The Soul-Winning Church

Rory Shiner

Church life is busy, and church leaders have seemingly infinite demands placed upon their finite time and energy. Being told you need to shoehorn in yet another programme or make space for yet another course can be deflating. In The Soul-Winning Church, authors J.A. Medders and Doug Logan don’t hit us with another thing to bolt onto church life. Rather, they outline a sensible, achievable, and attractive process by which to cultivate a genuine evangelistic culture in a church community. Reading and applying this book to a local congregation would do a power of good.

Rico Tice

I think this will become the key book on mobilising the local church for evangelism in the English-speaking Western world over the next ten years. It’s short (I read it in one sitting). It’s crystal clear on the essential stepping stones we need in place for an evangelistic culture in the church. It’s realistic about the difficulties as we seek to mobilise the church and individuals. And it’s clear that Christ is the treasure we hold out. The authors have spent decades getting their theology and practice clear—we need to take advantage of their hard-won wisdom.

“Good for vision casting”

This book has six chapters that go in depth to the needed six areas needed for a soul winning church. The six areas are;
1. Praying for Conversions
2. Posture of an Evangelistic Church
3. Preparing for Conversions
4. Personal Evangelism
5. Preaching for Conversions
6. Process for New Converts
The authors explain why all six of these are needed not just one or two in order to be a “soul-winning church.” They also put into perspective why the church should care about being a soul-winning church in a missional mode instead of in a maintenance mode.
There are personal stories that are shared as well that remind the reader that we do not always experience seeing somebody come to faith because of our evangelism but that should not stop us from sharing the Gospel. I was glad they pointed this out since my own background in learning how to evangelize this was something hit home on. God is at work already in peoples lives and we may have the opportunity to water where God is already at work but each person and story looks different so there is no failure in not seeing a person come to Christ when you speak to them. We can continue to pray for people we meet and speak with and that is just as important. God changes hearts not us.
This book is great for Church leaders to help with vision castings and perspective on evangelism. This book can help you ensuring that your church body is equipped and the culture is one towards prayer and evangelism while ensuring that new believers would be ready to be engaged and even before that, that anybody would feel welcome in the church space and would hear the Gospel preached.

“Great but...”

The first time I heard about this book, it inevitably reminds me of the book by Spurgeon, The Soul-Winner. However rather than addressed to the individual Christians this primarily is for the church specifically it’s leaders.

Some of the content are familiar and your pastor or church maybe already practicing it. The book is a combination of encouragement and reminder for the church. There are high and low parts of the book but I really miss the Medders writing that I enjoyed from his earlier books.

My verdict:

4 out of 5

https://delightinggrace.wordpress.com/2024/08/15/august-quick-review-new-and-upcoming-books/

“A Great Resource for Becoming an Evangelistic-Focused Church”

This is such a helpful book for pastors and church leadership teams to consider how to be a church that truly seeks to reach the lost. We all know that this is what we want to be like, but sometimes it feels like we're just saying that and not really seeing any people come to faith. In this book, we're shown 6 principles that help church leaders build an authentic culture of seeking the lost, where the church as a whole wants conversions to be their priority. It's readable, not too long, but full of wisdom!

“Fantastic”

When Jesus told his first initial disciples they would become fishers of men, they pictured soul winning as a communal effort hauling in large nets of a catch – not the lonely pursuit of an individual fly fisherman! Written by two experienced evangelistic pastors, this is a guidebook for church leaders wanting to shift the culture of their whole church so that every heart is softened and everyone's skills are sharpened simultaneously. It calls less for the expectation of immediate fruit and more for long term faithfulness using case studies of churches in both the US and UK. The Soul Winning Church is as helpful as it is engaging and practical.

“Gospel-centred resource for a church who wants to win souls!”

This book is primarily targeted towards church staff and ministry leaders, with six principles to cultivate a genuine evangelistic culture to reach the lost with the gospel. As an active church member who's involved in several word and evangelistic ministries, I have also found this book a tremendously helpful resource to reflect how I can play a part to make an eternal difference in the lives of those around me. I have been reminded to firstly be prayerful about the lost (by name!) and to examine whether my own holiness marks a difference to outsiders. My husband is one of our church staff and we've used this book to reflect on our own lives, review and consider the aspects we can work on to cultivate a church who's excited about winning the lost. Thank you for such a truthful and practical resource!

Note: I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review.

“A book that every pastor needs to read!”

How does a pastor change the culture of a church to be more missional and active in personal evangelism? How does a church see more conversions and new disciples?

In “The Soul-Winning Church,” the authors J.A. Medders and Doug Logan provide us with six helpful and practical keys to fostering a genuine evangelistic culture in our churches.

The first chapter rightly focuses on the importance of praying for conversions, whilst the next chapter explores the posture of a church in evangelism. The author asks whether the church is forming the kind of people who will evangelise, are they excited about the Gospel and are they living the kind of holy lives that marks them out as being different from everybody else?

There is also a really helpful chapter on ‘mercy ministries’ — doing good works as a means to Gospel outreach, and I thought that the authors did a really good job of explaining how doing good works doesn’t replace sharing the Gospel itself, but they do open up doors to share the Gospel.

I particularly appreciated the author’s advice that the pastor should be modelling personal evangelism themselves and sharing examples of when they have shared their faith in their sermons, this is something that I have started doing myself.

There is also an excellent chapter on preaching with conversions in mind, so many pastors miss the opportunity to win souls from the pulpit because they often assume that everyone in the congregation is already a Christian.

In conclusion, “The Soul-Winning Church” is a book that every pastor needs to read and encourage his leadership to read, we need our churches to be more focused on winning the lost to Christ, and in this excellent book we are offered a wonderful resource in doing just that.

*Disclaimer: TGBC kindly provided me with a complimentary copy in exchange for an honest review.

“A Christ-Centered Conversation-Starter for Local Churches”

I enjoyed this straightforward, Christ-centered, hope-filled overview of cultivating an evangelistic culture in the local church. It's not exhaustive, but it is a great resource to get conversations started among a church's leaders. I plan to give this to multiple church staff members and leaders to consider and discuss how we can implement aspects where our church is lacking in our evangelistic culture.

“A good reminder!”

While this book is targeted towards pastors, as a women's ministry leader, I gleaned practical and biblical information about evangelism—or, well, "soul-winning."

As someone who can often get caught up in the numbers, it was a good reminder that we are called to implement certain principles, such a praying, ALOT OF PRAYING, for the souls of others, not just share a Bible verse, weart a t-shirt, or even do good works.

If we don't share the gospel, the reason WHY we are doing these things, the actual salvation message, then we aren't really doing what is needed to win souls.

As someone who teaches a lot within the church and women's events, I especially liked the section on "Gospel in your sermons."

The majority of the book is geared towards corporate, church soul-winning practices --- but it does speak to the fact that it starts with a personal application.

I would recommend this book for small group settings-- a great resource to help ignite a passion for gospel conversations.

“good principles but not necessarily practical for implementation”

I think every single church has dealt with disappointment or failed expectations in relation to evangelism. This book goes through several principles that allow a church to develop a culture of people who love and enjoy sharing the Gospel.

The book is structured with an introduction, six chapters, conclusion, and multiple appendices. The chapters discuss in length and detail Medders & Logan's principles for sharing the Gospel as a church. A few include:

- Where the Harvest Begins

- Salt and Light

- The Beginning, not the End

Although these principles are biblical and it's easy to read a book that gives you advice and tips, it's a completely different story to implement those ideals. It's a lot of work and takes an army of people to change an entire culture of a church. I feel like this reality is missing from the book. Changing a church culture starts with prayer and touching the hearts of its people. That's a huge task but definitely not one that God can't handle.

They do include an appendix that touches on putting the principles into practice. This delves into my frustration noted in the previous paragraph.

They also include two additional appendices: A Liturgy for the Lost and Areas to Cover with New Believers.

The concept and principles discussed throughout the book are good and beautiful, but I struggle with the step by step processes presented in books when the Gospel is powerful and unique in every single church and life.

I received a copy of this book from The Good Book Company in exchange for an honest review in exchange for an honest review.