Do regular church services get in the way of evangelism? Must an evangelistic service be arranged one way and a church service another way? Or, can we use all the elements of the church service to point back to the Gospel?
Mack Stiles (2014) provides some helpful insights on these questions:
In pursuing a healthy culture of evangelism, we don’t remove the church for evangelism. Instead, we allow the things that God has already built into the church to proclaim the gospel. Jesus did not forget the gospel when he built the church.
For instance, baptism pictures the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus. It shows how his death is our death and his life our life. The Lord’s Supper proclaims the death of Christ until he returns and prompts us to confess our sins and experience forgiveness anew. When we pray, we pray the truth of God. We sing the great things God has done for us through the gospel. We give financially to advance the gospel. The preaching of the Word brings the gospel.
In fact, the preaching of the Word of God is what forms the church to begin with. And, once formed, the church is given the task of making disciples, who then are sent to preach the gospel to form new churches. This cycle has been happening since Jesus ascended into heaven and will continue until he returns. (pp. 64-65)