Do you ever feel like you are standing in front of an apathetic sports team, trying to get them psyched up for the big game? They lack focus and desire, and your motivational attempts seem to fall on deaf and uninterested ears.

The situation is far worse and more challenging than you think.

In Ezekiel 37:1–10 God tells Ezekiel to preach to a valley of dry bones. Is this just an exercise in futility? The result is that God raises these bones, puts flesh on them, and forms them into a great army. This is the reality of every ministry everywhere. People are “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). People “by their unrighteousness suppress the truth.” What is needed is not motivation; what is needed is not encouragement (of course, these are important aspects of gospel ministry). What is needed is a supernatural breaking in of the light of the gospel into the darkness. What is needed is a divine work of restoration. What is needed is hearts of stone to be turned into hearts of flesh, for dry bones to be raised to new life. And the God who alone can create this new life, who alone can regenerate hearts, says that he will do so using the means of preaching the Word.

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. (1 Cor. 1:21)

Maybe what the Church needs most in reaching the lost is not another evangelistic technique. What we need most is the multiplication of communities (churches) committed to and being shaped by the means of grace. And we trust that God will providentially bring people into contact with these communities. Maybe inviting someone to Lord's Day worship is not such a bad evangelistic technique. What would we put more evangelistic confidence in than the authoritative proclamation of the gospel of grace? What better segue into a gospel conversation would we hope for than explaining the Lord's Supper?

How often we go rooting around in the old ministry toolbox looking for that perfect tool to connect with a certain individual or group. We regularly give people helpful books and articles without hesitation. But have you ever hesitated to put God’s Word at the forefront of your ministry? Have you ever doubted, as I confess I have in the past, that a study of Romans would be an effective evangelistic tool? Why do we feel the need to substitute our own words for God’s, or to apologize for his Word?

For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. (Isaiah 55:10–11)

Can we take God at his word? We must trust that God will use his Word to change hearts and bring new life. But what is our goal in ministering the Word to people? Is our main task to give people rules for holy living? Is the Bible a cookbook with a helpful recipe for any difficult situation someone might be facing? (Hint: The best way to find out the point of a written work is to ask the author. Jesus told his disciples in Luke 24 that it’s all about him.) In John 5, Jesus told the Jews who were seeking to kill him: “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life” (John 5:39-40). These religious leaders had a lot of Bible knowledge, but they missed Jesus and remained lost. If we miss Jesus and the Gospel, we are missing the point as well. Our goal is to show how the Bible displays Jesus Christ—his infinite worth, and his work, both for us and in us.

Almost any Christian philosophy of ministry will aim to do two things: 1) reach people with the Gospel with the hope of their conversion, and 2) help Christians grow to maturity. Often we refer to these two aims as evangelism and discipleship. But how do we go about this task? Most would agree that our tool for evangelism is the Gospel. People become Christians through hearing and embracing the Gospel by faith. But what is our tool for helping people grow to maturity? Christian maturity is growth in Christ-likeness, which is characterized by evidence of the fruit of the Spirit in people’s lives (see for example Galatians 5:22–23). But how do we expect fruit to grow in people’s lives? Here methodologies diverge greatly. But Scripture clearly teaches us that it is the Gospel which produces gospel fruit. If we believe this, our focus will not simply be getting people to do stuff. Rather, we will focus on feeding people the Gospel, knowing this will produce fruit. As the hearts and souls of men and women and youth are brought into contact with the Word of God and as the rich doctrines of justification, sanctification, and glorification are poured into these hearts, we can expect to see gospel fruit growing in their lives.

David Rapp is the RUF Campus Minister at the University of Oregon