The Culture of Evangelism

Last week, we spent our time together doing a couple of things:

- Developing a biblical understanding of our soul’s condition without Jesus

- Developing a biblical understanding of God’s great love for us

With being our launching pad, hopefully we came to the conclusion that we must… if we are to be faithful to God’s call on our life… we must pursue people with the intent of sharing with them the Gospel—, , are all passages that we explicitly see this as the Christian’s duty. Not to mention the whole running theme of Scripture is about God using man as His instruments to accomplish His mission. And then I mentioned two possibilities on why we might not be doing that as faithfully as we ought:

- True conversion hasn’t taken place

- We don’t realize the urgency of our message

Today I want to give you maybe a third reason on why we might not be sharing the Gospel—

Our Church Hasn’t Developed a Culture of Evangelism

What I mean by that is maybe we are too busy waiting for the church to develop a program to reach the lost instead of being faithful to the daily opportunities God is giving us throughout our day to day life?

Mack Stiles is a pastor on staff at a church that he helped plant in Dubai. Two of his particular gifts are teaching and evangelism. He has passionately put those two gifts together and travels frequently doing church conferences on what biblical evangelism looks like. And this isn’t coming from a guy who is just talking… he lives to share Jesus with lost people. He told a story about doing a seminar at a church in Austin, Texas.

He was asked, “Many Vietnamese are moving into the community around our church; what is the church going to do to reach out to them?”

Now I want to make clear that this is a victory in any church. A member recognized the privilege and responsibility to reach a whole community of people with the Gospel who most likely don’t come from a Christian background. The problem with the question is that it assumes that the first option of outreach centers on the church developing a program.

Here’s where I think we have clouded the mission and aim of the church and our own personal mission and aim as Christians. The main task of the church is to be the church. The church is an evangelistic witness in and of itself. I mean just think about it! God has built within the fabric of our church proclamations of the Gospel.

The local church is the Gospel made visible:

- In our love for one another

- Baptism—The Death, Burial and Resurrection of Jesus. His death is our death and His life is our life.

- The Lord’s Supper—Proclaims the death of Christ until He returns! It calls us to repent of our sins and trust in the sufficiency of His forgiveness

- Prayer—We proclaim His forever nearness, His life-altering power, His abundant grace, His loyal kindness

- Singing—We sing of the great things He has done for us through the Gospel

- Giving—We financially sacrifice to advance the Gospel believing its message is the world’s only hope

You see the church is evangelism… The task of the church is not to develop this seeker sensitive environment where the main function is to keep afloat countless programs but for the church to send out its seeker friendly members equipped with sharing the Gospel themselves.

Biblical evangelism is the message of Christ’s grace saving us from our sin naturally flowing from believers in every area of their lives because they themselves are:

- In love with the Gospel truth

- Committed to Gospel living

- Rooted in Gospel study

The most effective outreach geared towards the growing Vietnamese families in their area was not a church program but for individual Christians to learn some Vietnamese greetings, introduce themselves, be sensitive to their culture, try their food, learn about and sympathize with their struggles, invite them in your homes, introduce them to the Bible, share how God has changed your heart and invite them to church. It’s there they can see for themselves the visible Gospel proclaimed in community.

Look with me at

Read

7 It is right for me to feel this way about you all, because I hold you in my heart, for you are all partakers with me of grace, both in my imprisonment and in the defense and confirmation of the gospel. 8 For God is my witness, how I yearn for you all with the affection of Christ Jesus. 9 And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, 10 so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, 11 filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

12 I want you to know, brothers, that what has happened to me has really served to advance the gospel, 13 so that it has become known throughout the whole imperial guard and to all the rest that my imprisonment is for Christ. 14 And most of the brothers, having become confident in the Lord by my imprisonment, are much more bold to speak the word without fear.

In the early days of Christianity where the Gospel was taking root in people’s hearts at an incredible rate and in areas of our world today where Christianity is experiencing the most rapid growth, the possibility of the church doing evangelistic programs was impossible. What they saw and are seeing in their particular times and cultures is people being firmed in their hearts of this great message and sharing it despite all negative consequences.

Now do not misunderstand what I’m saying… God can and has used church programs and large scale evangelistic outreaches. It’s not that we should be anti these things… but we must be careful not to allow them to replace our personal responsibility in sharing the Gospel. When you consider the cost of starting and keeping up a program in comparison to building a relationship and having a conversation over a cup of coffee and hold these two options up next to biblical examples… Church, many of us have no choice in here but to repent of our neglect in our Christian responsibility to ask God for eyes to see opportunities, courage to embrace those opportunities, and wisdom to navigate through those opportunities.

The programs have their place… I would say they are also essential but for other reasons.

- They produce community among believers who participate in them

- They encourage us to take stands for Christ collectively and strengthens our ability to do it individually

- They provide a burst of energy and create a level of excitement

They are good and have purpose but if our church allows them to be our focus we will see ourselves slowly put all the responsibility on the church programs and the people leading them rather than pursuing the obviously more biblical model.

Now, I think it would be helpful for us to more fully define this culture of evangelism not just from what it isn’t but from what it is. A culture is the practice of beliefs, customs and ways of life that are distinct to a particular collection of people. So if our collection of people are going to be defined by an evangelistic way of life that brings glory to Jesus—Here are the keys:

A Culture of Evangelism Demands:

1. We be Motivated by the Love of Jesus

14 For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; 15 and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.

The reason evangelism often fills more like a burden than a joyous opportunity is because our practice of it isn’t motivated by our love for Jesus but a fulfillment of an obligation.

2. We be Confident in the Gospel

16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and also to the Greek.

The sad truth of many churches today is that the life-changing message of Jesus has been traded for gimmicks and entertainment or been so watered down that there is no more blood contained in the message to wash away sins.

And people are BEATING down doors to get in and hear messages that doesn’t run across the grain of their true affections. I heard THIS WEEK someone tell me the reason they love going to the church is because they never feel bad. When did we stray so far from God that we have forgotten conviction is a gift He gives us!

Listen, there is nothing wrong with well-done services, but when we begin to gauge the effectiveness of our church services by how entertained we were… we’ve abandoned our confidence in the Gospel.

3. The Church Be Filled with People Who Know how to Celebrate

Celebrating two things:

- We celebrate changed lives

The return of the prodigal… this all necessitates that we see people the way God sees people

- We celebrate evangelistic attempts

Even if we fail to build relationships or there is rejection of our Gospel conversation… Evangelistic failure is better than no evangelistic attempt.

This isn’t some big flashy, boast-worthy program… but it’s the best way.