Is 5% Enough? A Response to Recent Discussions on Evangelism in Australia – AP

This is my latest article on Australian Presbyterian….you can get the original here..

Is 5% Enough?

A response to recent discussions on evangelism in Australia.

There seems to be a change in the cultural atmosphere in much of the West.  It may be that people are more open to the Gospel.  The question is, how should we take advantage of that?  How do we use this cultural moment to bring the gospel to those who are lost?  We always need to humbly remember that “many are the plans in the heart of a man, but it is the Lord’s purpose that stands” (Proverbs 19:21).

This year’s General Assembly of the NSW Presbyterians accepted a motion I put forward to reflect on how we do evangelism.  The Assembly ask the Mission Committee to evaluate the status of evangelism within the Presbyterian church of NSW and to report back to the 2026 GA with recommendations which will help the whole church work together to bring the Gospel to all the people of NSW.

The Assembly also heard a call for the Presbyterian church to double in 20 years.  Providentially the Gospel Coalition recently held a summit where the same doubling in 20 years was agreed.  They declared that this could be done by seeing 5% conversion growth in each church over a period of 20 years.

The Pastor’s Heart, a fascinating and helpful podcast presented by Dominic Steele, has recently had three podcasts focusing on this numerical target.  The first, Double the Number of Reformed Evangelicals in Australia, was with Rory Shiner, Gary Millar, Sarah Kaswadi, Andrew Heard – a stellar line up of Australian Reformed evangelicals. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85AWUSrJiAY&ab_channel=ThePastor%27sHeart

The second, Should we count, a theology of numbers, with the ever-reliable Phil Colgan.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KrvU7KPPSw&ab_channel=ThePastor%27sHeart

And the third (I would say final, but I am sure there will be more to come) was Growing by five percent conversion growth – how might this work? – with David Jensen and Chris Braga two of the most insightful and helpful Sydney Anglicans.

The three discussions were fascinating.  And there is a lot for Christians of all persuasions to learn from them.  I want to reflect on this because Sydney Anglican theology dominates at least the Reformed scene in Australia and has a significant influence on the Presbyterians, other denominations and Christian organisations such as the Australian Fellowship of Evangelica Students (AFES) and the Fellowship of Independent Evangelical Churches (FIEC).

Let me first give a quick summary before offering what I hope will be a helpful response.

Summary of the Three Discussions

Gary Millar was correct to point out that we do not have the power to do this.  Rory Shiner and Dominic Steele stressed evangelical unity and how it is now much better than ten years ago.  Andrew Heard argued that the fruit that mattered above everything was conversion fruit.  The desire to reach the lost, and the recognition that they are lost, was an encouraging emphasis.  Dave Jensen raised his mantra: ‘who gives a damn about the dammed’?

It was argued that we need to change the dynamic of our churches and to develop good leadership in order to double.

Why the 5% figure for conversion growth?  Because it is imaginable, achievable and measurable.  It is not beyond us.

“We want all of Australia to be Christians but let’s be realistic so that we can have a goal that we can be working towards.”

In the discussion on numbers, it was pointed out that there is a tension between ‘slow down and be calm, I’m a Calvinist and the process of measurement’.  Phil Colgan stated that “Never in the Scriptures is the sovereignty of God used as an excuse not to proclaim Christ” ( a statement to which every Calvinist would surely give a hearty ‘Amen’!). He admitted that he had slightly repented of his earlier sceptism.  He suggested that we had previously been concerned about the numbers who came to hear or be invited, but that our thinking was ‘it doesn’t matter how many people became Christians because that is up to God’.

We were told that one-off evangelistic events were not the best way to connect with people today, and that we needed to look to courses to give people a better way to enter deeply into the Word, all done in the context of Christian fellowship, over a longer period of time.  Chris Braga spoke about the TEC (the trusted evangelistic course) meaning a course which the congregation trusted enough to be able to bring people to.  Dave said that such courses should be biblical, repeatable, reliable, dependable and sustainable’.  95% of people who are converted are those who know a Christian.

It is good to count the number of people who are saved because we want to delight in people coming to Christ and share those stories.  But who goes on the list of the saved?  Chris was right to remind us that the only book you want to be in is the Lamb’s Book of Life.  The question of how we keep records was raised.  We should count professions of faith and not conversions – and remove people who do not remain consistent.  Dave reminded us of the words of Ray Galea that numbers are people.  It was argued that children and teenagers should be excluded from this list, and it was suggested that the fact that 80% of people come to faith as teenagers is an indication we are failing with adult evangelism.  The 5% target is for adults. A separate list should be kept for young people.

An encouraging example was given from Chris’s church – where there are about 350 adults in attendance.  A few years ago, six adults were converted.  Recently it was 24.  Dominic pulled out his calculator and worked out that that was a conversion rate of 6.8%.

Overall, the three programmes demonstrated a willingness to reach out, a passion for the lost, a unity in the Gospel and a realisation of the need to improve.  The same could be said of the aim mentioned in the NSW General Assembly and the plan put forward by the Gospel Coalition.  Faced with such positives and such unanimity, it is hard to question anything, and yet I feel I must … in the hope that this will be seen as iron sharpening iron and a helpful response, rather than anything personal or nitpicking. It’s sad that I have to say this but given the current way society (and far too often the church) works, I want to express my appreciation and admiration for all those involved in these discussions.  I share the same aims as the brothers and sisters mentioned above.

I want to reflect biblically and also from my own experience of being involved in church-based evangelism for the past 40 years.

1. Should we make targets for things we cannot do?

As Gary Miller stated, we cannot do this.  In fact, we cannot convert anyone.  Unless people are born of the Spirit, they cannot even see the kingdom of God (John 3:3).  We cannot and should not target people.  We do not know whether God will save or not.  How then can we set targets?  I know that theologically my brothers will agree with this … so why then set conversion targets that we call ‘achievable, measurable, imaginable’?  And why limit God to our imaginations?

I remember as a newly converted teenager, with all the zeal of youth, taking part in an outreach in my native town.  One of the leaders prayed ‘Lord, we believe you for 10 people to be converted’?  The thought immediately struck me: ‘Why 10?  Why not 100?  Or 1,000?  Was God limited by what we could believe?’

When it was stated that the 5% target for conversions was a good number because it ‘was not beyond us’, that was just simply wrong.  It is beyond us.  One conversion is beyond us.  It is only the Holy Spirit who can convert.  To argue thus is not to argue that we should not care about people being converted, or that we should do nothing.  It is precisely because the Lord cares, and he has called us and provided us with the means that his Spirit uses (the preaching of the Word), that we should do so.  But we never seek to convert people.  We seek to proclaim Christ in order that people may be converted.  The distinction is subtle, but important. “When the Gentiles heard this, they were glad and honoured the word of the Lord; and all who were appointed for eternal life believed” (Acts 13:14).

In my first charge in the small village of Brora in the Scottish Highlands I was praying one time that God would convert one person per month.  We were a small congregation of 30-40. It seemed impossible but he did. For 18 months.  It was an extraordinary time.  There was a real spiritual vibe and activity within the whole community as people from ‘the world’ were converted.  Likewise in Dundee I remember saying to the handful of people who met in a church that could seat 900, that we would start using the balcony when the Lord sent us over 100 people.  They laughed.  My response?  I’m not saying that I can get us 100 people – I can’t.  Nor am I saying that the Lord will bring 100 people – I don’t know if he will.  But if you don’t believe he can – then let’s walk out, shut the doors and never come back.  27 years later there were regularly 250 people.

I am not contradicting myself here.  It’s not wrong to wish, hope, pray for increased numbers.  I pray that the Lord will soon take us over the 100 here in Hamilton.  But I don’t claim it … or even aim for that specific number.  I just believe that God can do it and so I plead with him to do so, and to use us in that great goal.

2) Why is the target so small?

In 2009 Sydney Anglicans set a bold target of 10% of Sydney’s population attending Bible-believing churches.  It was missed.  By a mile.  Over the period 2013-2023, the total Sydney Anglican adult attendance declined 7%, or 14% against the rise in population. Two-thirds of churches declined.  What is even more alarming is that the number of newcomers declined from 12.4% in 2001 to 5.4% in 2021.  And the Synod report also said that the churches that were growing were largely growing because of the declining ones.

When this was brought up, it was argued that this was a particular number – but so is 5% of adult attendees.  The difference being that we have now gone from a target of half a million to a target of 1,750 per year (5% of the 35,000 adult attendees).  It’s not enough.  And the Presbyterian target of doubling our 17,000 attendance to 34,000 in a state with 8.5 million people is not exactly visionary either.

Robert Murray McCheyne was in the parish of St Peters Dundee which had a population of 4,000.  About 1500 belonged to his church and 1500 went to other churches.  What caused him to weep were the 1,000 who never went anywhere and the many who attended but did not know Christ.  Surely we can weep over Sydney as Christ wept over Jerusalem?  Would this not be better than setting ourselves targets that we consider to be manageable and achievable?

There is another aspect in terms of the smallness of the target.  Why aim at Reformed Evangelicals?  I remember a professor at the Free Church College telling us that he was so convinced of the sovereignty of God that he believed God could even bring revival to Scotland through the Roman Catholic church.  “I have other sheep that are not of this fold” (John 10:16).

In St Peters a significant proportion of the church as it grew were Catholics, Charismatics as well as Baptists and former pagans.

In a sense I am reluctant to state this – but I do it only to illustrate the point.  When we went to Dundee in 1992 there were around 50 people in the whole region of Tayside and North-East Fife who attended the Free Church of Scotland.  If we had set our target at doubling, we would have been aiming for 100.  Instead, when we left there were around 1,000 and several new churches.  The Lord did this, and it was wonderous in our eyes!  We sowed with tears and reaped with songs of joy (Psalm 126:5).  My point is not that we don’t care about numbers, but rather that we must not limit what God can do.  And we must not tell him what he has to do!

3) Is there a tension between being Calvinist and evangelism?

It seemed to me that that there was a false dichotomy being presented here – it was stated as numbers vs sovereignty.  We ought not accept that dichotomy.  It is BECAUSE I believe in the sovereignty of God that I care about numbers.  I want Christ to be glorified through the salvation of sinners.  We care about numbers.  It’s just that we don’t determine them.  We care about people.  But only the Lord knows those who are his (Numbers 16:5; 2 Timothy 2:19).  Not using numbers as your strategy and motivating factor, does not make you a Hyper Calvinist!

Before I became a Calvinist (without even knowing what a Calvinist was) I did evangelism – running round like a headless chicken trying to convert people.  When I realised that it was really God who did the converting, that did not lessen my desire to see people saved but increased it.  Not least because it is to the glory of God that his people are brought in.  I had confidence that God’s word would not return to him empty and that these bones could live (Ezekiel 37:3).

Of course, we care about numbers, because, as was pointed out, we care about people.  Therefore, we must not limit our vision to the numbers we can envision.  Our concern should be for all people.  McCheyne’s motivation and passion was summed up in his saying: “I would rather beg bread, than want success”.

However, I should note in passing that sometimes we care about numbers because we care about success and those who fund us care about success.  Often they come from the business world, and they want to see our KPI’s (Key Performance Indicators).  The influence of money on evangelical strategy is a subject for concern. I am not accusing any of the participants in this discussion of having money as a motive – they don’t.  But it is a temptation in a lot of our work.  He who pays the piper calls the tune.

4) Where is the Bible in all of this? 

In the last discussion on the Pastor’s Heart, I don’t think that the Bible was mentioned once.  In the other discussions the book of Acts was spoken of as if it endorsed the strategy of aiming at a particular number.  I don’t think it does.  Apart from the mention of the 3,000 baptised at Pentecost, growing to 5,000 shortly afterwards (Acts 2-4), no specific numbers are given after that.  There is no indication at all that the church ever aimed for a specific number.

I have been preaching through the book of Acts for the past year in the context of a small church that desperately needs revitalisation.  I can honestly say that it has been ten times better than all the books on church planting, missional churches and evangelism that I have read (and there have been a lot).  Why?  Because one thing that Acts teaches us is that it is not our strategies, plans or targets which work.  Paul’s strategies, insofar as he had them, often failed, were changed or were forced into quick adaptation.  What works is the Spirit of the Lord. “So he said to me, ‘This is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel: “Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,” says the Lord Almighty’” (Zechariah 4:6).

This is not to say that we don’t have strategies or aims, but we should aim to ensure that they are biblical, and that we hang loose to particular applications of Bible texts which we may get wrong.  My fear is that much of our strategy is determined more by sociology than theology.

The great deficiency in much of the evangelical church today is not a bad understanding of the inerrancy of the Scriptures, but rather a failure to appreciate the sufficiency of the Scriptures.  When our tiny church in Dundee began to grow, people came from all over Scotland to see what we were doing.  How could this small traditional Presbyterian church be growing in a post-modern, post-industrial, apathetic and sometimes hostile society?   They came looking for the programmes – and I couldn’t give them any – except perhaps warn them about some of our mistakes.  I usually repeated my mantra “preach the Word and see what happens”.  To which they would invariably respond: ‘Well, yes of course.’  But I would try and point out that what most evangelicals mean by that is “preach the Word and this is what will happen”.  But we don’t know what will happen.  That’s both the joy and the pain of Christian ministry.  God will work.  But we don’t know how.  Isaiah 55:11 says: ‘so is my word that goes out from my mouth: it will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.’

5) Where is the church in all this? 

God does have a strategy.  It’s summed up in Matthew 28:19-20.  And how do we make disciples?  It is through the church.  Good ecclesiology is essential to good evangelism.  And good evangelism is essential to good ecclesiology.  Everyone will know that we are Christ’s disciples through the love we have for one another (John 13:35).  The best way to reach people is to have more biblical churches where the love, glory and beauty of Christ are on display.  Reformation and renewal go together.

But often when I hear these things being discussed, they are spoken of in terms of structures, staff and strategies – rather than the fruit and gifts of the Spirit.

For example, when we speak of making professions of faith why don’t we just do it the biblical way, through the sacraments of baptism and the Lord’s supper?

Maybe if we had biblical membership in churches (instead of de facto membership through attendance) and real biblical church discipline, our discipleship and fruit would increase – some 30, some 60 some 100 times!  The parable of the sower has a lot to say about our numerical targets.

When Chris spoke of the TEC (Trusted Evangelical Course), it struck me that there was another TEC which is far more important – the Trusted Evangelical Church.  When I worked for the Sydney Anglicans, I would often ask people in churches if they invited people to church, and if they didn’t, why not?  There were a variety of reasons, but far too often, in far too many churches, the response was in effect that they did not have confidence in the church.  It was ok for them.  But they doubted it would be any good for their non-Christian friends, and families of workmates.  Have you ever noticed that the people who tend to be the best ‘evangelists’ in the church are those who have been recently converted and are new?  They haven’t had time to become jaded, cynical and ‘weary in well doing’ (Galatians 6:9).

Perhaps better evangelism requires better, more biblical, churches?  We need to strengthen our stakes as well as lengthen our cords (Isaiah 54:2).

What is the alternative?  

The argument is often made that if you aim at nothing you will hit nothing.  But what if it is not as black and white as accept our targets or miss everything?  Can we set better targets?

Our purpose is surely to bring the gospel to every single person in Australia.  Let’s break that down into bite-size chunks.  Churches.  It was pointed out that to reach the doubling figure in 20 years, we would either need to double the size of our churches, or double the number of our churches – or a combination of both.  So, let’s look to grow, redevelop and plant churches – we are all agreed on that.  Let’s not put an artificial number on it, but instead work towards a goal of every person in Australia having access to a biblical church.

When Simon Manchester was at St Thomas’s, the church grew – largely through preaching – and it seems as though each time it grew, they sent off a whole group of people to either church plant or revitalise a church.  Who knows how many thousands have been brought into the kingdom because of that?  Something similar works with Cornerstone Presbyterian church in Sydney where CS Tang and an excellent leadership team just keep on growing and going.

And let’s not stop at that.  If our aim is to bring the Gospel to every home in Australia,  let’s start with the homes in our areas.  We should agonise, pray, research, love, seek, and proclaim in order to reach all in our communities so that at the end of the day we can honestly say: ‘Therefore, I declare to you today that I am innocent of the blood of all men’ (Acts 20:26).

Our targets should be better preaching, prayer, praise, proclamation and practice.

Dave Jensen was right in pointing out that there is something going on in the wider culture.  We need to make the most of every opportunity.  But what is even more encouraging is the promise of the Scriptures that ‘the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the glory of the Lord as the waters cover the sea” (Habakkuk 2:14).  Forget the 5% – let’s go for glory!  The glory of the Lord.

– David Robertson

Letter from Australia 124 – An Interesting, Frustrating and Disappointing Conference on Evangelism.

The Trumpet Gives An Unclear Sound – AP