More on Passion for Loving Evangelism, passion for Church Growth

I thought of leaving last week’s blog for one more week, for all to consider the urgency and importance of Evangelism, but then I got to talk with some who attended the St.Thomas centennial celebration last Sabbath, and learned that our President Derrick Nichols preached an interesting sermon.

"The church exists to love." he said. "It must do more than simply understand the problems of people. It must meet their needs! People must know that they can run to our church with confidence."

It is yet another description of what Evangelism is all about – passion! Church may have everything together, doctrine, structure, works, ministries, just like that of Ephesus in Revelation 2. But the question is “Does it have the passion? Is the first love is there?” So, when you think about our local reality in London, how would you measure your passion for people around you? 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? See, if we are in love with Jesus, then the passion of His heart is the passion of our heart too.

Living in uncertain times some may talk about need of administrative changes, improvement of efficiency, but what really matters is presence of Jesus who is ministering through his Body – Church – today, right now. Imagine the church with an atmosphere of heaven where depressed become cheerful, where oppressed have their spirits lifted, where sick get healing, where lonely find friendships, where needy get abundantly blessed. That is what people, and Jesus wants from Church today – the Kingdom reality.

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.