When one congregation started a “Swedish death cleaning team,” they probably didn’t think they were doing evangelism. The team helps people sort through belongings after a loved one dies, offering practical support during one of life’s most overwhelming transitions. But this kind of presence-based ministry represents evangelism at its most authentic and offers a completely different vision for how churches can share faith in our current cultural moment.
In a recent two–part Pivot Podcast conversation, Andy Root, Luther Seminary professor and author of “Evangelism in an Age of Despair: Hope Beyond the Failed Promise of Happiness,” explored how the caring relationships churches naturally build actually constitute evangelism when grounded in the right theological understanding. His approach doesn’t offer another program or strategy. Instead, it helps church leaders recognize evangelism as an act of consolation, being present with people in their sadness and brokenness, because that’s where Jesus shows up.
Stop Chasing the Evangelism Gamble
Blaise Pascal was living the party life. The brilliant 17th century mathematician who invented the calculator and probability theory was gambling at French salons, chasing happiness like so many before and after him. But Pascal discovered something that would change not only his life, but his understanding of how God meets us in our deepest moments of need.
The pattern Pascal observed was strikingly familiar to anyone who has watched churches chase evangelism success. As Andy Root shared, “When you’re at a table gambling, you say to yourself, okay, if I just win this hand, then I’ll be happy. And I think this is what churches say too. Like if we could just, if we could just use evangelism, get another 50 people here, get the endowment up, then it would be okay.”
Pascal’s great insight wasn’t just personal but was theological. He discovered that even when you win big at gambling, the happiness doesn’t last. Soon, discontent returns and you feel the nagging urge to get back to the table. This cycle of chasing happiness actually distracts us from deeper spiritual realities.
The same pattern has infected how many churches think about evangelism. There’s a frantic energy, a sense that if we could just find the right program, get more people in the door, or accelerate our efforts, then everything would be okay. But this approach keeps us trapped in what Andy calls “happiness hunting” rather than opening us to where God is actually at work.
Pascal’s famous wager offers a different path. Rather than betting on God’s existence as a kind of spiritual insurance policy, Pascal’s real insight was about what happens when we stop running from sorrow. When we make a confession that we’re unhappy or that there’s sorrow within us, and actually fall into that sorrow rather than fleeing from it, Pascal’s wager is that we’ll meet God there.
Moving Beyond Instrumental Evangelism
Many mainline churches find themselves in an uncomfortable position when it comes to evangelism. As Andy described it, church members will say “kind of under their breath or kind of as a whisper… maybe we need to try evangelism.” It’s as if evangelism is “this embarrassing tool the church used to use that people would like to lock away in a back shed and never really use. But now they look around and think, maybe we should do that.”
This desperation often leads to what Andy calls “instrumental evangelism,” which includes approaches that treat evangelism as a strategy to fix declining attendance or grow membership. Andy recalled his own experience growing up in the 1990s: “Even in my conservative Lutheran church, we were given all sorts of strategies… And it was all really evangelism equals a strategy as opposed to evangelism being in a kind of embodied way of participating with people.”
Andy argued for a fundamental shift from strategy-based to presence-based evangelism. Rather than seeing evangelism as something churches do to recruit new members, he proposed understanding it as “a kind of embodied way of participating with people and really importantly, where Jesus Christ is present.”
Give People Language for Meeting Jesus in Sorrow
The heart of Andy’s approach centers on what he calls “a theology of consolation.” This isn’t about offering easy answers or trying to cheer people up. Instead, it’s about entering into people’s sadness and brokenness with the conviction that Jesus Christ is present there.
Rather than trying to fix problems or accelerate programs, Andy advocates for giving congregations what he calls “watchwords,” which is language that forms narratives and helps people see the world differently. In his fictional narrative, a pastor gives his congregation a simple but profound message: they meet Jesus Christ in sorrow.
The key theological conviction underlying this approach is that “Jesus Christ is found in sorrow.” As Andy put it, “The Christian simply puts themselves in sorrow, not in a masochistic way, not in an instrumental way, but in a sense of a revelatory way, because this is where Jesus Christ is found.”
Andy shared how this played out in his fictional narrative about Mary Ann, an HR worker who had experienced loss and found comfort in a church community. When Mary Ann notices a colleague named Renata struggling after her father’s death, she doesn’t offer a program or strategy. She simply says, “Come and go on a walk with me.” This simple invitation—to walk together—represents evangelism at its most natural.
Recognizing the Evangelism You’re Already Doing
One of Andy’s most encouraging insights is that many congregations are already doing this kind of evangelism—they just don’t recognize it. The Swedish death cleaning team represents this principle in action. When someone loses a loved one and feels overwhelmed by sorting through belongings, church members show up to help. It’s not about recruiting new members; it’s about participating in people’s lives during moments of profound need.
Andy also described other practical expressions of this ministry: “sitters” who sit with people who are suffering, teams that help families navigate the aftermath of loss, and simple practices like taking walks with neighbors who are grieving. “There are certain practices,” he acknowledged, “but there is an ecclesiology here that says this is the whole church doing this in some ways.”
When people sat with families during cancer diagnoses or gathered around those experiencing loss, Andy would affirm that this is exactly what evangelism looks like when grounded in consolation rather than strategy.
Learn What It Means to Be Bankrupt
Perhaps the most challenging aspect of Andy’s approach is his call for churches to embrace what he calls “bankruptcy.” Drawing on German philosopher Eugen Rosenstock-Huessy, Andy argues that when the church is at its most bankrupt, God renews it. This theological conviction stands in stark contrast to scarcity thinking.
Christianity’s mission includes helping to renew the world by loving the world and bearing its own bankruptcy. This doesn’t mean being passive or fatalistic, but rather recognizing that we’re at what Andy calls “a hinge moment in the church where out of a lot of loss, something new is going to happen.”
The problem is that many churches are still operating from scarcity, trying to figure out how to get more return on their few remaining pennies rather than trusting in God’s renewal. This requires releasing what Andy calls “the idolatry of the church itself” not because the church doesn’t matter, but because our institutional forms aren’t ultimate.
Denominations may disappear. Seminaries may close. But the church will prevail because the church is the body of Jesus Christ. This conviction allows churches to participate in whatever new forms emerge without the desperate energy that comes from thinking institutional survival is entirely up to us.
Shift from Activity to Presence-Based Ministry
For churches exhausted by trying to generate energy through programming and activity, Andy’s approach offers a different way forward. Instead of more evangelism strategies designed to get people to come, he advocates for practices that help congregations learn to wait with God and participate in God’s presence.
This kind of waiting isn’t passive boredom, like waiting for a delayed flight. It requires anticipation and formation through narratives and stories that help us see the world differently. It’s about creating space for being in the world in a certain way rather than generating more activity.
Andy sees opportunity in developing “a certain dependence upon God to act in places that seem God forsaken” rather than churches feeling like they have to generate their own salvation through programming. This shift moves from wellness mode (where it’s up to us to save ourselves) to a posture of presence and participation in what God is already doing.
Embrace Evangelism as Shared Journey
The most significant shift Andy proposed is changing the fundamental question churches ask about evangelism. Instead of “How do we get people to come to church?” he suggested asking “How do we join people where they’re already experiencing life’s deepest realities?”
The evangelistic message that emerges from this approach is profoundly different from typical church growth strategies. Rather than promising happiness or trying to convince people that church will solve their problems, this approach acknowledges the reality of sorrow while offering companionship within it. The message becomes: “What if you fell into your sorrow? We think that you’ll be met there because we’ve been met in that experience.”
This can’t be done alone because falling into sorrow by yourself could become destructive. But the church offers to journey together: “We will search with you. We’ve been there, we’ll do this with you. But our great bet, our great wager, is that you’re gonna find a great presence there.”
For church leaders feeling caught between instrumental approaches that feel manipulative and fears about their congregation’s future, Andy’s theology of consolation offers a third way. It’s evangelism that feels as natural as breathing because it flows from the deepest convictions of Christian faith: that God is present in suffering, that Christians are called to share in that presence, and that this participation itself is proclamation of the gospel. The only proof the church can offer is its own experience of meeting God in places of brokenness, and the hope comes from God’s action rather than our programs.
