Thus worship is evangelism, and our social ministry in the community is evangelism. It is certainly true that many people, seeing the beauty of the service, experiencing God in the music and liturgy, and hearing the preached Word, come to know God. It is also true that in our acts of service in the community we show forth the love of God. But people can observe these activities of the church and never be exposed to the Good News message. William J. Abraham persuasively argues in The Logic of Evangelism that there must be a verbal proclamation of the gospel in order to be true evangelism.
Church growth is built around programs and ministries.
Evangelism is built upon truth statements. A third barrier is the failure of the clergy to give permission to the laity to evangelize . George Hunter III in How to Reach Secular People cites studies showing that laity attract twice as many people into the faith per contact than clergy. The most obvious way is by never making it clear that evangelism among the unchurched is one of the missions of the church for which all believers have responsibility. A second way is by allowing ambiguity with respect to definitions of who is a Christian and who is not.