Membership is the church's corporate endorsement of a person's salvation.

What really concerns me is for Christians to understand the fundamentals of evangelism in a way that is helpful in the contemporary scene.

I don't mind talking about a football game - that's fine. I don't want Christians to be unnatural. But I do want to hear them talking fully, freely and naturally of the things of the Lord in their own lives too.

Christian proclamation might make the gospel audible, but Christians living together in local congregations make the gospel visible (see John 13:34-35). The church is the gospel made visible.

Sadly, there are some fine Christian people who believe that the only way to advance the gospel is to pray for revival and nothing else. You don't know if they have any non-Christian friends or if they have ever shared the gospel with anybody in the last 30 years. It's depressing going to prayer meetings like that. I don't want to pray like that.

God can use even stray, honest comments to bring people to himself.

If you are not offending people, then you are not an evangelist.