ATHENS, Ga. – Having a conversation about God can often be intimidating, but Beech Haven Church in Athens is taking on that challenge in a big way by setting a goal of initiating 10,000 Gospel conversations over the next five years.
“So far, so good,” said Senior Pastor Rob Tims.
“Nobody kicks back at a ‘you should talk about Jesus more’ campaign. We’re not spending money. We’re not asking for extra training. We’re not asking to block off a Saturday to go door to door. What we’re asking people to do is to look at their sphere of influence where God has them, and their relationships where the opportunity is there.”
The goal is to have 2,000 conversations a year, which is approximately 40 conversations per week for this mid-sized congregation. “That’s not absurd, and that’s not lowballing. It felt like a big number, but not a big number. It felt like a dream, but it also felt like something we could press on towards,” said Tims.
Steve Foster, evangelism catalyst for the Georgia Baptist Mission Board, said many Georgians have never heard the Gospel. He thinks the effort will have a huge impact in the area. “Churches like Beech Haven and associations are saying, ‘Hey, let’s take the Great Commission seriously.’”
“The 10,000 conversations are God-sized,” Tims said. “It is bigger than anything that we can do in our own strength, but at the same time, not too absurd that we are not able to grab hold of it in our hearts and our minds, and see God do something.
“Churches are good at counting baptisms and attendance, but counting seeds sown should also be celebrated.”
Beech Haven started praying for this mission in 2023. The Lord revealed the strategy last fall. It’s based on 1 Peter 3:15, where Peter exhorts the church to “regard Christ the Lord as holy (in your hearts), ready at any time to give a defense to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you.”
“A high affection for Jesus leads to a powerful evangelism for Jesus,” said Tims.
The church is equipping and empowering the congregation to live out and share the Gospel outside the church walls.
“The emphasis is not on inviting or bringing someone to church so that the pastor can give a defense, but on setting up and sending out our members to enter into a Spirit-led dialogue where the core truths of the Gospel – God’s holiness, human sin, Christ’s saving work and the call to repent and believe – are communicated in a relational and clear way,” the pastor said.
The church redesigned its lobby to reinforce the mission. On the prominent wall, they placed a giant map of the city of Athens and the surrounding communities. Red push pins are placed showing the locations of conversations.
“Every Sunday, when they walk in that way, they can take a look at that map and see the progress that we are making,” Tims said.
In the lobby, members can also pick up a custom training booklet written by the staff. This booklet tells what a Gospel conversation is and is not, and gives helpful advice on having an effective conversation.
Training also happens in Sunday morning Life Groups. Study materials are written each week based on the previous week’s sermon, and a section at the end teaches how to have a Gospel conversation based on the sermon.
If people are comfortable, conversion stories are recorded and shared in church services and online. “What gets celebrated, gets replicated,” said Tims.
There are 65 pins on the wall since the campaign began in June. “I can’t wait for us to hit that 1,000 mark. That’s going to be a big day,” he said.
An 8-year-old placed the first pin after sharing the Gospel with a classmate at school. “We made a big deal out of it,” the pastor. “She was baptized last year as a new Christian alongside her mom, who had also come to Christ.”
Most pins are from senior adults.
“Jesus has been shared a lot at the Waffle House on Epps Bridge Road and at the Salvation Army every Tuesday night because we have a group of seniors who go over there and sit down, and they say, ‘Do you know who Jesus is?’” Tims said.
Foster said the effort could spark other churches to find their own creative ways to engage their communities.
“Beech Haven is saying 10,000, but Athens is a big town. Maybe a small town in South Georgia, they might say 200 or 100 or 400 Gospel conversations,” Foster said.
Tims hopes a new church culture emerges, built on deep relationships, discipleship and unity to share the Gospel where people live. “A church that is on mission together is united together,” he said.
Patience is key, he added. “It takes a long time for us to regard Christ as holy in our hearts. It takes a long time to get comfortable sharing the faith. It takes a long time to see the results and develop a culture. It’s a whole new thing for us. It can’t be a flash in the pan. We’ve got to stay the course. It takes discipline.”
Tims concluded that getting comfortable with risking the relationship for the sake of the Gospel is going to take some time.
“It’s a five-year emphasis for us,” he said “The hope is that we create a church culture in which to be a member of Beech Haven is to be on mission in this way.”
This article originally appeared in the Christian Index.
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