Who We Are

In 1999 TEI embarked on an ambitious agenda to discover the state of personal evangelism in America. We were stunned to learn that the large majority of Christians in America today either do not share their faith in Jesus Christ at all, or do it in a way that is offensive and/or ineffective. They have opted out of the Great Commission. The natural result is the decline of the local church.

We have also discovered that a key reason for the decline in evangelism is due to people having a number of hesitations and barriers that discourage them from participating in evangelism. As a result, many Christians leave evangelism to paid professionals or those "gifted" in evangelism. This creates a problem for the church because pastors, missionaries, and those gifted or active in evangelism only add up to around 5% of the church in the U.S. This leaves 95% of the church not sharing their faith at all.

When a Christian decides not to participate in sharing their faith, they miss out on the joy and adventure of seeing God's power at work, in seeing His power work through them, and in seeing their life and other lives transformed. This may be the biggest gap of all.

TEI has developed two services/processes to help pastors, churches, and Christian organizations: evangelism training and church partnering. The evangelism training process is called Authentic Outreach. In this training, Christians learn to share their faith with confidence and gentleness in a way that respects, and builds bridges to, people who need Christ. Our goal is to teach teachers in the church so that they can teach the course on an ongoing basis.

Evangelism training is implemented in churches through the Church Partnering Process. This is an optional service. In this process, TEI partners with local churches to provide local and long-term resources to help them implement and sustain evangelism training.

The best way to describe our efforts is based on 1 Peter 3:15. "But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect."