Evangelism is one of the functions of the church which seems obvious but often gets either neglected or poorly planned and executed. It remains a difficult challenge to develop effective evangelistic programs for a congregation.

In Organic Outreach for Churches, Kevin Harney provides suggestions for congregations to become more effective in evangelism by finding ways to integrate evangelism into many of the things they already do and to make evangelism a natural part of the work and life of the congregation (hence, "organic").

Many of the suggestions simply re-focus a congregation on goals and purposes: is there true love for God? Do we love those in the world enough to be willing to change some of the ways we engage in our liberties? Do we think highly of the church or do we continue to denigrate it for its imperfections?

Harney goes on to offer suggestions on how to shift thought processes toward evangelism and integrating evangelism into existing work congregations accomplish. He speaks of raising the evangelism temperature by a degree and shifting ministry focus beyond just the members toward those outside of a congregation. He concludes by encouraging people to experiment with means of evangelism and to go out and present the Gospel message to people.

There is an expectation in the book that the churches under discussion are rather bureaucratically organized with different "ministries" and such like, but there are still plenty of suggestions that can benefit churches who maintain a more informal set of processes.

A book worth considering when seeking to promote evangelism within an existing congregation. ( )