Our modern world loves the idea of a DIY — Do It Yourself — project. Many YouTube tutorials, Pinterest ideas and TikTok videos show you how to do projects yourself. Many of them are very helpful and allow a novice the opportunity to attempt a project on their own. This can help save time and money and allow a sense of ownership over the finished project.
However, DIY can come with some dangers. You can start a project and quickly find out you don’t have all the tools you need to complete the project. You then realize, to acquire those tools, you would need to spend substantially more money than it would have cost to hire someone to do the project for you.
You can also hurt yourself as you try to do something you are not equipped to do. This is why so many DIY projects are abandoned halfway through. Without the proper tutoring, educating or mentoring, these projects prove to be beyond our abilities.
Too often, the approach to evangelism and church growth is centered on this DIY concept.
It starts as an idea you have, a great idea, and you run with it. Because it’s your idea, you lead it, but right here is where the trouble can begin. Instead of reaching out for the help or involvement of others, you hoard it — you do it yourself. You run an amazing event or project, and you may even be able to do it for years by yourself.
However, the problem emerges when you step down or age out and suddenly that amazing thing stops. Why? Was it a bad idea or not a useful form of evangelism? No, in fact, it might have been an amazing chance to reach others for Jesus, but you never delegated or involved others.
When an evangelistic or gospel-sharing effort is done from a DIY perspective, it will never grow to its full potential because there's just no way it can truly continue and grow without giving some of it away.
Within leadership circles, there's a concept called “keychain leadership.” This is the concept that you can start something, but then you delegate and hand the keys to the next person and they, in turn, hand the keys to someone else. Pretty soon, a number of people are intricately involved, and now this small project has grown and can continue into the future because people are becoming involved and taking ownership of it.
Let me speak briefly from personal experience, so you don’t feel I am just pointing fingers at others. When I began pastoring, I was young and had lots of energy and ideas. I wanted to start ministries and programs, so I did. What I found very quickly was that, if you have energy behind something, people will often get on board because it’s exciting. But they will lose interest quickly because they are not personally invested.
The first year I ran Vacation Bible School at Moscow Adventist Church, I did everything myself. It went fine, but it wasn’t super successful and I nearly died trying to do it all. So, the next year and every subsequent year, I involved people in every little tiny aspect of the event — from prep, to setup, to the actual event.
This did mean that many things weren’t done exactly as I would have done them and that was okay because it actually ended up better than if I had done it myself. The result was the church took full ownership of VBS, and they have continued to host this evangelistic event even without my help!
Did Jesus spread the gospel by Himself? No, He gave to His disciples and worked to have them hand things off to others.
Matt. 28:19–20 says, “Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
The great commission of Jesus to His followers was to go into all the world and share His love and salvation with others and then teach them to go and share too.
2 Tim. 2:2 says, “And the things you have heard me say in the presence of many witnesses, entrust to reliable people who will also be qualified to teach others.”
Paul reminds Timothy that he cannot do all the work of ministry on his own. He needs to build up disciples whom he can delegate the work of disciple-making to. Appointing others to appropriate roles and delegating work is an important part of making disciples who, in turn, will make disciples.
Don’t fear letting go or handing off something. Rather, prayerfully look for others to involve so they can continue to lead and work to make disciples of Jesus.
Our job as devoted Christians, true followers of Christ, is to MODEL evangelism: Make Other Disciples so Everyone Learns about Jesus!
