Thoughts on how to do evangelism

Listening to: Mozart: Cosi fan tutte (interspersed with preview of Thea Gilmore's live album on Amazon!)

[Here are some hasty thoughts on my philosophy on how to 'do' evangelism. Perhaps one day I'll turn it into something proper. As this has quite big implications for my life it is probably more important than almost anything else that turns up on this blog so please do point out anything amiss. Also as a by-the-way, I don't live up to this at all.]

A. HOW PEOPLE BECOME CHRISTIANS

1. Prayer

Because evangelism is God's mission before it is ours, prayer should be the most important activity of evangelism. It is God alone that enables people to see the truth of the Gospel (2 Corinthians 4). The Lord's prayer includes within it the prayer for the coming of the Kingdom of God, and that grows as people become Christians (e.g. Luke 16:16) and its consummation is hastened by every person that is converted (2 Peter 3). Paul commands us to pray for everyone because of God's desire to save all people (1 Timothy 2:1-4).

2. Witness of the spoken word

But of course God uses means and faith comes by hearing the word of Christ (Romans 10:17; cf. 1 John 1:1-3 etc). It is God's word which converts people, because it never comes back without achieving its purpose (Isaiah 55:11). Our imperfect lives, and limited resources are never going to be up to the task of converting people. Even Jesus who lived the perfect life, and had the most impressive show-stopping stunts, 'proclaimed' the good news. The reason the spoken word has priority is that the Gospel is firstly something that happens outside of ourselves. While the Gospel is something that happens to us, and in us, it is firstly something done to and in Christ.

3. Witness of community of love

Jesus also teaches that people will belief in him because of the unity in love of the church community (John 17:23). People looking on the community of people preaching a message of forgiveness and love and will judge the truthfulness of that message on the basis of whether the people doing the preaching are living consistently with what they say. This is why Lesslie Newbigin described the church as the 'hermeneutic of the gospel'. Francis Schaeffer also saw the importance of this for evangelism and termed 'the observable love of true Christians for true Christians' as the 'final apologetic'. The good works of the community is a light for people to see and then believe in Christ (Matthew 5).

4. Witness of individuals living in hope

Christians should seek to do good in all of their lives though to point people to Christ (1 Peter 2:12). Employees should work hard and honestly for their employers to avoid people having contempt for the Gospel (1 Peter 2:15). Spouses by their conduct in marriage may convert their unbelieving partner (1 Peter 3:1; cf. 1 Corinthians 7:16). Sometimes this way of living will be seen in Christians in community by non-Christians but often it will just be individuals that they come into contact with. But they should notice that the individual Christian they know is not living for this world, but has a hope beyond it, and so they will want to know the reason (1 Peter 3:15).

5. Witness of miracles

It is easy to see in the Gospels and Acts how people believed in the Gospel because of the miracles of Jesus and the Apostles (John 10:25, Hebrews 2:3-4 etc). Even today many people do become Christians because of miracles.

B. IMPLICATIONS

1. Pray lots

Self explanatory really. But is prayer a central part of the church's life? And if so, is it prayer for the world or for our own personal needs? Tim Chester comments that in "the UK the traditional midweek church meeting often provided a focus for missionary prayer. But the house groups that have in many cases replaced it can all too easily become insular and self-regarding" (p.219, The Message of Prayer).

2. Call all the witnesses to the stand

Leaving aside the vexed issue of miracles, are in our evangelism are we integrating all the ways in which the gospel is witnessed to? Do our colleagues just see us living as individuals with hope but never as part of a community of love? Do people experience hear the message but never get to see the community of love in action?

I really like the Christianity Explored training graph of amount of Gospel Content v. depth of relationship. I think it was right that both should grow together. But I would make it a 3D graph with spoken word/individual relationships/corporate relationships all increasing together. As we get to know our colleagues more we should speak more about the Gospel, and they should get to know our church community more. And the same with all our networks of relationships (including church relationships).

In short, we should be questioning any activity which does not include all the witnesses to Jesus.

3. The prescription for the church and the world is the same

It is striking that what brings people to Christ, is the same thing as helps them to grow in him. It is as we hear the gospel that we grow stronger (Hebrews 5:11-14), it is as we are rebuked and encouraged by the church that we become more Christ-like (1 Thessalonians 5:11; Hebrews 10:25).

The problems for both non-Christians as well as Christians is unbelief, and the Gospel to believe is the same for both.

Because of that we don't need to have one set of activities for non-Christians and another for Christians. They can and should be the same. But that means we should have an eye to both Christians and non-Christians in all our meetings (as Paul says 1 Corinthians 14:23). Meetings should always be accessible but should also recognise that the felt needs of both Christians (e.g. rousing worship or traditional hymns etc) or non-Christians (e.g. a good moral environment for children) are not what we are here for. The church is in the business of preaching the gospel and bringing people under the Lordship of Christ.

4. Break down barriers to witness

What is it that stops us bringing all these witnesses onto the stand together for people to see and hear?

Perhaps we work in one area, live in another, and go to church in yet another so all three witnesses will never get together. Perhaps we only have time to build relationships with church people because we are too busy with church activities. Or perhaps we only have time to build relationships with colleagues, but not people at church, because we are too busy with work. Or perhaps the activities of church (organisationally and socially) are totally divorced from those of our family, friends and colleagues outside church. Or perhaps we are not being challenged from the pulpit to live the kind of radically unworldly lives that would turn heads.