The late Batsell Barrett Baxter in a speech a few years prior to his death said,
"Remember, the church has been active in its restoration emphasis in America for nearly 200 years. What has been the total impact of these nearly 200 years of preaching the pure New Testament gospel? We have hardly begun.
"Congregations are so few in North Central America that the counties without churches outnumber those with congregations...many congregations are baptizing very few people other than their own children each year. It would be disturbing to most elderships to confront squarely the limited number of people outside our own families who are brought to Christ each year. Each congregation needs to make a careful self-examination of its own effectiveness in bringing 'outsiders' to the Lord."
It appears that little if any improvement has occurred since that time.

Does the result of our work support the supposition that we are following the New Testament plan for evangelism? Is the work of the preacher more that of a pastor than an evangelist today? Can you find in the Bible where a preacher's work is parallel to that of the preacher today? Is there an overlap in what the preacher is to do versus the elders? Elders are told to "feed the flock" (1 Pet. 5:2). They are to oversee and shepherd the flock (Acts 20:28). They are to "watch for the souls" of the members and must give an account for how they have done it (Heb. 13:17).

In this article, I want to take a careful look at the role of the preacher today in light of our evangelistic efforts and the biblical role set forth in the New Testament (Eph. 4:11-12; 2 Tim. 2:2, 4:5; Acts). Numerous writers and speakers have expressed concern for the diversion of the preacher from evangelism and the training of others to a role that does little of either. James O. Baird wrote that we have defined the preacher's role as that of (1) serving a group of Christians making up a given congregation by teaching them and preaching to them, (2) being primary administrator of the church's affairs under the guidance of the elders, (3) doing the work of the shepherds in attending the flock, visiting the sick and admonishing the fainthearted.

This view of the preacher's work has its roots in the priest-flock relationship of the Middle Ages, a notion powerfully reinforced by the preacher-as-pastor view emerging from several centuries of traditional Protestantism (Gospel Advocate, July 2, 1987). The late George Benson, former president of Harding University, in a speech said:
"There is a difference between teachers and preachers. We naturally employ teachers in our formal training programs. These teachers develop teachers, just as preachers would be inclined to develop preachers. Consequently, we are turning out a lot of excellent teachers, who desire to teach in school, or serve in a local church feeding the flock. People are largely what they are taught to be. In our schools and colleges we are developing a growing number of preachers desiring to do the work of feeding the flock, but fewer and fewer evangelists" (Harding Graduate School Lectures, 1971).

We can also be sure that pastoring preachers train pastoring preachers. Someone has said, "One of the effects of higher education is that they do not use practitioners to teach practitioners; they use theoreticians to teach people how to be practitioners. We have 50 years to show that the model does not work." Numerous preachers tell me that they were never trained in how to teach the lost, except through public preaching. A preacher fiend of mine said, "I attended one of our well-known Christian schools and am a firm believer in Christian education. I attended chapel services each day and studied the Bible from Genesis to Revelation. Not one time do I recall any information being taught on how to do personal evangleism" (Personal Evangelism, 4th quarter, 1976). [Note: Personal Evangelism magazine is now Church Growth magazine.]

Roy Hearn, when director of Memphis School of Preaching, told me of a survey made of graduates to determine what they needed most and did not get in school. The major reply was a lack of teaching in personal evangelism.

Tom Douglas, while a missionary in Brazil, wrote an article, "Training Evangelists" (Firm Foundation, July 17, 1979). He wrote,
"At a recent conference of Brazilian church leaders, a young college student asked the question, 'Why do we put emphasis on men being pulpit speakers rather than being soul winners?' Without realizing it, this young man may have hit on the key to a problem that we face in the Lord's kingdom. It is a problem that we face in all parts of the world. Have we fallen victim to encouraging our young men to be public speakers at the exclusion of being soul winners?
"Lest we feel that the problem be limited to Brazil, let me state the testimony of an American evangelist. After graduating from a Christian college, he took a preaching job in a large Texas city. His tools for the pulpit and classroom teaching were well prepared. The congregation loved him and his abilities. He is a good public speaker. However, while the weeks passed in preparations, he disovered that the evangelist is to be a soul winner. isn't it odd that this should be discovered and not already known? The congregation was perfectly happy with his work. The encouragement he received was to be a preacher. The work was never defined beyond preaching and teaching at the church building and a few visits to the hospital. Private teaching of non-Christians was done by a few of the congregation who had a special talent for this work. Today? He is still a good pulpit speaker. However, his horizons have been lifted higher than his office desk. He is learning to be an effective fisher of men. He realized that the fields were ready for his labor.
"The need for extending one's work through others has been made obvious in our work. As the evangelist begins to build relationships and teach others, he soon recognizes his limits. There are only so many hours to each day. Often a congregation grows to 50 or 75 and begins to level off. Some are baptized, some are lost. This is a crucial time in the history of a congregation. It can realize the need of all members...to be teachers of the Word. Or, it can be comfortable in being served by the full-time evangelist. The evangelist must train those he teaches to be teachers or be doomed to 'keep house' for a number of years.
"Paul told Timothy to 'be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus. And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable men who will also be qualified to teach others' (2 Tim. 2:2). The idea was to find men who would take the message they received to others who would do the same. The emphasis was on the individual.
"There is a lesson for us to learn. This writer maintains that we could have as many preachers as we need and more congregations full of soul winners if our emphasis were switched. We need faithful men to take the message to other faithful men. From this work, pulpit men will rise like cream to the top of the milk. The added blessing is that our pulpit men will already be soul winners.
"Please do not read this as an indictment against preaching. There are too many biblical examples of strong public speaking (mostly to unsaved people) for anyone to deduce that it is wrong to be a good public speaker. The problem is the manner in which we obtain our pulpit men and the exclusion of evangelism in their work. Even the apostles spent time learning and teaching individuals before they were sent to preach publicly. Public speaking is important. However, we win graet numbers with a great number of faithful ment teaching a great number of individuals."

I asked a preacher friend to write an article for Church Growth magazine describing the peacher's weekly activities, separating them into two categories--"outward focus" and "inward focus." He was afraid to attempt it, because it would reflect that the preachers' activities are more in line with pastoral duties than evangelistic responsibility, resulting in criticism of him. He then told me that while in pursuit of a doctorate, he did much research on the role of the preacher. He concluded that there is no role described in the scripture for the way the church presently uses preachers.

It has become increasingly clear to this writer that elders are doing most of their work by proxy--through the man that God intended to do the work of an evangelist (2 Tim. 4:5), leaving the lost without an evangelist in such instances. This is not as true in mission churches as it is in established churches. Our schools train men in how to "pastor churches" by men who have "pastored churches," and lead them to believe that this is their primary function. These go forth then not as evangelists to equip the church to serve and "appoint elders" (as Paul told Titus [1:5])who can teach, preach and shepherd the flock, but instead the preachers serve the church. The church hires the preacher to serve them; most members do not plan to serve. How much longer will we hold up this plan as being God's plan when it is not?

The following statement was made on the front page of Firm Foundation (April 14, 1964), lamenting the results of what we have done.
"Thus the congregation is spoon fed for years and never learns to feed itself. The fact is that we are delivering babies who never intend to graduate, enlisting soldiers who never intend to fight, and registering racers who never intend to race. Our motto has become, 'There he is, Lord; send him!' The Ship of Zion is no longer manned by a volunteer crew working for sheer love of the captain, but is steered by a pilot and assistant pilot, while the remainder are paying passengers who are going along for the ride and complaining as they go. Many congregations are made up of half-converted individuals who think that when Jesus said we were to be childlike, he meant 'childish,' and they have to be petted and pampered to even keep them coming, much less to minister to others."

I believe that if our schools had trained preachers to be truly New Testament evangelists, and if they had trained members as Eph. 4:11,12 teaches, the church would be several million strong today.

For further study of this subject, see the book Church Growth Today by this writer.

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Clayton Pepper is widely known for his writing and speaking on church growth. You may contact him at 1254 Campbell Road, Goodlettsville, TN 37072, 615-859-4660.