Evangelism Effectiveness

Case Study

Background

The Mid Atlantic (MA) regional director (RD) team sponsored a facilitated self-assessment (FSA) to determine the effectiveness of the region’s evangelism efforts in reaching college students with the message of the Gospel. The FSA was initiated in response to uncertainty of whether or not the current level of effort was producing commensurate results. The FSA evaluated potential opportunities falling into two general categories:

• Internal opportunities –to identify cultural weaknesses,to differentiate strategies that are / are not yielding fruit and to identify barriers in business processes.
• External opportunities – to understand the post-modern culture on campus and how to more effectively reach that culture.

The FSA included interview and survey inputs from the staff and selected associates throughout the MA region. These inputs led to the identification of strengths and areas for improvement in the MA culture and practices. Howard Levin and his wife Judy,friends of our ministry from Apollos Leadership,provided their services.

The RD team established focus groups organized around the opportunities for improvement:

• Community / Spiritual mentoring of local staff
• Innovation
• Resourcing

The groups worked to develop a consensus on causal factors and actions to improve performance within their scopes of responsibility. The following discussion provides a summary of the FSA process,highlights of key themes,the status of initiatives to date and lessons-learned.

FSA Process

1. Sponsorship &Announcement of Objectives

The FSA was sponsored by the RD team and started via an announcement describing the objectives,expectations of staff involvement and a description of the facilitator’s role1.

2. Initial Data Collection &Framing of Topics of Study

The facilitator’s initial involvement included interactions (interviews,phone discussions) with selected MA staff to gain an understanding of the status of the ministry in general and the current environment. This activity included a review of key background information relevant to the FSA objectives. The facilitator solicited people’s perceptions of strengths and weakness,accomplishments and failures,enabling factors and barriers,etc. These inputs were used to develop a survey instrument.

3. Survey of Regional Staff &Associates

A written questionnaire (or ‘survey’) was developed to explore opinions on the topics identified in step 2. All MA staff and selected associates were given the opportunity to participate. The ‘survey’ incorporated opportunities for write-in comments that provided respondents the ability to amplify upon their inputs to multiple-choice questions and to address any additional issues that may not have been adequately covered. The results were processed using the Culture Meter™ software developed by the facilitator’s firm. This software provided the capability to differentiate localized (vs. broader) issues and understand how issues affected particular locales or demographics in the MA Region.

4. Follow-up Interviews

A few follow-up interviews were held to develop a deeper understanding (‘texture’) of issues and themes uncovered in the survey,to follow-up on cause-effect relationships and to solicit suggestions for cultural and performance improvement. Together,the survey and the follow-up interview process were complementary in providing the necessary breadth and depth to assure high confidence that important issues were probed and identified as these applied MA-wide and to specific locales.

5. Focus Groups

The RD Team convened a representative group of staff and associates to:

• Review and validate the survey results applicable to their group’s scope.
• Identify high priority,potentially high value-added areas of opportunities.
• Identify actions that address identified causal factors.

The deliberations,conclusions and recommendations of the focus group were forwarded to the MA RDs for action.

Highlights of Key Themes

• Many felt a need to develop new approaches that have the potential to be more effective in today’s postmodern campus environment;e.g. relational evangelism was viewed as much more effective today than initiative evangelism. Many saw a need to 1) sort out what’s currently effective and to share it,2) identify &pilot new strategies –directly evaluating new R&D in the field and converting it into practical implementation steps,3) develop associated training.
• Some Local Leaders were feeling isolated and needed more attention / spiritual mentoring,i.e. more body time was needed between RDs and LDs and there was a need to fill Catalytic RD and Campus Assoc. RD positions.
• Resources were impacting capacity to expand the movement and outreach efforts. The organization felt that it had not done nearly well enough towards engaging alumni,volunteers,etc in the ministry.
• The FSK strategy was perceived to be more effective for Catalytic than Staffed campuses. Some questioned the cost-benefit and would prefer the money be used in other ways. Others felt a need for better campus-specific strategies and accountability in using the FSKs.
• Awareness of ministry and web tools / resources was lower than expected,indicating that Crusade may not be getting the full benefit of its investment. Some suggested a clearinghouse was needed to highlight or pull things together and/or to establish better communications and training.

Status of Response Initiatives

• Community/Spiritual mentoringThe FSA helped the RD team recognize the urgency and importance of having all key regional leadership positions filled and how it affects our ability to give direction to and shepherd our staff. At the time of the assessment,there were 4 empty seats on the RD team. Some staff felt neglected,in part because the RD team was stretched beyond capacity. The team filled all 8 seats in the next 2.5 years. Currently there is one vacancy which we are working hard to fill in part because of what the FSA told us.There was also an effort to improve the regional staff day at Campus Ministry Days. Previously the day’s activities made it difficult for young children and their parents to be involved and make relational connections. A new approach and venue was adopted and for two consecutive conferences we have received more positive feedback from families and single staff and we ourselves have observed that the day improves regional connectedness.

• InnovationThe FSA confirmed to us that we should be quicker to try and to adopt innovative approaches to ministry. The first example of this kind of effort was that we were the first region to roll out the Co-Journers material. Our posture changed to one of looking for new ideas that we could get behind and leverage.Another example of how this helped change our thinking was allowing one of our staff to take an unusual summer assignment. He wanted to develop an evangelism seminar that incorporated comedy,music,and media to connect with today’s students. Before,the team may have been reluctant to grant such an assignment to an unproven idea. This time,the team was eager to allow a staff member to try something that just might be a breakthrough.
• ResourcingFinally,the team began encouraging local staff to ask the regional team to fund new ideas they might have. We wanted to correct the impression that staff could not ask for regional resources to pursue new ideas.

Conclusions &Lessons-learned

Perhaps the most important contribution of the FSA was how it informed our strategic planning process. We learned the importance of involving our local leaders in identifying and solving problems. Last year,for the first time,the regional team involved all local leaders in developing the regional strategic plan. They were involved from the very beginning. The regional team set the direction and then invited the staff to engage us in situational analysis,assessing critical mass,and determining path steps and tactics. The resulting plan is benefiting from unprecedented ownership by the local level. The RD team plans to continue this practice for the foreseeable future.

The FSA was a valuable resource to the team because it provided an objective body of information that could confirm or deny hunches and anecdotal evidence. Its findings were not earth-shattering,but they were very valuable because of their reliability. That being said,it also had the potential to raise possibilities we had never entertained.