Personal Theological Statement on Evangelism

This was written a couple of weeks ago as an assignment for the Strategic Evangelism Class I will finish tomorrow at Rockbridge Seminary. There were to be no quotations and no footnotes and it was to be written in your own words. So it is not a typical academic paper. But I am putting it here so that those of you who wonder about Rockbridge, or are just interested in evangelism might be able to gather something possibly to use. We were asked to provide a bibliography of books that have influenced us in evangelism and you'll find that at the end of the paper.

What I Believe About the Biblical Purpose of Evangelism
Jesus came He said, to look for and rescue those who were lost. Much of the gospels reflect His heart for those who were either burned out on religion as it was practiced at the time, or those who were completely outside the camp. He described those outside as being sheep without a shepherd, tossed about, blown by whatever wind was prevailing. He explained His work as helping to bring the Kingdom of God alive within the hearts of people. Jesus came preaching the good news that the Kingdom of God had drawn near to people, and that the right response to that was to repent (change behavior, change direction, leave the old life behind), believe (in His rights and position as Messiah, in His mission, in His explanations and interpretations of Scripture - the whole you have heard it said, but I say – motif)

As you continue to look at His explanations of what evangelism means, He used parables which were decidedly relevant to the people of that time. They could buy into the deeper spiritual truths He was presenting because He laid the foundation by using the commonplace, the shared understandings, the culture they lived in as a backdrop for the “jewels” of the gospel. I think that people at the time, the common people at least, thought that they could never really inherit anything. Fully two thirds of the people at that time were slaves, the religious parties had a tight grip, and gentiles like us were simply unfit to receive much from God.

So Jesus came, explaining that God wasn’t interested in shallow displays of religious affection, or outward piety. No, God wanted His Kingdom to come, and His will to be done on earth. And that will was that no one should die without the saving knowledge of Jesus’ message. So Jesus came, and He preached, and He modeled evangelism in His talks with people of all faith backgrounds. He jousted with those who knew it all. He poked and prodded those who knew a lot but were still open. He helped the misguided see the truth. He reached out to the fallen, the failed, and the unlovely.

While he was here, he taught His disciples and the circle of companions that supported Him throughout His mission. He build a core group of people who at least grasped some of what He was trying to teach them regarding God’s work in bringing light to the nations, and who believed in Him. In His last words to them, He gave them a challenging command to go and make disciples of all people (pante ethos), teaching them to obey everything he had taught.

At Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came, everything suddenly made sense. The words of Jesus that the disciples just couldn’t always connect with what they knew from Judaism became alive in them, and the commands He had given them to be His witnesses, to spread His good news, to make disciples – got the fuel needed to go from abstract concepts they were still puzzling over – to the passionate goal of their life and the reason they were alive. For me, this is our purpose as Christians at the core – to glorify God with our lives in everything we do, knowing that we have been placed here to be part of God’s Big Story – His Master Plan – of reconciling the world to Himself through the Body of Christ Jesus. That may take the form of individual witness, of institutional outreach – but it is why we are here. Evangelism is an imperative not an alternative in a sea of choices.

What I Believe About the Practice of Evangelism In The Local Church
As a veteran of many different applications of evangelistic techniques and programs, and as a child of the decades when church growth paradigms were in vogue, I’d say that looking at the church’s work in relationship to the five “purposes” as laid out by Rick Warren in his book, the Purpose Driven Church makes sense to me.

Evangelism is part of the plan that God has placed for us in Scripture as a Body of believers in Jesus. Along with the other purposes, it is something that cannot be overlooked or we will be weakened overall, and it can not be over emphasized (except in a corrective action) or we as a church will become out of balance. Instead it is integrated into all that we do in one way or another.

As a group of people, we are to live out our calling to be instruments of reconciliation. We are to reach out to the hurting, to the broken, to the disaffected, to those who do not know God. But even at the extremes of that effort, we have to stay grounded in the knowledge that we too had nothing of merit that would cause God to turn His favor upon us. Once we weren’t anything special, but now we are children of God who have a treasure within that belies the container it is placed in. So as we are going through the lives God has given us, we reach out with the hope that the Spirit will draw people from sin’s grip and into fellowship with God through Jesus Christ.

I see that work of evangelism as relational, incarnational, and confrontational depending on how the Spirit leads. (And I would rely heavily on that leading just as Philip did, just as Paul did.) We are to be salt and light, (both flavoring individuals and preserving God’s truth within the culture, and casting light upon the right way as well as illuminating evil) living our lives as praise and worship doing the good works that God prepared in advance for us to do so that people might be drawn to us to know why. Jesus explained that we aren’t to congregate in a holy huddle or hide behind the fortress walls. Salt only works when it’s shaken out and it’s useless when impure. Light wasn’t made to be hidden but placed in position to do the most good. Jesus’ call to the disciples was to come and follow Him, and He would make them fishers of men.

So we live life in relationships with people, meeting their needs and loving them as they are praying that the Spirit gives us opportunity to help them meet their unmet need of wholeness and right standing with God through a relationship with Jesus Christ. And we live as examples of how a person should follow Christ in hopes that the difference between our lives and those of the world might provide points of contact where we might develop bridges that the gospel might pass over. Then there are also times and situations in which we must confront the culture and the people trapped within it with their position versus the commands of Jesus and the Word of God.
I have become convinced over the past few years that the surest way to drive evangelism by the Body is to kick the Body out of church and into the community. We couple that with training on how to build the bridges, how to ask questions that lead to spiritual conversations and work to take the fear out of the evangelistic event. I’ve learned a lot from the work of Brian McClaren, Jim Henderson, Robert Aldridge, Robert Lewis, as well as from the ministry outreaches of FBC Leesburg FL, who really set a standard for churches within my denomination on how to reach into the culture, meeting needs to see people come to Jesus.

What I Believe About the Responsibility of Church Leadership In Leading Others To Evangelize
When the Scripture explains the qualifications of church leaders, it spends a great deal of time looking at the quality of the life those persons must live. It refers to the quality of their family relationships, their personal reputation in the community, and the way the leader lives when no one is looking. In other places, it explains that not many should choose this path, because once you are on it, you are subject to additional scrutiny from God. So for one to enter this path means that person should be aware that a life of leadership in God’s church implicitly assumes a level of personal holiness and commitment to God’s plan.

That life then incarnates Paul’s command to follow him as he followed Jesus. The leader cannot expect people to go any farther than he or she is willing to go themselves. So in addition to equipping the Body to do evangelism, the leader must be an example of one who incorporates evangelism in everyday life (just as we are an example of life as worship).

Leaders as individuals are of course formed differently. Some are naturally relational and outgoing, others are withdrawn and essentially private. Others are gifted in evangelism though the vast majority may not be. It really doesn’t matter, because every Christian is called to do the work of an evangelist. So even though the leader may not see dozens of converts as someone who is gifted in that area might, it still falls under their personal responsibility as well as their responsibility as a leader to be engaged in that work.

That will mean for most of us in vocational ministry, getting out of the office and into the larger gene pool. We have to make an effort to find ways to be in company with people who are not in church and who may be far from God. So the leader who expects the church to engage in evangelism needs to prioritize building relationships with unbelievers. Then as you do that, involve some of your people who can pick up the idea and form their own personal ministries of outreach. There’s no way one individual can possibly make as big a difference as a group of individuals united and engaged in an intentionally evangelistic lifestyle can.

Bibliography of Where My Personal Beliefs About Evangelism Come
The Message, Eugene Peterson
The New Living Translation, Second Edition, Tyndale House
Systematic Theology, Wayne Grudem
The Moody Handbook of Theology, Ennis
The Baptist Faith and Message, 2000
The Holman Bible Dictionary
Matthew, Holman NIV Commentary, Anders
Matthew, Communicator’s Commentary, Augsburger
More Ready Than You Realize, Brian McClaren
An Unstoppable Force, Erwin McManus
Friendship Evangelism, Joseph Aldrich
Lifestyle Evangelism, Crossing Traditional Boundaries, Joseph Aldrich
Dog Training, Fly Fishing, and Sharing Christ in the 21st Century, Ted Haggard
His Heart, Your Hands, NAMB Publication
The Jesus Way, Eugene Peterson
The Church of Irresistible Influence, Robert Lewis
Searching For God Knows What, Donald Miller
The Purpose Driven Church, Rick Warren
Bible Navigator Software, version 4
Libronix Digital Library System
Following Jesus, N.T. Wright
To Follow Him, Mark Bailey