This is a Missiology book by Gupta and Lingenfelter. Below are some of their thoughts on the evangelist and church planter.

“I am often asked what the church is.  When I think of the church I am reminded of the words of Jesus to His disciples, “Upon this rock I will build my church” (Matthew 16:20).  These are the words of Jesus in response to the confession of Peter, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the Living God” (vs. 16).  The Church is a community of two or three individuals who affirm that Jesus is the Christ and gather together in His presence, under His Lordship, to worship, and to study God’s Word.  Members exhort, equip, serve, and edify one another and seek to be transformed, incarnating Christ in all of His love and glory in communities so the world in seeing them will see the Father who is in heaven.” P. 34-35 Lingenfelter

When evangelizing the evangelist should never call for or demand a decision.  People need to simply see, hear, experience, process, and understand.  If this is allowed to happen then some through the convicting and convincing of the Holy Spirit will desire to be saved.  We must wait until they cry out “what must I do to be saved?” 

“Building relationships takes significant time, and the investment of people and resources.  Until we achieve trust and acceptance, people will have little interest in our message.  The missionary must recognize and find ways to transcend the barriers to be accepted as an insider….To often missionaries are in a hurry to stand on the street and preach Christ, thinking the people will understand the message without thinking of the necessity of building the bridge, establishing oneself in the community, and building credibility before we expect people to listen to the message.” Pg. 69  If people do not trust you they will not listen to you.  If you have no credibility in their eyes then your message will fall on deaf ears.

“The role of the missionary is not to plant churches but to facilitate a church-planting movement by identifying and enabling the giftedness of the people being discipled in the community…When the missionary becomes the church planter and not the facilitator of a church-planting movement, he will attract individuals who are deviants from the local culture and are, most likely, more comfortable with the missionary’s culture.” Pg. 60  The goal of the missionary is then—“evangelism and making disciples to develop a church-planting movement among an unreached population.  They must accept responsibility to make disciples of others in the people group.  When the new disciples in that people group take leadership and ownership of the task, the effort of the team will result in an indigenous church.  They will know they are successful when they have mobilized the new church to reach its own community and then other unreached peoples.”  Pg 64

There will be real spiritual warfare during evangelism efforts.  We must continually be reminded that faith comes by hearing and hearing by the Word of God.  God will plant His churches and Satan cannot stand against the Lord of Hosts.