My church had a session on evangelism last weekend, with a speaker from outside talking from Acts 28 where Paul has arrived in Rome, and boldly preached the Kingdom of God, unhindered. What a challenge!
The interesting thing to note about the passage, is not that he raised a church, trained elders and leaders, instigated an evangelism committee and planned a 1-week mission with many varied events to interest different groups of people, but simply stayed in his own rented house, for two years, welcoming all who came, and told them of God's Kingdom, i.e. the Gospel. Neither did he analyse what target groups he would address, adjusting the message to suit his audience, or get permission from whatever authorities that might be a stumbling block. He just got on with it.
The famous film, Life of Brian, which I have to admit is a great favourite of mine, saw the capture of Brian by the Romans, and Judith taking the news back to the People's Front of Judea, where they, very committee-like, drafted and proposed a motion of support for the sacrifice that Brian was making for the cause. We laugh at that, as it lampoons a very British local committee organisational mentality, but if we look at ourselves and our churches, that is exactly us, isn't it?
The speaker last weekend reached back to Paul's message, that evangelism is something that should be our personal activity, not just a (church) corporate activity. He didn't stop there however, but moved that same rationale up into the local church, challenging that evangelism should be as much a regular part of our corporate church life as it is our personal one. This means that evangelism becomes top priority, and EVERYTHING else flows from that. Even within the corporate evangelistic organisation, he was adamant that individuals who had the idea for an event should just go ahead and do it.
The final encouragement, which in some ways was odd when I first heard him say it, but now I understand, is that we shouldn't worry if some of these events fail. Jesus and the Apostles made it very clear that not all who heard the message of salvation would accept, but be hard of heart. In fact just last night, at our own church prayer meeting, the host of our next evangelistic event said that none of the several people he had invited had responded. He looked saddened, but think of the parable that Jesus told of the invitation to the banquet, the original invitees declined, so the servant was told to go into the streets and bring people in from there. I can only imagine what a joyous banquet that must have then been.
So, I am challenged, and, as noted in an earlier post, need to think of what I can do, starting with myself in my own home, just as Paul did. I need to think of all the ways I can demonstrate and tell of the life of Christ in my everyday interaction with people, at work, at home, amongst my neighbours, in the village, etc. I should not view the church as being the body responsible for evangelism, or any high-profile person, or any notable event. No, the buck stops here.
How do we 'do' evangelism? Let me re-phrase that, and you'll see the answer... How can I be an evangelist?
