pray for that to happen. They'll give for that to happen.
Jeff Iorg:They'll provide resources for that to happen. And they might go and paint the classroom not even knowing how to engage the people that are gonna be in that classroom, but they might be willing to go and do that kind of service project so that others can build their relationships and get the gospel into the lives of people there.
Jeff Iorg:And then finally, train people to share the gospel. Now, this has been one
Jeff Iorg:of the biggest changes in my lifetime of ministry and that is, when I started out in pastoral ministry, most churches had a plan to to train people how to share the gospel and did it on a regular basis. Now, that didn't mean that everyone participated, but it did mean that the opportunity was regularly presented. These days, it's hard to find a church that's intentionally training people to share the gospel. Too many church leaders have equated evangelism with invite your friend to church and I'll tell him the gospel from a pulpit. Now there's nothing necessarily wrong with that.
Jeff Iorg:It's just not very effective in reaching large numbers of people with the gospel. What would be, oh, so much more effective if if a 100 people in a church were actually trained to share the gospel and then sent out with support through prayer and other means to do it, think of how many gospel presentations will be made and how many people would then come to faith in Jesus. So train people to share the gospel. Now, our North American Mission Board and the Southern Baptist Convention provides tools and resources for this to happen. And people often ask me, well, what's the best approach?
Jeff Iorg:And I say, the best approach is the one you will actually do. It's the one you'll actually use. There is no best approach, except the one that you feel works in your context and the one that you will actually implement and stay with over time. Train people to share the gospel. So if you want to lead your church to be more of an infiltrating church, a church that breaks out of the Christian subculture and goes into the community with the gospel, lay the foundation through preaching and teaching and through your personal example, and then reinforce the effort through public recognition and through support groups and other means by which you say to people who are infiltrating the church is with you.
Jeff Iorg:Don't expect everyone participate, instead choose a small
Jeff Iorg:group. Choose a
Jeff Iorg:small group of people who really wanna do this and help them launch out to start building momentum for being infiltrators. And then, find a way to involve as many people as you can on as many levels as you can, recognizing that not everyone's gonna be feel comfortable going into secular context with the gospel. They just can't do it. They don't feel equipped. They're not sure they're up to it.
Jeff Iorg:But you know what? They'll paint a class or be a hall monitor or provide a backpack. They'll do something to help you to infiltrate community and find a way to get many people involved at their level of comfort or participation. And then finally, train people to actually talk about Jesus and to actually share the gospel, and to actually ask people to pray and commit themselves to Him. Train people to share the Gospel.
Jeff Iorg:Not stressing so much about the perfect method, but simply finding one you will use and repeat it regularly. We can break out of the Christian subculture as Christian leaders. That was last week's podcast, and we can lead churches As our culture becomes less and less, As our culture becomes less and less church, meaning less and less proclivity to church, to church participation, to church attendance, there's going to be a greater need for Christians to infiltrate culture with the gospel. We can be on the forefront of making this happen as we lead on.