The following article is the centerpiece of the Spring 2026 issue of Onward, a free magazine we send out twice a year, with contributions from NAB ministries and partners. You can find the full issue at the link below. If you don’t already receive a copy in the mail, you can sign up here.
By Merv Budd
Missional Initiatives Team Member
Evangelism Crisis
One of the primary aspects of the Church’s purpose is an evangelistic witness to Jesus, a task the church in North America is failing at. There appears to be a dwindling of evangelistic zeal in Canada and the United States. Consider some of these discouraging findings:
- A Lifeway Research study conducted with the Billy Graham Center for Evangelism at Wheaton College in 2019 found that only 29 percent of unchurched people ever had a Christian share how to become a follower of Jesus with them.[1]
- Barna reported in February 2019 that almost half of Christian Millennials believe it is wrong to share their faith.[2]
- According to one study in Canada, “65 percent of church leaders say that evangelism has not been a priority in their church in the last several years” and “55 percent of Canadian congregations do not equip for evangelism.”[3]
- A joint study conducted in 2017 by Barna and Lutheran Hour Ministries concluded that most Christians in the United States are not sharing their faith with others. It found that 74 percent of self-identified Christians in the United States have nine or fewer spiritual conversations with anyone – including other Christians – per year. Nine percent have none.[4]
So why is it that the North American church is failing in such a primary aspect of its purpose?
When participants in the Barna study were asked why they were not sharing their faith, the number one reason respondents gave was fear. They were afraid they would be misunderstood, persecuted, marginalized, or silenced if they spoke up for their faith. More than this, the younger generations were more likely to be concerned that others would see their efforts at sharing their faith to be offensive.
When I have spoken to many NAB church leaders about evangelism, one of the exercises I have conducted was to ask them to complete the sentence: “Evangelism feels ___________,” inviting them to share their visceral reaction to the thought of evangelism. Of the 270 responses I have received from five different cities, 70 percent of the words that come back are negative. The top four visceral reaction to evangelism were: . . .
Reframe is a four-week, online training for pastors and leaders to help you assess your congregation’s evangelism readiness. This training will provide an evaluative framework to help you to recognize gaps you may need to fill and distortions you will want to correct, and it will provide a clearer path forward toward helping your church become more evangelistically faithful.
Reframe is not a training that will focus on how to better do evangelism but instead will focus on how to be evangelistic.
- How well equipped is your congregation for the ministry of evangelism?
- How do you evaluate your church’s health in that regard?
- How would you identify equipping gaps in your congregation’s evangelistic faithfulness?
Each training consists of an online, 90-minute session. They will take place 10:00–11:30 a.m. (Pacific) each Wednesday in June (3, 10, 17, 24).
Training is free for NAB ministry leaders. Register at the link below. For questions, connect with Deb Judas.
Recently, as part of connecting multipliers with the global mission of the NAB, nine pastors and leaders from NAB churches partook in a vision trip to Romania. Stu Streeter, VP of Church Multiplication, alongside Pastor Drew Steinhart of Disciples Church in Medina, Ohio, led the team of planters and revitalizers to experience firsthand the ministry of Camp Falcon Rock and to explore sister-church partnerships with our brothers and sisters in the Convention of Hungarian Baptist Churches of Romania (HBC).
Partnership is at the heart of trips such as this; they are not only about building partnerships between churches in North America and sister churches in Europe or elsewhere, they are made possible, in part, due to the churches and individuals who choose to partner with the NAB through their generous gifts. When you give to the NAB’s Ministry Resource Fund on an ongoing basis, you are helping to support Kingdom work such as this.
Your faithful monthly gift of $5, $10, or $25 – or whatever amount – when combined with other small gifts, will make a big difference. Thank you for prayerfully considering this invitation to partner with us.
give to the ministry resource fund (CND)
give to the ministry resource fund (USD)
Part of being evangelistic is sending and supporting international missionaries. The NAB currently supports 24 international missionaries and 6 global mission partners, and four times a year they send in newsletters sharing prayer requests and stories of what God is up to in their midst.
You can find the most recent newsletters at the link below, full of updates, praise reports, prayer requests, and photos. You can also sign up to receive the quarterly missionary newsletter email, sent out every February, May, August, and November.