A SAMPLE OF ENDORESMENTS The following are some of the endorsements for Julian’s 900+ page book called Evangelism: Strategies from Heaven In the War for Souls. Some people are daunted by such a big book so Julian made a small book out of each chapter of the 900+ page book. What you are about to read is just one of the chapters of the larger work.
David Cole, YWAM Campaigns Asia/Pacific Board of Regents Chairman University of the Nations.
“This book is one of the most in depth looks at what Evangelism really is (and what it isn’t) that I believe has been written in the last century. I have been so inspired in my own calling through its content and often use it as a text book for teaching and imparting to young leaders in YWAM training courses as well as throughout other parts of the Body of Christ. Thank you Julian not only for such a valuable resource as well as for modeling the outworking of its content in your own life over the past few decades.”
Pastor Mike Smith, Melbourne, Australia
“An incredible book that all pastors should read. I have been a Christian for 28 years and a pastor for many years, and when I picked up this book, I thought, I doubt this will teach me anything new about evangelism. I was so wrong. It has revolutionised my thinking. This is an incredible book that all pastors should read.”
Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland
“The best book I have ever read. I am a solicitor (54) and a partner in a law practice. I unhesitatingly give my endorsement for Julian s book. Indeed, I would rate it as the best book that I have ever read!” Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland
Michael Angulo, Pastor and Church Leader
“Truly a work of Ministerial art. I really like this book and every true evangelist will love it also. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PUT IT DOWN, BUT WILL BE THINKING WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO READ IT AGAIN! A truly very well written book with good retrospective learning ideas. No true evangelist should be without this book. It is worth what it is worth and it will catapult you into great, deliberate PROVEN, ministry approach. Great book and I highly recommend it. Get this one, you won’t be disappointed!”
Chapter Eighteen
Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 3)
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Church leaders! How To Lead Your Church In Evangelism! (Part 3)
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evice 53. To persuade leaders that personal testimony and evangelism are the same thing.
Personal testimony has a vital place. It can be powerful, especially if it comes from someone on the wavelength of those listening – for example, when a politician talks to politicians, a mother talks to mothers, a famous athlete talks to sports’ people, a business person talks to corporation leaders. Revelation 12:11 tells us, “They overcame him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony.” Missionary statesman and author, J.O. Sanders writes: “Grounded in the Word of God, our testimony becomes a sword in the Spirit’s hand.”1 ut giving a testimony is not necessarily evangelism… Personal testimony ought to be a part of every Christian’s walk in the world, but let’s remember that giving a testimony
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J.O. Sanders. Satan Is No Myth. Moody Press, p.123
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and evangelism are not always the same thing. A testimony might weave the gospel into it and this would produce a powerful combination. But peppering a testimony with isolated phrases such as “Jesus loves you” or “God is awesome” doesn’t explain the four essential elements of the gospel.2 If these elements are not covered in a testimony, evangelism has not taken place. The enemy wants us to believe that every time we testify, we are evangelising.
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evice 54. To persuade leaders that the gospel is not as powerful as the Bible makes out.
Given that only 2% of the Church now “do” evangelism, and research shows the vast majority of leaders show little or no interest in mobilising their people to do it, you’d have to say this device has gone viral. After reading Chapter Thirteen, our confidence in the promise of God to work powerfully through the gospel ought to have been restored. For if we truly understood His teaching on the gospel and how He works through it, I am certain leaders would be lining up to motivate and equip their people to proclaim or spread it. How do I know this is so? Leaders who have discovered the truths of Mark 4:26-29 become wildly excited about it. Who are these leaders? Here are just three. hree great evangelists testify… Billy Graham, perhaps the greatest evangelist of the twentieth century, makes a bold declaration about the gospel and its power to convert. He testifies without hesitation: “While methods may change, the message never changes. It is relevant and transforming in every generation. This is the gospel I have declared on every continent and before every conceivable group. I have found there is a supernatural power in this message
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2 i.e. Why we must be saved, how Jesus can save us, what we must do to be saved, and the cost of discipleship.
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that cannot be rationally explained3 …The gospel has its own communicative power. When we preach Christ crucified, there is power – dynamite – in it…4 It may appear ridiculous and foolish to the intellectuals of our day, but it is ‘the power of God unto salvation.’”5 International Evangelist Reinhard Bonnke testifies to this: “God’s power lines draw current from Calvary, from the resurrection and the throne.” He writes: “The world in [Paul’s] day could not have been worse: cruel, corrupt, cynical. Yet the gospel changed it. The gospel can do it again.”6 Jonathan Edwards said of the gospel, “He who made the faculties of our souls knows what will have the greatest tendency to move them and to work upon them.”7 When we present the gospel to non-Christians, the Holy Spirit brings them to a true understanding of themselves and their real need. How can we, then, conclude the gospel is not as powerful as the Bible makes out? ou hold the key, God has the power… The sheer power of the gospel is exciting news for those engaged in evangelism. Think of the atheists, hardened sinners, family members or work associates you know. If you can proclaim the gospel to them with love and grace, and they understand it, you will have started something unstoppable. The gospel you proclaim will begin, through the power of the Trinity, not only to plough the stony ground of their hearts, but also to water and grow the supernatural seed you planted – bringing them lovingly, tenderly and closer to the point of salvation.
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3 Billy Graham. One Race, One Gospel, One Task. World Congress On Evangelism. World Wide Publications, 1967, p.29 4 Billy Graham. The Work Of An Evangelist. International Conference For Itinerant Evangelists. Amsterdam, the Netherlands, World Wide Publications, 1984, p.95 5 ibid, p.29 6 Reinhard Bonnke. Evangelism By Fire. Igniting Your Passion For The Lost. Kingsway Publication, 1996, p.89 7 Cited in Jonathan Edwards. The Works Of President Edwards, 4 Vols. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1864, 4:330
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Jonathan Edwards, Billy Graham and Reinhard Bonnke are saying the same thing: the hearts of all human beings are made like a lock which can be unlocked with only one key: the gospel. And only the Trinity can turn the key. But only Christians can put the key into the lock. That’s you and I.
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evice 55. To whisper in the ear of a leader “the reason the gospel works for Billy Graham, Bonnke and Edwards was that they were special people with the gift. You don’t have the gift so there is no point in you proclaiming it.”
Like all the enemy’s devices, truth and error are mixed. It is true that these men possessed the Ephesians 4:11-15 gift of evangelism and God did use them in a special way. However it is certainly not true that God will not use someone in evangelism who does not possess this gift. How do we know this? First we know it logically. We discovered in Chapter Seven that the mission of the Church is to evangelise the world. Then in Chapter Eight that this task was the responsibility of all Christians. Why would God command and commission all Christians to a great task when only those with the gift would be successful at it? You know the answer. Second, we know it theologically. When a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit is poured out in their heart (Romans 5:5). The Spirit is given to empower evangelism (Acts 1:8). Conclusion? All Christians, regardless of their gifting, are empowered for success in evangelism. Third, we know it experiencially. Many of the 2% of Christians in the Western Church who are doing evangelism can testify how they don’t have the gift of evangelism yet God has used them to lead people to Christ through their evangelising.
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evice 56. To whisper in the ear of leaders “…the simple gospel message cannot effectively penetrate the post-modern mind…”
The enemy has worked hard to establish this belief and he’s worked through Christians who are not doing evangelism to spread it. For if they were doing evangelism, they’d quickly see this was a device of the enemy. There are three reasons why I know the simple historical gospel does penetrate the post-modern mind: First, personal experience confirms it. We are reaching postmodern people one-on-one every day with the tools we’ve developed – more than 450,0008 so far – and most have received the message with genuine gratitude. Many who hear the gospel instantly show signs of strong conviction. The cutting-edge tools we use are stripped of religious jargon, and make a strong appeal to the mind to penetrate the conscience and heart. Using Spurgeon’s words, we have found the “the old, old gospel” to still work like new. Second, God’s Word and plan do not alter. Psalm 119:89 says “Your word, LORD, is eternal; it stands firm in the heavens.” This is saying that what God says about the gospel will never change. And what does He say about the gospel? It’s “The power of God for salvation”. Therefore, it is relevant and powerful for all people groups in all generations, including this one. Post moderns are no exception. Third, first-rank leaders affirm this truth. For example, George Barna: “I do not buy some of the current arguments that the real problem [with evangelism] is how sophisticated people are or how different our culture is from that in which Jesus ministered …the basic tenets of evangelism are every bit as dynamic and pertinent to us as they were to Peter, John, Matthew, James and the 8
As at May 2012.
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rest of the ragtag army who followed Jesus and then turned their world upside down by retelling His story.”9 Dr John Nyquist: Professor of Mission at Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois: “In our present cultural context …the Christian evangelist [i.e. anyone who is doing evangelism] must be committed to proclaim the gospel.”10 Nyquist is saying “Don’t just have ‘God conversations with people, or only tell them your testimony. Proclaim the gospel! It’s the most powerful weapon you have to save this generation of post moderns!” Dr John Stott: “The emergence of a so-called ‘new man,’ scientifically speaking, does not alter the gospel. Underneath is still the old man. Just as there was no distinction between Jew and Greek, since all were sinners who fell short of God’s glory, so today there is no distinction between Hindu and Muslim, Buddhist and pagan, technological man and primitive man. The gospel is addressed to men as men, sinful men, suffering the disastrous ill effects of the same fall, inheriting the same warped nature (however much their temperaments may vary), condemned under the same judgment and imprisoned in the same bondage.”11 Charles Spurgeon: “The best attraction [for the salvation of non-Christians] is the gospel in all its purity – the weapon with which the Lord conquers people with the truth as it is in Jesus. Preach it, and preach nothing else. Rely implicitly on the old, old gospel.”12 Don’t believe the enemy that the simple gospel cannot effectively penetrate the post-modern mind. It is simply not true. Think about it. 9
George Barna. Evangelism That Works. Regal, 1995, pp.25-27
10 Cited in Don Carson. Telling The Truth. Zondervan, 2000, p.173 11 Dr John Stott. Our Guilty Silence. The Church, The Gospel, And The World. IVP, 1997, pp.46-47 12 Charles Spurgeon. The Soul Winner: Advice On Effective Evangelism. Christian Focus Publications, 2003, p.13
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Through this device the enemy is trying to stimulate Christians into thinking: • The gospel is not as powerful as it really is. • Non-Christians are more sophisticated than they really are. • God is less powerful than He really is. Each of these thoughts on its own will muddy the water and undermine our efforts to evangelise the world. In combination they are deadly. So next time you hear“Post moderns can’t be reached with the simple gospel” quickly recognise that this thought is not of God.
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evice 57. To persuade Christians they do not need to check that the non-Christian has understood the gospel message – that it is enough merely to proclaim it.
In The Parable of the Sower (Matthew 13:1-23),13 Jesus speaks about the importance of making sure those who hear the gospel understand it. “But the one who received the seed that fell on good soil is the man who hears the word and understands it. He produces a crop yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown” (verse 23). This is significant: hearing the message is not enough. We must do everything we can to make sure the message is understood by our listener.14 hilip helped the eunuch understand… Now check out Acts 8:26-40. Here an angel told Philip to head south on the desert road towards Gaza. On the way, he met an Ethiopian eunuch who was minister of finance for Queen Candace of Ethiopia. This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, and was reading the
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13 This parable appears in three of the four gospels. See also Mark 4:1 and Luke 8:1 14 We must also avoid the growth inhibitors alluded to in this parable including worry, persecution, the deceitfulness of riches. When the gospel is preached with understanding, the enemy’s work of ‘snatching away the seed’ is neutralised.
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book of Isaiah as he rode home in his chariot. The Spirit instructed Philip to go after him and, when he had caught up he asked the man, “Do you understand what you are reading?” “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” Philip began by explaining the passage, told him the gospel, and then led him to the Lord. What are the lessons for us in this example? First, non-Christians want to understand the gospel and we should help them. Secondly, the angel told Philip to “Go!” which is the instruction Jesus has given us. So let’s go, and help them understand. ow to ensure understanding… How do we ensure non-Christians understand our gospel message? In personal evangelism this is quite easy. First, we must carefully craft what we are going to say, taking care to define all our terms, presuming non-Christians know nothing about our subject. This is where good tools are so helpful. The message they contain will have been thought through in advance and “road tested” for the particular culture being reached.15 Then when we present the gospel, we can ask non-Christians along the way if they understand what we are saying. With the tools we have developed to present the gospel, we have inserted small, subtle comprehension checks in the form of questions e.g. “What part of you lives on after you die?” With mass evangelism, of course, such checks are not possible during the preaching of the gospel. However, those who respond to the altar call can be gently and sensitively interviewed. We ought to ensure they know what they are doing, and provide
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15 The same applies to gospel tracts.
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opportunity for them to ask questions about what they have heard. We shouldn’t feel reluctant to slow things down a bit. Those who did not respond to the altar call can be given a clear, written summary of the gospel message which was preached from the platform, as they leave the meeting. All these strategies will help non-Christians understand the message. Anything that achieves this end is truly a strategy from heaven.
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evice 58. To persuade leaders it is not biblical to talk about hell in an effort to move non-Christians towards the point of conversion.
In my experience as an evangelist I have noticed how widespread this device is. Increasingly leaders are not talking about hell, nor do they encourage people to use evangelistic tools which do so. Bible teacher and academic R.C. Sproul said “There’s probably no concept in theology more repugnant to modern America than the idea of divine wrath.”16 Yet I have seen over and over how the Holy Spirit uses the fear of hell to draw people to Christ, the deliverer. And when they are drawn to Christ, they discover He is the Saviour. When they discover the treasure that He is, they want to follow Him. All this happens through the Holy Spirit. Just as the Holy Spirit works through the Law, which is likened to a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ (Galatians 3:24), He likewise uses a fear of hell. How will the Holy Spirit convict non-Christians of judgment (John 16:8) and of the fear of the Lord if we don’t warn them about hell in our gospel messages? Dr John Piper summarises the argument nicely: “You can scare people towards heaven, but you can’t scare them into it.”17 16 Cited in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, And Biblically - The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Press, 2003, pp.77-78 17 Dr John Piper. Let The Nations Be Glad: The Supremacy Of God In Missions. IVP, 2003, p.211
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To put it another way, fear of hell starts the ball rolling, but it doesn’t score the goal. esus and hell… It is impossible to truly evangelise without talking about hell. If Jesus spoke about hell 33 times, how can we ignore it? We can’t talk about Christ bearing our sins without talking about the justice of God, and we can’t talk about the justice of God without mentioning hell any more than a judge can avoid talking about the consequences of crime with a guilty criminal. Justice, pardon, mercy, and punishment are intimately related concepts which rely on each other to make sense of each other e.g. a guilty thief will only understand justice if he is punished for his crime. Equally, it will only be when he is found guilty and then pardoned that he will fully appreciate the concepts of grace and mercy. So, it would be fair to say that if we don’t mention hell in our gospel presentations, we have not proclaimed the whole gospel. he gospel, hell and research findings… Research supports the inclusion of hell in our gospel messages.18 For example, L.E. Maxwell, Bible teacher and former principal of Canada’s Prairie Bible Institute, researched how students came to the knowledge of salvation. Some were moved by fear and others by love. Of the 2507 students surveyed, nearly 65 percent were moved by fear and only 6 percent were moved by love. The remaining 29 percent came with another motive or couldn’t remember why they had come.19 The late F.B. Meyer, famous theologian and prolific author, was another who studied what motivated people to come to Christ. He questioned 400 Christian workers, and found “an overwhelming
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18 Go to Youtube and do a search for “Research findings: the love of God or the fear of God? What God uses most to draw the lost.” I have made a video on this topic. 19 Cited in Kirk Cameron and Ray Comfort. The Way Of The Master. How To Share Your Faith Simply, Effectively, And Biblically - The Way Jesus Did. Tyndale Press, 2003, p.76
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number” said that it was because of some message about the terror of the Lord via the theology of hell. Meyer then said, “This is interesting and astonishing, especially in these days when we are rebuked often for not preaching more on the love of God!” on’t repeat Bill Bright’s mistake of leaving out the subject of hell from the gospel message… More than a billion copies of the tract The Four Spiritual Laws have been distributed in all the major languages of the world. It was written by Dr Bill Bright, of Campus Crusade for Christ; and became the model gospel presentation in Dr Bright’s generation. Before Bright died, he researched a book entitled Heaven and Hell, in which he notes that in 42 months of public ministry, there were 33 recorded instances of Jesus speaking about hell. “No doubt He warned of hell thousands of times. The Bible refers to hell a total of 167 times. I wonder with what frequency this eternal subject is found in today’s pulpits. I confess I have failed in my ministry to declare the reality of hell as often as I have the love of God and the benefits of a personal relationship with Christ. But Jesus spent more of His time warning His listeners of the impending judgment of hell than speaking of the joys of heaven… I have never felt the need to focus on telling people about hell. However, as a result of a steady decline in moral and spiritual vitality in today’s culture, and a growing indifference to the afterlife, I have come to realise the need for a greater discussion of hell… I have thus come to see that silence, or even benign neglect of these subjects, is disobedience on my part. To be silent on the eternal destination of souls is like a sentry failing to warn his fellow soldiers of an impending attack.”20
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20 ibid, p.78.
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evice 59. To persuade leaders that the most important thing to tell non-Christians is “Jesus loves you”
Again, truth and error are mixed. Would that everyone on the earth might truly grasp that God loves them! My prayer is that everyone would hear and understand this great truth. The error? The enemy enjoys lulling us into thinking that speaking phrases like “Jesus loves you” and “God is love” is the same as sharing the gospel. As a young Christian I attended a particular church where the minister was convinced that the congregation needed to hear only about the love of God. Virtually every Sunday, regardless of the subject being preached, he always made God’s love his emphasis. The full gospel was never preached. Topics such as hell, God’s justice, justification, the cross and repentance were never addressed. What followed? Church members, in their contact with nonChristians, said little more than “Jesus loves you.” What a delight for the enemy that non-Christians were not hearing the gospel. od spoke to me at a homosexual mardi gras… Let me tell you another story which helps explain where I derived my cautious attitude towards the phrase “Jesus loves you.” For six years I made a stand against the Hero Parade, a homosexual festival which was held in New Zealand’s largest city. When the first parade took place, I went and preached in Auckland’s main street, Queen Street, just before the parade was about to begin. The crowd consisted mainly of supporters of the event. If you were there, you would have heard me graciously and compassionately saying something like the following: “I am the last person to get up here and point the finger at anyone. I have issues in my own life that I know I have not yet conquered –
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lust, anger, greed, jealousy, pride, and so on. I am just a fallen human being like you are. The thing I object to with this parade is that you are calling something that is wrong, right.” I had also painted a banner which read, “God hates homosexuality, but loves homosexuals.” ut to the core by a lesbian… When I finished speaking, the crowd set my banner on fire. It was a lively night. After I put out the fire, the words on the banner were still legible. The parade started and I stood on a raised garden outside a movie theatre. I’ll never forget what happened next. A lesbian float in the parade passed by and one of the women on it saw my banner. “But God still loves me!” she shouted loudly. What she said cut me to the core. I lowered my banner and wondered, how many people will be slipping into the sulphury pit of hell after their lives have ended, shouting, “You Christians, why didn’t you tell me the truth?” Do you see what has happened? You see, what happens if the only thing many New Zealanders have heard from the Church is “Jesus loves you”? They’ll go to their death never knowing why they must be saved, how Jesus can save them, what they must do to be saved and the cost of being disciples. In other words, they will not have heard the gospel. or God’s sake, think it through… If I went up to a good friend and said, “I love you,” it would indicate to him or her that there were no major issues between us. If I go up to non-Christians and say only, “Jesus loves you,” I am signalling there are no major issues between Jesus and them. But is this really the case? While it is true that Jesus loves them and longs to be their Saviour and friend, my words have given a false impression of their standing with God. I have, in fact, deceived them. The following are just four of the serious issues between every
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fallen human being and God: • Rejecting Jesus incurs God’s wrath. “Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him” (John 3:36). • All non-Chrisitans are already condemned by Jesus . “Whoever believes in Him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because he has not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son” (John 3:18). • All non-Christians are lost. “For the Son of Man came to seek and to save what was lost” (Luke 19:10). • All non-Christians are headed for eternal punishment. “Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life” (Matthew 25:46).
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ssessing the damage…
In fact the issues are so serious that God had to humble Himself, become a human being, walk the earth and suffer persecution ending in crucifixion, just to deal with them. Consider the book of Acts, whose principles we are all supposed to follow in regard to Church growth, expansion, and life in the Spirit. Have you noticed that nowhere in the book of Acts do any of the apostles (or anyone else) say to anyone, “Jesus loves you”? Yes, this is a modern day phrase that was never used by the Early Church in their efforts to evangelise the world. In my view this one saying, indiscriminately used, has torpedoed our evangelism efforts. For example: • A large proportion of our population now thinks they have right standing with God when in fact they do not. • When people who have heard only “Jesus loves you” are approached with the full gospel, they wonder why they need anything else. They’ve been inoculated against true Christianity. • Christians who repeat “Jesus loves you” as a substitute for proclaiming the gospel are teaching other Christians their bad habits. So a false gospel is being propagated. • This device of the enemy is spread by Christians one to another, 15
and then by non-Christians, one to another. ow to know when it is right to say “Jesus loves you”… Of course there are times when it is appropriate to say to someone, “God loves you.” These words have been used by God to comfort and heal many. But these days I rarely tell anyone that Jesus loves them until they have heard and clearly understood the gospel, which explains what “Jesus loves you” really means. The gospel puts it in its right context and doesn’t sell Jesus short. Saying “God loves you” after the gospel has been explained maximises the glory going to Jesus. The gospel unpacks “the love of God.” That is to say, it explains how and why the love of God is different from all other kinds of love with which non-Christians are familiar. Communicating the gospel will also eliminate all the possible confusion about ‘the love of God’ which I have alluded to in this device. Our job as Christians is to eliminate confusion for non-Christians, not be the creators of it!
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Device 60. To cause local church leaders to resent evangelists, and cause evangelists to resent Christians who don’t evangelise.
The enemy likes to try and pit Christians against each other. If leaders don’t understand that evangelism is for everyone, and that evangelists are given by God to train the church to evangelise, it is easy to see how evangelists can be disliked. They can be viewed as pushy, arrogant people who try to force others to do something they don’t want to do. They can make the people in a church who aren’t doing evangelism feel like guilty failures. This upsets pastors who want to protect the flock. Resentment towards the evangelist soon builds. People without the gift begin grumbling, and a bad attitude towards evangelists and evangelism spreads. Evangelists interpret this bad attitude as rank disobedience, a 16
lack of love for Jesus and His evangelism purposes, and a loveless unconcern for the souls of perishing non-Christians. Listening to the many excuses given by those without the gift, as to why they don’t evangelise, further nauseates the evangelist. And having to listen to the evangelist harping on about the need to evangelise the world further aggravates those without the gift. Both camps harden in their attitude towards the other, God’s plan for evangelising the earth stalls and the enemy claps. The root of the problem21 is a wrong understanding of Ephesians 4:11-12. Let’s start by reading this passage. “It was He who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God’s people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up, until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fulness of Christ.” This passage teaches clearly that evangelists were given to the Church to train those without the gift how to evangelise. This being so, then leaders ought to work closely with evangelists, viewing them as precious gifts from God. Given that the priority of the Church is to evangelise the world, how can the church fulfil its purpose without positioning evangelists at the forefront? oes this passage teach that evangelists are to train everyone? Explaining Ephesians 4:11-12, Dr Leslie Mitton, who helped produce the New English Bible translation, says: “The first function of all those with special gifts is to equip God’s people (saints) for service – not to do their duties for them (as if they were incapable) but to enable them to become themselves God’s
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21 It’s not always the fault of leaders of churches that the antagonism between evangelists and church leaders sometimes exists. We evangelists have to learn about serving in a local church, meshing in with other ministries, working under authority, and working well in a team environment.
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ministers within and through the life of the church.” 22 t’s only logical to bring the need and the gift together… We can further strengthen the case that evangelists are to train everyone to evangelise by applying logic. For example, Ephesians 4:11-12 teaches, without doubt, that God has given evangelists as a gift to “prepare God’s people for works of service.” We have already discovered that the evangelising of the earth is God’s priority, and all believers are commanded to do it. Wouldn’t it be logical, then, for the person with special abilities in evangelism, the one gifted by God, to motivate and equip the saints, those without ‘the gift,’ to do evangelism? The saints don’t know how to do it, and the gifted one does, so surely it makes sense to bring the two together? To use a dating term, it’s a match made in heaven! If the evangelist is not going to train others how to evangelise, then who will?” t is God’s plan for pastors, leaders and evangelists to work closely together … In summary, those with the gift of evangelism ought to work sensitively and carefully with pastors and leaders to equip 100% of the people in every church to evangelise the world. The evangelist’s focus ought to be on gently coaxing and inspiring everyone without the gift to practise evangelism regularly for the glory of God and for “the building up of the body.” As well, they ought to be providing strategies, tools, and coaching for pastors and their people. As I have already said, it’s crucial that the leader of a church leads by example in evangelism and connects with the evangelists in their church. When the pastor and the evangelist meet, the next step is to plan how to mobilise 100% of their people.
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22 Dr C.Leslie Mitton. Ephesians. Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1976, p.151
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Those without the gift of evangelism, rather than resenting those with the gift, should receive them with gratitude and open arms as special gifts sent from God Himself to facilitate the completion of the Great Commission, for this is what they truly are.
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• Testimonies can be very powerful. However, no testimony can be deemed “evangelistic” if it does not cover the essential content of the gospel message. • People like Billy Graham are Ephesians 4:11-15 gifted evangelists and God uses them in a special way. However, it is NOT true that God will only work through the gifted. He will work through any believer who evangelises. This is essentially what Jesus teaches in Mark 4:26-29. • If Church leaders knew what Jesus taught in Mark 4:26-29 they’d be wildly excited about mobilising all their people for evangelism. • It is not true that the simple gospel cannot penetrate the post modern mind. The gospel is as powerful now as it ever was because God’s promise to work through it is as certain now as it ever was. • At their deepest level post modern people are as corrupt, lost, and fallen as any group of people in the history of humanity. • To deny these truths is to deny: • Who post modern people really are. • The power of the God who backs His gospel. • The Word of God which teaches that God is no respector of persons. • The doctrine of hell is an important element of the gospel message. Research shows the Holy Spirit works through it powerfully to draw people to himself. Sadly, it is missing from most so called ‘gospel messages’ being proclaimed today. 19