Evangelism & Church

This has been a big week; I’m sure a lot of you are exhausted, and you still have a lot more to do. My goal here is not to teach you anything new about evangelism methods or evangelism prep (Harry and Manu have already done that, and they’re far better equipped than I am to do that anyway).

But Lord willing, tomorrow you’ll be going back home. And I hope you’ll continue to do what you’ve been doing very intensely this week in your respective neighborhoods and cities and towns. And it’s that context—the context of your local community—that I want to talk about here.

When I was a kid I was in a church that had an evangelism training program. I wasn’t a Christian, but I loved my dad and wanted to make him happy, so when he asked me if I’d be interested I signed up. We learned a method of sharing the gospel, of sharing our testimonies; we practiced together over the course of a few weeks; and then for several weeks after that, we’d go out once a week to do some door-to-door evangelism.

When I was finished, I put that whole experience on the shelf, thought, Okay, I did that, and moved on. And I didn’t think about it again until I was an adult, when actually was a Christian, and I was learning what the Bible said.

And when I thought about it for the first time, something struck me that I hadn’t thought of before, and I was just flabbergasted it happened this way.

And here’s the thing. If we shared the gospel with someone, and they “made a decision for Christ,” we would pray with them, take their contact information so we could follow up in a few weeks to see how they were doing…and then leave.

In everything we would say to them, from the testimonies to the sharing of the gospel to the follow-up, we never mentioned the church.

Or if we did, it was almost always to those people who weren’t receiving the gospel—it was kind of, “If you want to know more, come to church” thing. Church was just another tool in the evangelism bag.

At first I thought that maybe it was just something that happened in America in the late 80s/early 90s (yes, I’m that old), so I did some checking, and I asked around, and I realized that for a lot of people who did regular, intentional evangelism, it still happened this way. They’d rack up so-called “conversions,” without ever thinking about the aftermath.

Or I’d see churches put on evangelism events—concerts or shows or testimonials. They’d tout huge numbers of conversions after such events. And then they’d never stop to wonder why, out of thirty new believers they had at that event, they’d see only one or two of them again.

We often see evangelism as a one-on-one endeavor. It’s me, talking to an individual (or a couple of individuals) about Christ, in a neutral context. And we like that, because we know that people are wary of church, whereas a conversation with one or two people who happen to be Christians is far less intimidating.

We can have our method down perfectly, have all the best means of convincing and explaining and sharing our testimonies, and even get “decisions for Christ” (Is it clear that I hate that phrase?) in record numbers… But if our ecclesiology is skewed, then everything we do is going to be off.

So rather than talking about evangelism directly, we’re going to spend a couple of minutes talking about ecclesiology—what the Bible says about the church. Because I’ll maintain that the church—and not “decisions for Christ”—is the end goal of evangelism.

Our evan

We’ll take a broad view first, and then we’ll focus in on one text in particular.

Church membership: an implicit command

In our church, if you want to become a member, you have to take a membership class. It’s a day-long event: 9:00 to 5:00 on a Saturday, with an hour break for lunch. We go through our church’s confession of faith, our bylaws, the practical aspects of how things work in our church, etc. It’s long, and it’s intense, and it’s awesome. We do it twice a year.

At the beginning of that class, we talk about why we even care about membership in the first place. Because that idea—that you should belong to a local church—is not a given in our society.

But—surprise, surprise—the New Testament takes it as a given that those who believe in Christ will belong to a church—not go to a church: BELONG to a church. And not the church, as in the universal church—a local church. A church in your town, or even better, in your neighborhood.

Church membership is never explicitly commanded in the NT—but it is definitely implicit.

The New Testament takes it as a given that those who believe in Christ will belong to a church—not go to a church: BELONG to a church. And not the church, as in the universal church—a local church.

Mark Dever gave this helpful visual (triangle).

If you took a weekend and read the New Testament, and you made a list of all the commandments in the New Testament, in 99.9% of the cases, you could draw a direct line between one of these corners and the other, or all three.

For example—:

14 Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord.

If you’re sick, who should you call? The elders of the church. Any elders? Of any church? James never says it explicitly, but it’s clear that he’s saying, no, your elders—the elders of your church.

And by the same token, I (as an elder) am not responsible for praying for every sick person I see. I can, of course, and that’d be a good thing for me to do; but it’s not among the responsibilities the Bible gives me. I am called to pray for my people, to anoint my people.

(here’s a big one):

Let the one who is taught the word share all good things with the one who teaches.

He’s talking about paying your pastors. Is Paul saying that you should pay anyone who teaches you? I’m teaching you right now; should you pay me? Of course not. (You can, but you’re not commanded to.)

No—you’re called to pay your teachers, your pastors.

One more—:

Obey your leaders and submit to them, for they are keeping watch over your souls, as those who will have to give an account.

Whom should you obey? All church leaders, everywhere? No—some of those guys are nuts. You are called to submit to your leaders: the leaders of your local church.

And I’m a pastor. I care about all of you, and I’m praying for all of you. But I’m not going to have to give an account before God for all of you. And I’m not called to keep watch over your souls as an elder would.

Is anyone from Connexion here today? I’m called to keep watch over them. I’ll have to give an account for them.

But here’s the thing: I only know that because they belong to my church.

In nearly all of the commands in the NT, you will find an implicit context—and almost every time, that context will be the context of the local church. Every Christian should belong to a local church, because if you don’t, you will be unable to obey the Word of God. You don’t have to “bear with” people you don’t know; you don’t have to show patience toward people you don’t know. You can just leave.

If you want to obey most of the New Testament commands, you need to know which church you belong to, and to whom you are accountable.

The Goal of Evangelism (Ephesians 4.1-16)

The NT’s implicit teaching on membership: membership stuff—cours de membres

Now let’s keep that idea in mind, and see how it works itself out in one text in particular: .

3.5: In evangelizing without church, we will (but for the grace of God) create the very kinds of people that Paul tells Timothy to avoid.

In chapter 3 Paul speaks of this amazing plan of God—to take the Jewish Messiah, Jesus Christ, and through him to open up the kingdom of God to all the nations of the world, so that (as he says in v. 10) through the church the manifold wisdom of God might now be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly places.

3.7: They will learn everywhere—and that’s good. But learning outside the context of the body is an exercize in futility: it’s the perfect way to learn a ton of stuff and never come to a knowledge of the truth.

3.10-15: The example—Timothy followed not only Paul’s teaching, but his conduct, his love, his sufferings, his perseverance.

And as he starts chapter 4, he’s saying, “Because all that is true, here’s how I’m calling you to respond.”

Timothy did not learn his faith in a bubble. Neither can we.

V. 1:

I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, 2 with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, 3 eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace.

OK, that’s a perfect example of what I was saying before. It is impossible to obey v. 1-3 of outside of the context of a community in which you know your brothers and sisters very well. You don’t need to consistently show humility, patience, gentleness, forbearance, with strangers. You just walk out the door.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

And you can’t maintain unity of the Spirit if you only see a brother or a sister once. You’re spiritually united to them through faith in Christ, sure—but we’re called to maintain that unity: to work on it, to get better at it, to grow in it. It’s only possible to do that in the context of a local church, in which you know your brothers and sisters really well.

So Paul tells the Ephesians to work hard at their relationships with one another, to maintain the unity the Spirit has established between them. And then, in v. 4, he tells them why.

V. 4:

4 There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism, 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

When Paul says there is one body here, he’s talking about the whole body—all Christians, throughout all of human history, who have been united to God through faith in Christ. It is the same Spirit who regenerates us, the same Lord who rules us, the same faith which saves us, the same baptism which identifies us, the same God and Father who created us and lives in us and works through us.

3.15-17: Timothy learned from the Bible, faithfully taught to him by others.

4.1-5: Paul’s charge to preach the word—to whom? His congregation. To exhort (whom?)

That reality of the body is absolutely essential to see, because it goes against everything we’re taught in our culture today. We’re taught, “Whatever I want is what’s good. Whatever I need is what’s most important. Whatever I feel is what is most true about me.”

v. 5: His charge to “do the work of an evangelist” is given in the context of Timothy’s ministry in the church.

So of course we take that highly individualistic mindset that’s been built into us, and we transplant that into our faith. If I come to Christ, I come for me. Now of course it’s true that Christ didn’t just save a faceless mass of people—he saved me. I am an individual human being, I can’t be anything else. And Christ saved me. He knows my name. He knows my face. He knows my fears and desires and tendencies. He died for me.

That is gloriously true, and we don’t want to take away from that.

But the problem is that many, if not most, Christians stop there. And if we always focus on what Christ has done for me, and never look higher, to what he did for us, we miss the point. We are not saved merely as individuals; we are saved into a body; and, as Paul says in v. 7, grace was given to each one of us—for a very specific reason.

V. 7:

7 But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ’s gift. 8 Therefore it says,

“When he ascended on high he led a host of captives,

and he gave gifts to men.”

9 (In saying, “He ascended,” what does it mean but that he had also descended into the lower regions, the earth? 10 He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things.)

This is sort of a weird aside, and depending on the translation you’re reading, verses 9 and 10 may even be in parentheses to show that he’s going just a bit off topic. But in fact, it’s not all that off-topic at all.

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

In v. 9-10, he’s talking about the incarnation and the ascension. Christ became a man—he descended to earth—and fulfilled his ministry. And after all that was complete, he ascended back to the right hand of his Father, where he now holds all power and authority over the earth he created. And because he has that authority, he gives gifts to each of us as he sees fit, through his Holy Spirit, when he saves us.

But the question, again, is why? And that’s what he’s going to get into now.

In v. 11-12, Paul is going to give us the goal of ministry. Not some ministries, all ministry.

V. 11:

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers…

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

Now of course that’s not an exhaustive list of everything that could be called a ministry. (Even if the way we use that word today is a heck of a lot broader than it was back then.) He gives this list as a kind of representative list—these are the main ministries we see in the New Testament.

And they all have the same goal. They don’t use the same means to get there, but they all have the same goal. What is it? V. 11 again:

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ…

Anon, 2016. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton, IL: Crossway Bibles.

That’s the goal of every ministry we could imagine: to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the building up of the body of Christ. Every ministry, in one way or another, exists to contribute to that end goal. To build up the body of Christ.

The apostles establish the church (that’s done); prophets encourage the church in time-specific ways; evangelists bring people into the church; pastors (or pastor-teachers) train the church in godliness.

Now go down a bit to

Let’s remember why we’re here—to talk about evangelism. And the goal of evangelism is to build up the body of Christ. It is not to get people to make “decisions for Christ.” It is not to convince people that a certain worldview is the right one.

The goal of evangelism is to build up the body of Christ.

So what does that look like? What does it look like to build up the body of Christ?

v. 4-6: The absolutely vital reality of the body—we were not saved as individuals, but into a body.

V. 13:

13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. 15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, 16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

So we’ve got a long list there. If the goal of all of our ministries is to build up the body of Christ, then these are the things we’ll see when that happens.

We’ll see unity in the faith (v. 13).

...

We’ll see true knowledge of the Son of God (v. 13).

...

We’ll see maturity—mature men and mature women living together as mature children of God (v. 13-14).

…

v. 11-12: The goal of all ministry

Apostles (the 12), prophets, evangelists, shepherds/pastors, teachers… All of these ministries have the same goal. Not the same means to get there, but the same end goal.

So let’s just focus on the one—why do evangelists exist?

to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.

The apostles establish the church; prophets encourage the church in time-specific ways; evangelists bring people into the church; pastors (or pastor-teachers) train the church in godliness.

v. 13-16: What growth looks like in the body

unity of the faith (v. 13)

true knowledge of the Son of God;

maturity—as men and women and as children of God

growing toward the fullness of Christ (where Christ is all in all)

stability (v. 14)

bold statements of truth, in love (v. 15)

mutually beneficial partnership to grow in Christ, who is the head of this body (v. 15b-16)

This is what it looks like to be holy people, and to be a holy people.

And that is the end goal of evangelism.

So...

Any evangelism that doesn’t have as its goal the making of disciples, who will integrate a local body of believers, where they will be trained in holiness…is an exercise in futility.

3.5: In evangelizing without church, we will (but for the grace of God) create the very kinds of people that Paul tells Timothy to avoid.

3.7: They will learn everywhere—and that’s good. But learning outside the context of the body is an exercize in futility: it’s the perfect way to learn a ton of stuff and never come to a knowledge of the truth.