Evangelship with Lawrence Perez
What happens when discipleship and evangelism stop being two separate programs—and become one way of life?
That's the question at the heart of Evangelship, the new book by Lawrence Perez—and this conversation is a must-listen for anyone who's ever felt like their faith was more active inside a church building than out in the world.
Larry is the founding pastor of U-Turn Covenant Church in Chicago and a retired probation officer whose approach to ministry grew not from a strategy session, but from hanging out in barbershops, gyms, and factory lunch rooms—long before he had a name for what he was doing.
The Barbershop and the Wells
Larry's story begins in 2007 when he started walking his neighborhood, asking himself the question from John 4: Where are the wells? Where do people actually gather?
He found his answer in a local barbershop. Over months of relationship-building—showing up, listening, being present—his barber friend eventually introduced him as "my pastor" before he'd ever said a prayer with him. That moment became the spark for a church, and a model for a movement.
"When you build disciples, you always find the church. But if you build the church, you don't always find disciples." — Mike Breen
What Is Evangelship?
The word itself is the thesis: evangelism + discipleship, fused into a single concept.
Larry's insight—born out of a COVID-era conversation with his own congregation—was that most believers had been shaped into an event-driven faith. Evangelism happened at outreach nights. Discipleship happened in 10-week courses. Outside of programs, people didn't know how to integrate either one into a normal Tuesday.
But the life Larry had actually been living looked nothing like that. It looked like Bible study before the barbershop opened. It looked like factory lunch breaks. It looked like gym workouts where the Scripture from last week became the conversation thread.
The metaphor that crystallized it:inhaling and exhaling.
We inhale the life of Jesus. We exhale the love of Jesus. You can't separate them—not physiologically, not spiritually. Evangelship is simply the full breath.
"When you professionalize that which was called to be normal, you paralyze everybody." — Ed Stetzer
Ordinary People Are the Plan
One of the most compelling threads in this conversation is Larry's conviction that God doesn't wait for credentialed specialists to show up before moving in people's lives.
He points to Ananias in Acts 9—not one of the Twelve, just a regular disciple—who God sent to speak to Saul of Tarsus. Not Peter. Not John. Ananias.
Larry's question: Why him?
His answer: Ananias was the frequency Saul needed to hear.
Every ordinary person carries a voice, a story, a set of relationships that no one else has. God has people connected to your frequency—people who will hear the gospel through you in ways they simply wouldn't from a stage or a stranger.
And in case the bar feels too high: Matthew 28:17 records that when Jesus gave the Great Commission, some of those gathered still doubted. He entrusted the mission to them anyway.
Story Catching Before Storytelling
One of the most practical frameworks Larry shares is the idea of being a story catcher before becoming a storyteller.
He describes a chance encounter in Tampa—a meeting at an Applebee's with an atheist engaged to one of his church member's relatives. Rather than opening with the gospel, Larry opened with a question: "What's your story?"
What followed was a journey through jail time, a motorcycle accident where the man flew fifteen feet and landed on his feet, and a chance meeting with a waitress who would become his fiancée—who then told him the only way she'd marry him was in a church.
Larry's response: "I don't think you're just going to marry her. I believe Jesus wants to marry you."
The man wept. No one had ever connected the dots of his own story for him.
"Evangelism is awakening others to the God that's already there." — Leonard Sweet
That's the work of a story catcher: listening until you can see where God has already been at work—and then helping someone else see it too. Nobody argues with their own story.
The BLESSED Model
For those looking for a practical on-ramp, Larry references the BLESS framework from John and Dave Ferguson:
B — Be in prayer
L — Listen to them
E — Eat with them
S — Serve them
S — Share your story (last, not first)
The sequence matters. Most of us want to jump to the final "S." Evangelship asks us to slow down enough to earn the right to be heard—because change moves at the speed of trust.
Resources & Links
Book:Evangelship by Lawrence Perez — available on Amazon and Barnes & Noble
Website: evangelship.com
Church: U-Turn Covenant Church, Chicago, IL
Keep the Conversation Going
If this episode resonated with you, share it with someone who's wrestling with what it looks like for faith to move beyond Sunday. And if you're a leader asking how to help ordinary people embrace this—Larry's book is a great place to start.
100 Movements Podcast explores ideas around mDNA and features authors writing about how the church can think and move in new paradigms. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts.