A wise friend said somewhere – if the pastor of a church isn’t an evangelist then the church will only grow through transfer church.
Spurgeon’s advice in The Soul Winner is timely:
Just be men among men, keeping yourself clear of all their faults and vices, but mingling with them in perfect love and sympathy, and feeling that you would do anything in your power to bring them to Christ, so that you might even say with the Apostle Paul, ”˜Though I be free from all men, yet have I made myself servant unto all, that I might gain the more’
Don’t misunderstand me – evangelism is not just about inviting people to events. But sometimes being able to invite a friend to an event is a gauge of where the friendship is up to. The friends I’m inviting are the ones I’m already praying for – asking for opportunities to speak about Jesus. If I’m not out mixing with real people and praying for them then I shouldn’t be leading the people here in God’s mission.
Amen! This is very well said. I especially appreciated the reminder of the link between prayer and witness:
[blockquote]The friends I’m inviting are the ones I’m already praying for – asking for opportunities to speak about Jesus. If I’m not out mixing with real people and praying for them then I shouldn’t be leading the people here in God’s mission.[/blockquote]
Evangelism begins with prayer. We forget that to our peril, especially if we try to reduce it to some simple strategy…
Jesus said we were to be “fishers of men.” How can someone lead peopel to become fishers if that person is not a fisher himself?
I am convinced that a large part of our problems in TEC is that we have forgotten the basics of leading congregations. We train our priests to be scholars and, then, we expect them to grow congregations – to be evangelists. One question every Commission on Ministry should ask is “Please share a time when you helped a person make a decision for Jesus Christ” or “please tell us of a time when you shared the Gospel of Jesus Christ with an unbeliever and what happened.”
YBIC,
Phil Snyder
If TEC has trained their priests to be scholars, they have wasted their money.