It was 1971. I was a 17-year-old high school senior fresh into a brand new experience of faith. I was also full of zeal for evangelism but clueless about how to evangelize other than just telling my friends about what I was so passionate about—God, Jesus, the Bible, salvation and the rapture.

My church had an evangelism program; I had attended all the sessions for Evangelism Explosion and was paired with a leading deacon in our Baptist church for our first night of calling on people so we could present the gospel to them. The deacon and I knocked on the first door. Behind this door was a man whose name we had been given because he had visited our church and innocently filled out a visitor’s card. The man came to the door and greeted us, but it was obvious from traces of food on his face and the napkin in his hand that he and his family were eating dinner and watching TV.

The deacon wasn’t about to be deterred by such worldly issues when this man’s eternity was at stake. The deacon was clever enough to work his way into the home, and there we sat for the next hour or so as the family finished dinner, cleaned the table, did the dishes, then retired to other rooms—leaving Dad with us. My job, as a nervous newbie, was to pray and keep my mouth shut unless I had something really important to say. I did (pray) and I didn’t (have anything to say). As the hour wore on, two things became apparent: First, the man wasn’t at all (in my inexperienced estimation) interested in getting saved; and second, the deacon was surely convinced the man was interested even if he had to apply every ounce of persuasion he had mastered. The deacon won; the man somehow made a decision for Christ. We prayed with him, and then we returned to the church where everyone had gathered. When we gave our report of a salvation, everyone said, “Praise God!”

Yes, we had achieved our goal, but deep inside I was convinced the man had not made a decision for Christ. That man, too, had achieved his goal in getting us out of the house. I never saw the man at our church again, but I did recognize his face one time in our community. I wanted to apologize for our gospel presentation to him, but I had no idea how one did such a thing about what I believed to be truth.

Because of that singular event, I’ve looked ever since with a cynical eye at evangelistic strategies—not because I’m not an evangelist but because I believe we are focused on the wrong thing. Most evangelism today is obsessed with getting someone to make a decision; the apostles, however, were obsessed with making disciples. Those two words—decision and disciples—are behind this entire book. Evangelism that focuses on decisions short-circuits and—yes, the word is appropriate—aborts the design of the gospel, while evangelism that aims at disciples slows down to offer the full gospel of Jesus and the apostles.

My experience has been confirmed by my students who are roughly the age I was when I began to wonder what evangelism and the gospel were about. In the first few chapters of this book, some of their observations about the gospel will appear in the sidebars. Years of discussing the gospel in my classes at North Park University have led me to two observations that have helped shape this book: First, nearly all of my Christian students tell me the gospel they heard as they grew up primarily had to do with their sin, Jesus’ death and going to heaven; second, these same students tell me repeatedly that they know there’s something wrong with that: The gospel of Jesus wants more from us than a singular decision to get our sins wiped away so we can be safe and secure until heaven comes. The above experience with Evangelism Explosion illustrates how we can become obsessed with making a decision. If we step back enough to focus on this issue, we will see an alternate approach is far more productive.

If we step back enough to focus on the obsession with decision, we will see what has happened, what is happening and what will continue to happen if we don’t make some serious changes. I have heard numbers as high as 75 percent of Americans have made some kind of decision to accept Christ, but statistics also show that only about 25 percent of Americans go to church regularly. No one would suggest church attendance is the perfect measure of discipleship, but no one would deny it is at least a baseline measure.

I recently had a conversation with David Kinnaman of the Barna Group, an organization specializing in statistical studies of Americans and their faith. Anyone who brings up statistics about faith seems to be asking for a fight, but studies across the board—and I love to read such studies—show the correlation between making a decision and becoming a mature follower of Jesus is not high. Here are some approximate numbers: Among teenagers (ages 13 to 17) almost 60 percent of the general population makes a “commitment to Jesus”—that is, they make a “decision.” That number changes to more than 80 percent for Protestants and (amazingly) approaches 90 percent for non-mainline Protestants, a group that focuses more on evangelicals. As well, six out of 10 Roman Catholic teens say they have made a “commitment to Jesus.”

However we look at this pie, most Americans “decide” for Jesus; but if we measure discipleship among young adults (ages 18 to 35), we find dramatic (and frankly discouraging) shifts in numbers. Barna has some measures for discipleship, including what they call “revolutionary faith,” a “biblical worldview” and “faith as a highest priority in life.” Take revolutionary faith, which sorts out things such as meaning in life, self-identification as a Christian, Bible reading and prayer, as well as questions about how faith has been or is transforming one’s life. That almost 60 percent becomes about 6 percent, that 80 percent or so of Protestants becomes less than 20 percent and that almost 90 percent of non-mainline Protestants becomes about 20 percent.

At the most conservative of estimates, we lose at least 50 percent of those who make decisions. We cannot help but conclude that making a decision is not the vital element that leads to a life of discipleship. Much higher correlations can be found between routine Sunday School participation, youth group participation and families that nurture one into faith. Our focus on getting young people to make decisions—that is, “accepting Jesus into our hearts”—appears to distort spiritual formation.

I want to say this in a stronger form: I would contend there is a minimal difference in correlation between evangelical children and teenagers who make a decision for Christ and who later become genuine disciples, and Roman Catholics who are baptized as infants and who as adults become faithful and devout Catholic disciples. I am fully aware of the pointedness of this accusation, directed as it is at us who have for years contended we are saved while Roman Catholics are (or may) not (be), but I am trying to make that point. I’m not convinced our system works much more effectively than theirs. I am happy to be proven wrong, but being wrong here won’t change the central challenges of this book.

One more point: Focusing youth events, retreats and programs on persuading people to make a decision disarms the gospel, distorts numbers and diminishes the significance of discipleship. When I read this section of my book to some students recently, a sense of “that’s so right” pervaded the room. Some of them came to faith in the heated moment of a decision-shaped, low lights, evocative music event, but also verbalized that many of their friends did, too—and now they have nothing to do with following Jesus. One student said, “It makes me wonder what it is that makes faith stick.”

I will return to these themes throughout this book, but for now I want to return to my story. As a result of my Evangelism Explosion experience and its aftermath in my own thinking, I developed a cynicism about evangelism. It took deep root as I continued through my college, seminary and doctoral education. I began to pay close attention to the connection of gospel and evangelism and salvation and our methods of persuasion, which (embarrassingly at times) border on the slick and manipulative. I am convinced there is something profoundly wrong with our evangelism and have developed through the years a sensitive ear for anyone with a thought about this problem.

In my earliest days of teaching at a seminary, I worked hard on incorporating discipleship into evangelism or gospel, but I never could find a happy place that satisfied biblical studies and the need to evangelize. After a dozen years of seminary teaching, I shifted to a college and, lo and behold, discovered my classes precipitated faith development toward discipleship and even some conversions in ways I had not anticipated. This classroom experience has led me into a quest to understand more sharply what the gospel is and what evangelism is—and perhaps most importantly how to do evangelism in a way that leads beyond decisions to discipleship.

All of this requires an answer to one big question.

This article is adapted from The King Jesus Gospel by Scot McKnight. Copyright 2011 by Scot McKnight. Used by permission of Zondervan.