Passion for Evangelism, passion for Church Growth

I challenged you last week in my write-up that it is the Gospel sharing, Evangelism, the “shoes of the Gospel” that empower the church. If the church wants to be empowered it has to be obedient for the Commission of Jesus to go and preach the Gospel.

I am sitting in class, listening to a presentation by Dr. Kidder, looking at the statistics of North American Adventism and thinking about our local reality in London. How would you measure your passion for bringing the lost to Jesus? Does it break your heart to see your family members not walking with Jesus? Does it hurt you when you think about your friends walking to destruction?

In the past we often focused on Evangelistic events – the NET at the end of the year, or a guest evangelist coming to town. While it was a novelty – our own satellite system in the early 1995-6 people came to check it out, to participate in something bigger than their local church. Then it became obvious that an event with out a consistent process of preparing community does not work. For the last 5 years the focus shifted – evangeliving, considering everything we do as a part of preparation process. Both are important – the event and the process. And everything we do should be seen through lenses of “how will it influence someone to come to Jesus?”

Church growth is not about numeric success, or a satisfaction of an accomplishment. It is about our passion for people that are lost without Jesus. Evangelism is also a spiritual discipline. We are invited to discipline ourselves “for the purpose of godliness” (1^st Timothy 4:7). Disciplined life is not periodical, it is year around, it is your daily lifestyle.

Leadership of our church is thinking constantly “What am I doing to tell my surrounding that Jesus is coming soon?” Leaders are thinking “What is my team doing to tell London that Jesus is coming soon?” The way we live, interact with one another, sends messages stronger than words. And our communication should be single-minded: “we believe that Jesus is coming soon!”

All Christians are not expected to use the same methods of evangelism, but all Christians are expected to evangelize. The most frequent excuse not to place evangelism first is that we have to put our own house in order, we need to fix whatever dysfunctions there are, we have to improve ourselves. It is true that the more we are like Christ, the more we will tell of Christ and His message. Yet nothing brings intentional change faster than guests coming to the house. The guests coming in will contribute to the working and add functionality. In the process of hosting guests and integrating new into the family we sort our own relationships, and prioritize what’s really important.

Remember that the Evangelism is the necessary ingredient of empowered Church.