The
E word
1910 The World Missionary Conference
“ the most notable gathering in the interest of the
world wide expansion of Christianity ever held…….”
1954 Billy Graham at Wembley Stadium
2009 Baptism of Jade Goody and her sons
Christine had been raised Anglican.. Religious
People of any serious kind made her nervous:
They were like men in rain coats who might or
might not be flashers. You would be going
along with them in a normal way, and then
there would could be a swift movement and
you would look down to find the coat wide
open & nothing on under it.
Scarlet Ibis by Margaret Atwood.
.
I know I should be doing evangelism,
but I just don’t want to
but I feel guilty about that.
Connecting with our own stories
Very briefly explain how you
came to Christian faith ?
What were the most important
factors in this?
“evangelism is that dimension and activity
of the church’s mission which seeks
to offer every person, everywhere, a
valid opportunity to be directly challenged
by the gospel of explicit faith in
Jesus Christ, with a view to embracing
him as Saviour, becoming a loving
member of his community and being
enlisted in his service of
reconciliation, peace and justice on earth.”
David Bosch
The Church exists for nothing else
but to draw people into Christ,
to make them little Christs.
If they are not doing that, all the cathedrals,
clergy, missions, sermons, fresh expressions,
even the Bible itself, are simply a waste of time.
God became Man for no other purpose.
C. S. Lewis
• Danger of reductionism
• Separate justification
from sanctification
• Information rather
than transformation
•Participation in God’s mission
not consumers of gospel
•Danger of functional atheism
The Three
Stories
Of
Evangelism
The big story
The particular to the universal
• One place to every place
• One person/people to many
• One time into an ever new future
“These people who have been
turning the world upside down
have come here also.”
Acts 17 ;7
70% of all Christians have come
to faith since 1900.
1940 1/32 world population
were Christian
1994 1/10 world population
were Christian
‘We live in a culture so saturated with self,
in which humans have placed themselves
in the centre for so long, that our natural
tendency ,even as Christians ,is to focus
on the human aspects of evangelism and
not the divine. Yet it is God who takes the
initiative to pursue seekers, it is his Spirit
who converts, it is his gospel that saves.
Evangelism is God’s business from start
to finish.’
Our
story
‘Transformed leaders have a clear
conviction that God can and will
work through their congregation
to change lives and that their
congregation of people can be
used by God to help change the world.
Such vision begins with the clear
vision of the evangelising community
and what that community might look
like in its particular setting and
circumstances
The responsive
story
•outsiders become insiders
•forgetters become rememberers
•beloved children become
believeful adults
•gradual
•relational
•communal
•formational
•transforming
‘beauty of life...
causes strangers to
join the ranks... we
do not talk about
great things; we live
them.’
(Minucius Felix c160ad)
Evangelism is no safe church activity that
will sustain a conventional church, nor a
routine enterprise that will support a
societal status quo. The news that God
has triumphed means that a transformed
life ,i.e. one changed by the hearing of
the good news, works to bring more and
more of life, personal and public, under
the rule of this world
transforming, slave liberating, covenant
making, promise keeping ,
justice –commanding God.’
The Purposes of God’s Mission
•to deal with the guilt of human sin
•to defeat the powers of evil
•to destroy death
•to remove the barriers of alienation
•to heal and reconcile his whole creation
Chris Wright. The Mission of God
“ By God’s incredible grace we have a
gospel big enough to redeem all that sin
and evil has touched. And every dimension
of that good news is good news utterly and
only because of the blood of Christ
on the cross.”
Evangelism
•is the heart of mission
•seeks to bring people into the visible community of
believers
•involves witnessing to what God has done, is doing
and will do.
•is invitation
•is verbal
•requires a Christian community that demonstrates faith
•takes risks
•is a calling to give life not just receive it.
•is not offering individual bliss but a place in God’s mission
A Prayer
•Colossians 4 v2-4
•The link between prayer & evangelism
•Keeping watch
A Look Out
•A sentry on the city wall
•Alert and alive to God
•Simeon and Anna
A Steward
•Eph 3v7 or Col 1v23
•Diakonos
•A go between
•Jesus in John 13
‘ As for you, always be sober,
endure suffering,
do the work of an evangelist,
carry out your ministry fully.
2 Timothy 4 v5.
•Envision
•Encourage
•Equip
•Example
•Expectancy
•Envision
‘How does the church become the
evangelising centre it was meant
to be?
Before we think of programmes
or techniques, we need to be renewed
in our vision of who Christ is and
what God’s purposes are for the world.’
Rebecca Manley Pippert.
•Envision
•Encourage
•Equip
•Example
•Expectancy
“ The Christian movement was not
initiated by a band of professional
evangelists eager to sign up a PR
firm and get the show on the road.
Rather the gospel spread and the church
grew because the sovereign hand of
God was in the midst of this community
that found itself surrounded by
people who were puzzled & intrigued
by what they saw happening.”
William Abrahams
The relationship
between community
and discipleship
Love
Relate
Create
The marks of a leader
in evangelism
A called leader
A praying leader
A leader who
does the basics well
An outwardly
focused leader
A passionate
leader
A bold
leader
A persistent
leader
An enabling
leader
An multiplying
leader
A leader who lives
mission locally & globally