Why Door-to-Door Evangelism No Longer Works. It Never Worked Well in the First Place.

Gary North

The old tradition of knocking at doors and handing out tracts has been gone for at least 40 years. Evangelism Explosion barely exists today.

Mormons still use the tactic. So do Jehovah's Witnesses. It is now associated in most people's minds with cults.

What went wrong with the tactic? Americans became couch potatoes. They don't like the outside world invading their "sacred" space.

Radio began this process. Television extended it. Today, the Internet has completed it. Wi-fi, iPods, and video games have entered the sanctuary of the home. There are cultural "No Trespassing" signs barring every outside invader. People have no time for uninvited strangers. This is not going to change.

People hoard their time as if it were money -- as well they should. Time is running out on them. They sense this. They have no time to spare after work. Entertainment fills their spare time. They cannot spare time even for other family members. There is surely no spare time to listen to strangers in the living room. This is not going to change.

They invite the whole world into their homes, digitally. If you want into their homes or lives, you must digitize.

Fuller Brush Company used this technique for over half a century. So did Avon cosmetics. For centuries before them, tinkers and traveling peddlers sold their wares door to door. That was back when strangers with news from outside the town were welcome. Not today. Fuller Brush has not used door-to-door salesmen in 40 years. Neither has Avon.

The Fuller Brush Company has disappeared from public view, yet it still sells 2,500 products. It sells on-line. Avon has survived, but only by abandoning the old sales tactic.

The new technique is the multi-level marketing approach. People sell by contacting friends. The most famous of these programs is Amway. It was started by a pair of members if the Christin Reformed Church, a Dutch-American denomination. But the technique almost always fails. Most MLM's die within two years. Why? Because very few people have the psychological makeup of a salesman -- warm, manipulative, highly focused, unwilling to quit. This is why those who become MLM salesmen soon alienate their friends. Friendship turns into business.

Churches have not replaced door-to-door evangelism with anything equally systematic and members-initiated. Few of them have gone digital. Most churches never allocate money for direct mail or Yellow Pages ads. Those that have rarely use systematic metrics to know whether the expenditures are working.

Now what?

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