Reaching the Lost: Strategies for Success: Life-cycle of the Frog

Recently I was presenting our Evangelism Model to a congregation’s leadership. This is HTHSOE’s congregational strategy put into print last year. It is the culmination of over two decades of evangelism experience. One brother looked at it and said, “That’s the life cycle of a frog!”

“What?” I said.

“This is what every elementary student learns in science class. It starts with eggs, then a tadpole without legs, then a tadpole with legs, and the frog hops out of the water to lay more eggs.”

Over the past year, this model has been identified by several different names. A brother who works in technology called it “a pipeline chart,” and another brother who works in HVAC called it a “flow-chart.” All of these phrases describe how you get from point A to point B to reach your mission objective. In the world, a company or organization will not achieve success without a plan.

The evangelism model is our life cycle. It takes us from infancy to adulthood and cycles through it again and again. It begins with developing a robust list of contacts using every resource available. It takes those contacts and prospects them into Bible studies, using all the love of the church. Those Bible studies produce baptisms just like Jesus taught in the Great Commission (Matthew 28:19; Mark 16:16). Baptisms provide us new converts that give us a growing church. Finally, every new convert provides more contacts, so the life cycle continues.

Brethren, if we do not evangelize, we will fossilize. The life cycle of the church of Christ is the Great Commission in action. We must train congregations to follow the plan.  These simple six concepts (Contacts, Prospects, Bible Studies, Baptisms, New Converts, Growing Church) have the potential to change your local church culture into what Jesus desires for His church. The plan is not complicated. Every member needs to know the plan and to find his or her place within the model. Take out just one piece of the life cycle, and the church of Christ dies in America. Learn it and train the members how to practice it, and the church of Christ will grow in America.