Month: February 2008

4. Keep the Passion Alive

Priorities can be easily replaced by other seemingly urgent or pressing matters. As we become busy with so many things in church life we can begin to drift from our mission. That’s why the work of an evangelist also involves keeping the evangelistic passion of a church community alive and bright hot.

There are a number of ways to do this:

·         Have new Christians share their testimony with the church. There is nothing more impacting than congregations hearing stories of changed lives.

·         Preach and teach about evangelism every year. Good Bible teaching has a way of heating up important values.

·         Keep a record of important “vital signs” such as people coming to faith and water baptisms. When these numbers stop growing or begin to plateau it’s probably time to stir the fires of evangelism again.

·         Attend other highly evangelistic churches or conferences.

Continue reading “Evangelism for Non-Evangelists (Part 4)” →

3. Create Evangelistic Opportunities

The third thing that evangelists should do is to create evangelistic opportunities for people. The Great Commission involves both “Go” (Matt.28:18-20) and “Come and see” (John 4:29). In other words, believers are to go and share their faith out in the world and they are to invite their friends to come and see the activity of God within the church community.

The church is not to be a castle surrounded by a moat to keep all of the unbelievers out. Each local church should create as many entry points and bridges as possible so that people can be encouraged to experience the life of Christ within the church community.

Our church does this in a variety of ways:

• We ensure that each church meeting is sensitive to and relevant for those who are far from God. This does not mean that every meeting needs to have an evangelistic message or that we should stop doing things such as worship, prayer, or ministry. It simply means that we are always seeking to create an environment where new people feel welcomed and included. This includes things such as a special welcome for visitors during the meeting, an invitation to our visitor’s lounge, and occasional explanations of various components of the meeting so that a newcomer knows what is happening.
• We ensure that special yearly events are opportunities for people to invite friends to church – e.g. Father’s Day, Mother’s Day, Easter, Christmas, etc.
• We offer the ALPHA Course throughout the year, which is an excellent program for people to consider the claims of Christ in a safe friendly environment where they can interact with others and ask questions.
• All of our ministries have outreach-focused events throughout the year – small groups, youth, young adults, etc.
• We hold special IF ('invite a friend') events throughout the year that are specially designed for people to bring their friends along to an appropriate evangelistic meeting. We make use of music and drama as well as testimonies of changed lives.
• A few years ago we started a community outreach ministry. Our aim was to allow our programs to emerge in response to the greatest needs in our community. As a result, we now have a large ‘Op Shop’ supplying low cost clothing. We also have financial counselling and food parcels, as well as a fully qualified counselling centre where sixty percent of the counselees are from the local community. When a church adds value to its local community in this way it sows many seeds of love and kindness that often result in people coming to faith.

A while back, I interviewed a family who had all become Christians during the year. One of them, a young single woman, was invited to attend our midweek ALPHA course where she became a Christian. After attending our church for a while she invited her mother along, who responded to a message and came forward and gave her life to Christ. As a result of this, another daughter began to attend and over time her and her husband have found faith in Christ. This is how the gospel travels – through relationships and over a period of time.

Another couple in our community were having marriage problems. The wife came for counseling and began to receive help. As a result her husband came for counseling and their marriage was restored. She then invited him to our church where he became a Christian. A few months later, he invited his brother to a guest service we held and he made a commitment to Christ too.

It is vital that there is consistency of quality and approach with your various outreach events and activities. This helps people to develop confidence and trust that if they invite a friend they will not be disappointed or surprised by something they did not expect. 

When a church becomes passionate about reaching people for Christ and then starts putting out all sorts of ‘nets’ into their community it’s amazing how God begins to work to draw people to himself. Evangelists must create as many evangelistic opportunities as possible.

Read Part 4.

2. Equip People to Share their Faith

The second thing we must do if we are to do the work of an evangelist is to train people to share their faith. One of the tasks of an evangelist it to “equip” the entire church to do the ministry of evangelism (Eph.4:11-12). God wants every Christian to be a soul winner. Jesus told his disciples, “I will make you fishers of men” (Mark 1:17). The Holy Spirit comes to give us power and boldness to witness for Jesus Christ (Acts 1:8). The apostle Peter told all believers to “be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give a reason for the hope that you have” (1 Pet.3:15). Solomon tells us, “The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and he who wins souls is wise (Prov.11:30).

Most Christians know that they should share their faith but often they’re too afraid, they’ve tried and failed or they don’t think that they are capable. Our role as leaders is to not just tell them “what” they should be doing but to teach them “how” so that they gain confidence. People need help with application not just more information. They need to know how to share their faith.

Continue reading “Evangelism for Non-Evangelists (Part 2)” →

Many years ago, when I began a new role as senior minister of a large church, I knew that God was calling me to help the church become more outward focused. The evangelistic passion and effectiveness of the church needed to lift considerably.

My main spiritual gifts are leadership and teaching. Evangelism is not a strong part of the way God has made me. After all, God gave “some” to be evangelists, so not everyone has this spiritual gift (Eph.4:11). However, I sensed the Lord challenging me that although I was not an evangelist I needed to “do the work of an evangelist” just like Timothy was encouraged to (2 Tim.4:5).

Timothy was a young pastor/teacher who was stationed in Ephesus as Paul’s apostolic representative (1 Tim.1:3). This church had experienced significant levels of outreach in its early days (Acts 19-20) but false doctrine emerged within the church and it is highly possible that the evangelistic fervour of the church had waned. Paul did not tell Timothy to be or to become an evangelist (something he was not) but simply to do the work of one.

What is the work of an evangelist? As I contemplated this question a few key tasks emerged: ensuring that churches and believers embrace’s heaven’s priority and have a heart for lost people; training and equipping people to share their faith; ensuring that the churches and believers engages in variety of evangelistic activities; and helping the church and believers keep their evangelistic passion and fervour alive.

Over the next few days we'll discuss each one of these. Today, let's look at the first one – embracing heaven's priority.

1. Embrace Heaven’s Priority

We know that heaven is a place of continual joy and celebration. However, there is one thing that causes the joy level in heaven to increase exponentially. What is it? The joy level in heaven increases when one person bows their knee and confesses Jesus Christ as the forgiver of their sin and the leader of their life. Jesus tells us that there is “more joy” in heaven over one lost sinner who repents than over ninety-nine others who never strayed (Luke 15:7,10). Heaven’s priority is seeing lost people found.

This priority was demonstrated by Jesus himself who came into the world for one primary reasons – to save sinners (Mattt.9:13. Luke 5:27-32. 1 Tim.1:15). God’s heart is for the world (John 3:16) and he does not want one person to perish. He wants all people to be saved and come to know the truth (1 Tim.2:1-4. 2 Pet.3:9). If evangelism is heaven’s priority then it must be the passionate priority of the church here on earth. As Bill Hybels (pastor of Willow Creek) says, “Lost people matter to God, therefore they should matter to us.” Each local church exists not only to love God and other believers but also to reach out to those who are far from Christ. The church exists for mission.

Unfortunately, this work of evangelism has been pushed off on to believers by pastors, pushed off on to pastors by believers or pushed off to those believers with the gift of evangelism. As a result, in most churches evangelism just isn’t happening. The only way for the tide to turn is for churches to make a “priority shift” from an inward focus to an outward focus and for everyone to become actively involved. The church’s mission will only be accomplished as the entire church is motivated, equipped and deployed in the work of evangelism.

As a church leader, I had to embrace heaven’s priority in my own life first. Only after modelling this personally, could I then help our congregation change its values and begin becoming an evangelistic community. No church will be any more excited about evangelism and outreach than their leaders are. The Senior Minister must lead the way.

The good news is that mission is the activity of God himself. It is part of the very nature of God and has its origin in his heart. There is mission because God loves people. When we get involved in reaching out to people far from God we simply partner in what God is already at work doing in the earth. We embrace heaven’s priority.

For me this required placing a new priority on developing relationships with unchurched people, becoming more aware of their spiritual needs, and a greater boldness in proactively starting spiritual conversations. This was not easy at first, in fact, I felt quite awkward as I started to step out of my comfort zone and into new territory. However, as I faced my fears, confidence slowly began to grow, as well as the joy of touching someone else with God’s love.

 

Read Part 2.