Profiling Nominal Christians for Strengthening Evangelism Strategies Today

Abstract

In the first century, the Early Church experienced both church growth and making-disciples. However, in the twenty first century, we seem to lose this balance while only emphasizing numerical church growth. Without making disciples, the undiscipled are encouraged to be involved in church ministry and evangelism. As a result, nominal Christians are out of track of Christian faith. Worse still, this tendency causes stagflation of church growth. In this vein, this paper seeks to profile nominal Christians for strengthening evangelism strategies today. In the process, causes and characteristics of nominal Christians are investigated in three aspects such as philosophical, social, and ecclesiastical. For philosophical concerning, postmodernism is stated. For social concerning, secularization is discussed. For ecclesiastical concerning, absence of companionship in discipleship is investigated. In this regard, Robert Coleman’s the principle of association is suggested to strengthen discipleship strategies. The goal of this article is to encourage church leaders to focus on nominal Christian in evangelism strategies. Nominal Christians are defined as the undiscipled. They do not pursue Christian lifestyle. They merely participate in Christian rituals as a part of appeasing a God. Their lifestyles are not paired with Christ. In this circumstance, they frequently experience disruptive relationships with Jesus. For them, one of the core ministries of the Church is evangelism, which is defined as discipleship, needs to be renewed. Not only for informing the Gospel, but also for conveying transformative lifestyle, nominal Christians are supposed to be connected with matured Christians. The ultimate purpose of the connection is to be synchronized with Christ. That is why spiritual companionship is emphasized in discipleship. In this vein, this article suggests necessity of the principle of association for nominal Christians in discipleship strategies in the twenty first century.