BOOK 26. Conclusions and Appendices by Stop Co-governance Publishing

A SAMPLE OF ENDORESMENTS The following are some of the endorsements for Julian’s 900+ page book called Evangelism: Strategies from Heaven In the War for Souls. Some people are daunted by such a big book so Julian made a small book out of each chapter of the 900+ page book. What you are about to read is just one of the chapters of the larger work.

David Cole, YWAM Campaigns Asia/Pacific Board of Regents Chairman University of the Nations.

“This book is one of the most in depth looks at what Evangelism really is (and what it isn’t) that I believe has been written in the last century. I have been so inspired in my own calling through its content and often use it as a text book for teaching and imparting to young leaders in YWAM training courses as well as throughout other parts of the Body of Christ. Thank you Julian not only for such a valuable resource as well as for modeling the outworking of its content in your own life over the past few decades.”

Pastor Mike Smith, Melbourne, Australia

“An incredible book that all pastors should read. I have been a Christian for 28 years and a pastor for many years, and when I picked up this book, I thought, I doubt this will teach me anything new about evangelism. I was so wrong. It has revolutionised my thinking. This is an incredible book that all pastors should read.”

Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland

“The best book I have ever read. I am a solicitor (54) and a partner in a law practice. I unhesitatingly give my endorsement for Julian s book. Indeed, I would rate it as the best book that I have ever read!” Grant Buchanan LLB, B.Com, Auckland

Michael Angulo, Pastor and Church Leader

“Truly a work of Ministerial art. I really like this book and every true evangelist will love it also. YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PUT IT DOWN, BUT WILL BE THINKING WHEN YOU ARE GOING TO READ IT AGAIN! A truly very well written book with good retrospective learning ideas. No true evangelist should be without this book. It is worth what it is worth and it will catapult you into great, deliberate PROVEN, ministry approach. Great book and I highly recommend it. Get this one, you won’t be disappointed!”

Julian Batchelor, M.ed (Hons), B.Th, Dip.Tâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;Ching

CONCLUSIONS AND APPENDICES

Acknowledgements I owe a lot of thanks to a lot of people for the production of this Mini Series: Sheryl Kampenhout, who transferred a mountain of material from Power Point shows into Word documents and who served and encouraged me in such a loving and kind way; to Matthew Old, a faithful friend and fellow evangelist, who has been a Barnabas. He reached out his hands when the hills seemed steepest, loved me in spite of my failures, stimulated me with his sharp mind, and made me laugh when I wanted to cry; to Janice Teo, and her intercessory prayer team who are as vital to the ministry I direct as the heart is to the body; to the team of editors, including Ken Francis and Julie Belding; to all the financial supporters who have given so generously to me over the years. I especially want to thank Paul and Tina Richards, of Club Physical, owners of a gymnasium chain in Auckland, New Zealand, and Derek van Beynen, who have faithfully sponsored my ministry for over a decade. Few people have the privilege of being able to leave secular work to write and produce resources to further the cause of the evangelisation of the world, and to motivate and equip the Church to do the same. You, and all my other financial supporters, have made this possible; to those I live with who have not seen me for years because I have been locked away in my office writing, I give my sincere thanks. Special thanks to Neil Pollock. To Jenny Windeyer, the graphic artist, who designed the cover of the original 800 page book (which we’ve turned into this Mini Series), and to Jenny’s husband Drew for going beyond the call of duty so that Jenny could focus on this project; to faithful Bernie Anderson who has sacrificed and given way beyond what a leader would expect of a dedicated co-worker; to Eleanor Goodall and Sue and George Jeffrey who epitomise love and true friendship; to the team at ESI for keeping all the various aspects of the evangelism ministry moving forwards whilst I directed most of my time to write this Mini Book Series; for Dr Martyn Bowis who did all the programming for the electronic version of the gospel called “Proclaim it!”; for Henoch Kloosterboeror for producing all the brilliant

drawings; Dr David Stewart, retired Principal of the Bible College of New Zealand for nearly two decades of encouragement and mentoring; Denise James and Anne Bartley, staff at the Bible College of New Zealand for helping with research; all those who have helped proof read the manuscript and given comment, particularly Dr Marie Sewell, Gill Donald, Gill Lukey, Donna Hansen, Ainslie Vines, Ann Hunter, and Miriam and Ted Martin; to the academic staff of the Bible College of New Zealand for giving me a grounding in theology; for all those who have given financially and sacrificially to pay for specific aspects of the publishing of this Mini Book Series; for my friend Ray Comfort, for his inspiration and encouragement. There are few evangelists today who have journeyed on the road of trial and tribulation to achieve breakthrough as Ray Comfort. For John Stott, the academic evangelist for his coaching and input via his many books. For all the people who we have trained in evangelism around the world who are out there doing it â&#x20AC;&#x201C; you are the heroes in the battle for souls; for the many hundreds of pastors, leaders, and lay Christians around the globe who have contributed to my life as a Christian, and to this Mini Book Series; and finally, I thank Jesus Christ, whose amazing grace and love has inspired and kept me. All the revelations in this Mini Book Library about evangelism and the gospel were given by Him â&#x20AC;&#x201C; to Him be all the glory.

How To Read The Mini Books In This Library This Mini Book is one of a Library of 27 Mini Books. The Library is a detailed critique of the battle between light and darkness which is relentlessly raging all over the earth for the souls of men and women. The insights and revelations in each Mini Book are hierarchical i.e. Mini Book Two builds upon Mini Book One, Mini Book Three upon Mini Books One and Two, and so on. Hence, the ideal is to try and read all the Mini Books in the library in sequence. If you skip Mini Books, or even parts of Mini Books, you might miss something vital, and open yourself to misunderstanding or even defeat. Having said this, after you have read Mini Books One to Seven, which are the foundational books in the Library, each Mini Book is designed to stand alone. So, read Books One to Seven first. This is essential. With respect to evangelism, if you follow the advice I am giving here in the pages of each Mini Book, you’ll position yourself perfectly to be used by the Holy Spirit to glorify Jesus in ways you’d not imagined possible. How so? Read the 27 Mini Books in the library and find out. Along with Mini Books 1-7, I suggest you also purchase Mini Book 27, which is the “Evangelism Fitness Test.” This is a diagnostic survey which will tell you the extent to which you have been unwittingly influenced by the devil with respect to evangelism. Sit this test before you read anything. Then do the same test again after you have read all the Mini Books to check to see if all his devices have been thoroughly purged from your mind!

Conclusions and Appendices

Thank you for taking the time to read this Mini Book series. I have four prayers for you. 1. That the Holy Spirit will have confirmed in your heart that what you have read is Truth - God’s Truth. 2. That He will have given you a revelation of the fact that we are living in “a Dark Age of evangelism” and without intentional action we won’t come out of it. The fact of the matter is this - with respect to the Great Commission, the spiritual compass of most churches in the West is spinning. 3. That He will plant at least the following Truths deeply and indelibly in your heart: • Most Christians are not aware they are living in a Dark Age of evangelism. • Our priority is to evangelise the world. • We are primarily making disciples so that there would be more people to evangelise the world. • To evangelise is to proclaim or spread the gospel. • There are three aspects to the gospel: works, effects, and words. • The gospel message has specific content which every lost person in the world must hear and understand. Why we must be saved. How Jesus can save us. 7

What we must do to be saved. The cost of being a disciple. • It is the solemn privilege and responsibility of every believer to engage in evangelism. • Before God, it is the solemn responsibility and duty of leaders to mobilise their people for evangelism i.e to help complete Jesus’ mission. • With respect to the current evangelism crisis in the West, leaders are the problem, and leaders are the solution. • If leaders don’t lead with respect to evangelism, a Great Commission resurgence is impossible and the Dark Age is guaranteed to worsen. • Christians who engage in evangelism bless society, themselves, the Church they belong to, and God. • The supreme motive for evangelising the world is to glorify God, not to win souls. • If we in the Church fail to evangelise, we fail. Period. If we are convinced of these Truths, and we are a genuine Christian believing that Scripture is our final authority, how should we respond? Really, there can be only one appropriate response. This is where my fourth prayer for you kicks in. 4. I pray that you would respond by taking immediate action. And what is this action? Set a goal to mobilise 100% of the people in your church to proclaim or spread the gospel at least once a week. The good news is that as a ministry God has graciously given us tools and strategies which will help you achieve this goal. You don’t need to re-invent the wheel. If you don’t know where to start or what to do, please connect with us. We’ll work with you, and enjoy developing deep friendships on the journey, for the glory of God. 8

A P P E N D I X

ONE This appendix is included for two reasons. First, its Indian author, Dr K.P. Yohannan, has worked extensively in Asia as a missionary with the poorest of the poor. Secondly, he is highly experienced and respected, having written over 200 books. The organisation he founded, and now directs, Gospel for Asia, supports more than 13,500 national missionaries and operates 133 Bible Schools with more than 6,900 students. These qualifications place him in a unique position to comment on the interplay between proclaiming the gospel and social action in missions. This commentary makes compelling reading. My prayer is that we take to heart, and to the Lord, what Dr Yohannan is saying, and re-evaluate how we do “mission.” This chapter from Dr K.P Yohannan’s book, Revolution in World Missions,1 is reprinted with permission.

IF WE IN THE CHURCH FAIL TO EVANGELISE, WE FAIL. PERIOD. Dr K.P. Yohannan. o keep Christian missions off balance, Satan has woven a masterful web of deceit and lies. He has invented a whole

1 I recommend reading his brilliant book, Revolution in World Missions, which is available free from www.gfa.org

system of appealing half-truths to confuse the Church and ensure that millions will go to hell without ever receiving the gospel. Here are a two of his more common inventions written as questions: ow can we preach the Gospel to a man with an empty stomach? A man’s stomach has nothing to do with his heart’s condition of being a rebel against a holy God. A rich American on Fifth Avenue in New York City or a poor beggar on the streets of Bombay are both rebels against God Almighty, according to the Bible. The result of this lie is the fact that, during the past 100 years, most mission money has been invested in social work. I am not saying we should not care for the poor and needy. The issue I am taking to task is losing our primary focus of preaching the gospel. sn’t “mission work” meeting the physical needs of people ? Isn’t it equal to preaching? Luke 16:19-25 tells us the story of the rich man and Lazarus. Of what benefit were the possessions of the rich man? He could not pay his way out of hell, nor could his riches comfort him. The rich man had lost everything, including his soul. What about Lazarus? He didn’t have any possessions to lose, but he had made preparations for his soul. What was more important during their time on earth? Was it the care for the “body temple” or the immortal soul? “For what good is it for you to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit your very self?” (Luke 9:25). It is a crime against lost humanity to go in the name of Christ on missions to do social work but to neglect calling people to repent – to give up their idols and rebellion – and follow Christ with all their hearts. sn’t it true that our gospel message will be ineffective unless we offer them something else first. I have sat on the streets of Bombay with beggars – poor men who soon would die. In sharing the gospel with many of them, I told them I had no material goods to give them, but I came to offer

eternal life. I began to share the love of Jesus who died for their souls. I told them about the many mansions in my Father’s house (John 14:2) and the fact that they could go there to hunger and thirst no more. “The Lord Jesus will wipe away every tear from your eyes,” I said. They would no longer be in any debt. There would no longer be any mourning, crying or pain (Revelation 7:16, 21:4). What a joy it was to see some of them opening their hearts after hearing about the forgiveness of sin they could find in Jesus! That is exactly what the Bible teaches in Romans 10:17, “So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.” Substituting the Holy Spirit and the gospel for a bowl of rice will never save a soul and will rarely change the attitude of a person’s heart. We will not even begin to make a dent in the kingdom of darkness until we lift up Christ with all the authority, power and revelation that is given to us in the Bible. In few countries is the failure of Christian humanism more apparent than in Thailand. There, after 150 years of missionaries showing marvellous social compassion, Christians still make up only two percent of the entire population.2 ood works alone won’t do the job... Self-sacrificing missionaries have probably done more to modernise the country than any other single force. Thailand owes to missionaries its widespread literacy, first printing press, first university, first hospital, first doctor and almost every other benefit of education and science. In every area, including trade and diplomacy, Christian missionaries put the needs of the host nation first and helped usher in the 20th century. Meanwhile, millions have slipped into eternity without the Lord. They died more educated, better governed and healthier, but they died without Christ and are bound for hell.

2 D avid Barrett and Todd Johnson, World Christian Trends, AD 30-AD 2200, Pasadena: William Carey Library, 2001, p.429

What went wrong? Were these missionaries not dedicated enough? Were their doctrines unscriptural? Perhaps they did not believe in eternal hell or eternal heaven. Did they lack Bible training, or did they just not go out to preach to the lost? Did they shift their priorities from being interested in saving souls to relieving human suffering? I know now it was probably a little of all of these things. ow to multiply churches... While I was seeking answers to these questions, I met poor, often minimally-educated native brothers involved in gospel [i.e. evangelising] work in pioneer areas. They had nothing material to offer the people to whom they preached â&#x20AC;&#x201C; no agricultural training and no medical relief or school programme. But hundreds of souls were saved, and in a few years a number of churches were established. ust doing what Jesus said to do works... What were these brothers doing right to achieve such results, while the others with many more advantages had failed? The answer lies in our basic understanding of what mission work is all about. There is nothing wrong with charitable acts â&#x20AC;&#x201C; but they are not to be confused with preaching the gospel. Feeding programmes can save people dying from hunger. Medical aid can prolong life and fight disease. Housing projects can make this temporary life more comfortable, but only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can save a soul from a life of sin and an eternity in hell! To look into the sad eyes of a hungry child or see the wasted life of a drug addict is to see the evidence of Satanâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hold on this world. He is the ultimate enemy of mankind, and he will do everything within his considerable power to kill and destroy people. But to try to fight this terrible enemy with only physical weapons is like fighting tanks with stones.

H J

hrough evangelism, God gets to the root... When commerce had been established with the Fiji Islanders, a merchant who was an atheist landed on the island to do business. He was talking to the Fijian chief and noticed a Bible and some other paraphernalia of religion around the house. “What a shame,” he said, “that you have listened to this foolish nonsense of the missionaries.” The chief replied, “Do you see the large white stone over there? That is a stone where just a few years ago we used to smash the heads of our victims to get at their brains. Do you see that large oven over there? That is the oven where just a few years ago we used to bake the bodies of our victims before we feasted upon them. Had we not listened to what you call the nonsense of those missionaries, I assure you that your head would already be smashed on that rock and your body would be baking in that oven.” There is no record of the merchant’s response to that explanation of the importance of the gospel of Christ. When God changes the heart and spirit, the physical changes also. If you want to meet the needs of the poor in this world, there is no better place to start than by preaching the gospel. It has done more to lift up the downtrodden, the hungry and the needy than all the social programmes ever imagined by secular humanists. These words of Jesus should haunt our souls: “You travel over land and sea to win a single convert, and then you make that convert twice as much a child of hell as you are” (Matthew 23:15). A.W. Tozer said it well in his book Of God and Man: “To spread an effete, degenerate brand of Christianity to pagan lands is not to fulfill the commandment of Christ or discharge our obligation to the heathen.”3 hy communism in China succeeded and the Church lost an opportunity...

3 A.W. Tozer, Of God and Man. Harrisburg, PA: Christian Publications, Inc., 1960, p.35

Just before China was taken over by the communists, one communist officer made a revealing statement to a missionary, John Meadows: “You missionaries have been in China for over a hundred years, but you have not won China to your cause. You lament the fact that there are uncounted millions who have never heard the name of your God. Nor do they know anything of your Christianity. But we communists have been in China less than ten years, and there is not a Chinese who does not know... has not heard the name of Stalin... or something of communism...We have filled China with our doctrine. Now let me tell you why you have failed and we have succeeded,” the officer continued. “You have tried to win the attention of the masses by building churches, missions, mission hospitals, schools and what not. But we communists have printed our message and spread our literature all over China. Someday we will drive you missionaries out of our country, and we will do it by means of the printed page.” Today, of course, John Meadows is out of China. The communists were true to their word. They won China and drove out the missionaries. Indeed, what missionaries failed to do in 100 years, the Communists did in ten. One Christian leader said that if the Church had spent as much time on preaching the gospel as it did on hospitals, orphanages, schools and rest homes – needful though they were – the Bamboo Curtain would not exist today. The tragedy of China is being repeated today in other countries. When we allow a mission activity to focus only on the physical needs of people without the correct spiritual balance (i.e. proclaiming the gospel), we are participating in a programme that will ultimately fail. However, this does not mean we must not be involved in compassion-type ministries that reach out to the poor, needy and hurting people all around us. 14

ummary

• Satan has woven a masterful web of deceit and lies. He has invented a whole system of appealing half-truths to confuse the Church and ensure that millions will go to hell without ever receiving the gospel. • It is a crime against lost humanity to go in the name of Christ on missions to do social work but to neglect calling people to repent – to give up their idols and rebellion – and follow Christ with all their hearts.There is nothing wrong with charitable acts – but they are not to be confused with preaching the gospel. • Feeding programmes can save people dying from hunger. Medical aid can prolong life and fight disease. Housing projects can make this temporary life more comfortable, but only the Gospel of Jesus Christ can save a soul from a life of sin and an eternity in hell.

A P P E N D I X

TWO

The author of this paper is a world authority on missions and evangelism. He gives several powerful and potent reasons why churches donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t grow and offers solutions. This article makes compelling reading. Dr Roger Greenway (now retired) was a Professor of World Missiology at Calvin Theological Seminary. Dr Greenway served as a missionary in Sri Lanka and Mexico. He was a tenured Professor of Missions and Gospel Communication at Westminster Theological Seminary, and has written several works on urban missions.

Pastor Evangelists Dr Roger S. Greenway Lecturing Professor

Adapted and printed with permission.

t the meetings of the Consultation on World Evangelisation held in Thailand in 1980, George Peters, who for many years taught Missions at Dallas Theological Seminary, made several pointed comments about pastors and evangelism. He talked about the churches of Europe, where in his retirement he made annual visits addressing pastors and furloughing missionaries. Peters told us he had recently addressed a gathering of 350 European pastors, all of them conservative in their theology. He asked them how many had ever studied evangelism. Only five said they had ever taken a course in the subject. Twenty had attended at least a one-day workshop in evangelism. The vast majority had never received any formal instruction on how to do or organise evangelism. Was there any connection, Peters asked, between this lack of training and the major complaint throughout Europe that the churches werenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t growing? 16

He believed the “European churches and their leaders have never seen the connection between evangelism and pastoral ministry.” y own observations in other parts of the world bear out what George Peters said. When churches fail to represent the claims of Christ evangelistically to the unsaved world, various things happen. The gospel of God’s saving grace no longer glows in pulpit and pew as it formerly did, and members slip away. Among the remnant, religious energies are directed toward other things, usually social issues and human development. Theologians add to the process by providing a conceptual framework of soteriological universalism that does not require personal conversion and thereby excludes biblical evangelism. Evangelism, in fact, is redefined as social action. he decline in evangelism starts at the top... As far as the churches are concerned, it is a downward spiral as unevangelistic leaders produce unevangelistic institutions, which in turn produce a body of people whose religious impulses go in many directions. Some of them even travel to distant parts of the world where they do many commendable things but lack evangelistic motivation and power. Such workers cannot produce growing churches. Though pastors are not the whole problem, they certainly are a key part of it. And, I would add, they can also be the catalyst for reversing the spiral. he disgusting state of the mission fields... George Peters made a second statement about the strategy missions’ agencies follow around the world: “I’ve just come back from a round-the-world tour of mission fields on behalf of several major boards, and I’m disgusted. I’ve seen a thousand small stagnant churches that weren’t going anywhere. I told the mission executives they had better stop emphasising church planting until they’ve learned to make churches grow. The pastors don’t know how to

evangelise and the churches just hang on with a handful of members.” he evangelistic sterility of mainline churches... One of the dismal realities we don’t talk about in mission literature, particularly literature of a promotional kind, is our planting of many churches that are as evangelistically sterile as many of our older churches in the West. Non-growing churches in places where receptivity to the gospel is generally high is an unresolved dilemma, and I believe God has raised up the Pentecostal churches partly as an indictment of the older denominations. The evangelistic sterility of mainline churches, including some that remain orthodox in their doctrine, is a terrible witness to Christianity and in my opinion stands at the top of the list of the problems we face in world evangelisation. eadership is everything... I believe that the solution begins with the pastors who lead the congregations and the training they receive for ministry. Many years ago the great missionary statesman John R. Mott expressed this truth succinctly: “The secret of enabling the church to press forward in the non-Christian world is one of leadership. The people do not exceed their leaders in knowledge and zeal, nor surpass them in consecration and sacrifice. The Christian pastor… holds the divinely appointed office for inspiring and guiding the thought and activities of the church. By virtue of his position he can be a mighty force in the world’s evangelisation.” In the first chapter of my book4 I said the pastor’s responsibility in regard to evangelism was threefold. He must teach and preach evangelism from the Word of God, building a solid basis of understanding and commitment within the congregations.

4 Dr Roger Greenway. The Pastor Evangelist. Preacher, Model and Mobiliser for Church Growth. P and R Publishing Company. 1987.

2 3

He must model evangelism in his own life and ministry, teaching by example and guiding others in the process. Finally, the pastor must mobilise the membership in ways that put feet to doctrine and theory. His role is that of organiser, equipper and catalyst. Under his leadership the members explore new possibilities for reaching their community and incorporate evangelism into every department of church life. Much of my book has dealt with ways this can be done, and my purpose in the final chapter is to highlight certain issues and review the general framework of pastoral evangelism. I include a number of illustrations of pastoral evangelism in action, building around the three pivotal areas of modelling, teaching and organising. n defence of pastors... In response to the possible accusation that I have been unduly hard on pastors, I begin with some thoughts in their defense, things that need to be said though they imply a degree of admonition. First, something needs to be said about para-church organisations that specialise in evangelism and whose record in gaining converts frequently exceeds that of the established church. At the Consultation in Thailand, I heard pastors from various parts of the world complain they felt they were being victimised in the eyes of their people. Pastors, they complained, always got the blame when the church compared poorly with the highly charged efforts of para-church mission agencies. Often the members themselves, or the situation where the church was located and working, inhibited the kind of growth people demanded. The pastors gathered in Thailand pointed out also that para-church organisations were generally structured differently from the church.

astors overloaded with other things become too busy to evangelise... Their main intent was missionary service and outreach, whereas pastors and churches had a host of additional responsibilities besides evangelism. Workers in para-church mission agencies generally didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t have to counsel troubled families, conduct funerals, run womenâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s groups or comfort the sick and elderly. They could focus on the purpose for which they were organised and maintained, evangelism. If their success in that department seemed to exceed that of the average pastor and the institutional church, the reasons were obvious. The pastorsâ&#x20AC;&#x2122; complaint is legitimate, and critics of the church need to be reminded that the ministries of the church go far beyond the specialized concerns of para-church organisations. They must remember, too, that the task of evangelism is not complete when people become believers. Discipleship is a long, ongoing process, involving years of instruction, guidance and discipline. Without churches to do this, what would become of the fruits of the para-church institutions? ocal churches with pastors committed to evangelism will do better than all other organisations when it comes to drawing sinners! I am convinced that when the local church enjoys the leadership of pastors committed to evangelism, it takes a back seat to no other organisation in drawing sinners to Christ and nurturing them over the long haul to faithful and responsible discipleship. Secondly, I defend those pastors who serve in difficult locations. There are rural communities where many residents have departed and few young people stay around. Pastors in declining communities see many of the talented people leaving, and they can easily become discouraged because all the exciting places of ministry seem to be somewhere else.

Then there are inner city neighbourhoods where people’s lives, in varying degrees, are shattered and torn apart by sin and its consequences. Numerical growth is slow, and pastors spend much of their time healing wounds and holding members together against a barrage of negative forces. Some churches are located in places where they are cut off from the mainstream because of language or cultural differences, and yet the remnant is there and requires pastoral care. trategic church planting yeilds big results... Highly favourable locations can also be deceptive. There are communities so favourable that almost any church will grow, even without evangelism. In North America and Europe these usually are suburban locations where a large number of middle-class families are moving in and can be counted on to join an evangelical church. Church planters rely on demographic studies to determine where these high potential locations are likely to develop, and they shape their strategy accordingly. From a practical standpoint this makes sense, and many of the highly acclaimed churches in America are built in this way. But the strategy, especially if it is followed to the exclusion of all others, has some serious drawbacks. It may represent the planned neglect of urban neighbourhoods where large numbers of people need to be evangelized and pastured. It tends to focus entirely on “our kind” of people, to the neglect of social and ethnic minorities. It may say in effect that the only churches worth planting and pastoring are those which promise, in businessmen’s terms, a high return on the investment. Therefore, in defense of some “low yield” pastorates I raise this word of caution.

Godâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s people are found in many different locations and circumstances and all of them need mission-hearted pastors. Heaven will reward many who receive no laurels on earth. Let us not look down on those less-fertile fields, but honour the labourers for their perseverance. eminaries must take responsibility... Thirdly, in defense of pastors who feel frustrated over evangelism, something needs to be said about Christian colleges and seminaries which fail to provide adequate training in this area. What George Peters observed in the case of European-educated pastors is also true of schools on the other side of the Atlantic and in many Third World institutions. Most courses on missions and evangelism are heavy on theory but light on practice, and some graduates have never studied evangelism at all. Courses in the department of practical theology are traditionally oriented towards the internal needs of congregations and not towards the evangelisation of the unsaved outside. It is no wonder, therefore, that pastors feel frustrated when churches decline and evangelism-minded lay people look elsewhere for direction. Evangelism tends to have the same importance in the churches that it has in the seminaries, and for that reason our concern for evangelism through local churches carries us to the schools where church leadership is formed. Few people have known more about seminaries around the world and how well they succeed in producing pastor-evangelists than James F. Hopewell, associated as he was with the Theological Education Fund from its beginning in 1958, long before it had formal connection with the World Council of Churches and its viewpoint. heological education faulty... Hopewell visited hundreds of theological institutions around

the world with the specific purpose of cutting through the outer, superficial appearances and getting at the core of their mission and ministry. Defining “mission” as the witness Christians make outside the normal frontiers of the church, and “candidate” as the person being prepared by some theological institution for a career in Christian service, Hopewell said the following: “The problem is that surprisingly few candidates are prepared to engage in that mission with any consistency or accuracy. And while this fault may be attributed to almost any aspect of modern church structure, it seems particularly encouraged by the pattern of theological education now practised in most seminaries around the world. Now I would like to contend that most of these factors that comprise our understanding of typical theological education have been unconsciously designed to avoid, and therefore to hinder, the basic Christian intention of mission. And I do not mean to beat the anti-intellectual drum against higher learning. What rather concerns an increasing number of critics is that the very tool of higher learning has been misappropriated to perform a third-rate job for a second-rate church structure. In a time when our understanding of the ministry more and more implies its dynamic, missionary function, we continue to rely upon a system of preparation which at its roots is essentially static and isolationist.”5 hange or face decline... In view of the increased pressure building up today for leadership that knows how to evangelise, I predict Christian colleges and seminaries will have to revamp their programmes or

5 James F. Hopewell, “Preparing the Candidate for Mission,” International Review of Missions 56:158-63.

face decline. The realities of a world in which the percentage of unchurched and unsaved people rises every year demand that church leadership be trained in new ways to meet the challenge. Evangelism must be returned to its rightful place in the classroom and the church, or the trend toward para-churchism will become a stampede. Certain readers may want to challenge this, and so I invite them to reflect on the following. A well-known evangelical seminary that has always stood for scholarship and doctrinal conservatism recently sent a questionnaire to its alumni asking them to rank the courses they felt had been the most helpful in preparing them for pastoral ministry. As reported by the pastors, the top five were church history, Greek, history, systematics, and biblical theology. At or near the bottom were preaching, evangelism and church growth. ay leaders think differently from pastors... Another questionnaire was sent to the elders and lay leaders of the churches being served by the seminaryâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s graduates. They were asked to indicate the chief weakness they observed in pastors. Surprise! The top three weaknesses were in communication, preaching and evangelism, areas that lie at the exact opposite of the â&#x20AC;&#x153;most helpfulâ&#x20AC;? courses identified by the pastors. That seminary, and many similar institutions, really has something to think about. The discrepancy in responses may reflect the quality of the teaching in the respective departments. eminaries out of sync with what lay leaders are wanting... In addition, it reflects a profound difference of perception between scholars and church members as to what people in the pew are looking for in their leaders.

Certainly the members had detected certain deficiencies in the training received by their pastors and they were outspoken in their desire to see the gaps filled. That particular seminary is taking serious steps to shore up its weaknesses and I hope all pastor-training institutions will take warning. astors must take responsibility... Responsibility for equipping members for Kingdom service and evangelism lies with the pastors, the spiritual leaders of God’s people. The biblical pattern is teaching, modelling and organising. In teaching I include Sunday preaching, which in most churches is the chief didactic instrument. Unless the pastor’s teaching-preaching proclaims the gospel and creates the atmosphere of evangelism in the church, it is unlikely that the church will become mobilised for effective outreach. Members must be able to expect that in every worship service the good news of hope and salvation through Christ will be heard in such a manner that children, youth and the casual visitor will be able to grasp something of its meaning. Unfortunately, this is not the case in every church. Some time ago I was talking with an elder from a large Reformed congregation. I know the pastor of that church well, and he is a gifted speaker and deeply committed to the orthodox expression of faith. The elder, a man of long-standing leadership in the church, related to me how he and his wife had witnessed by word and deed for many years to his unchurched neighbours. Repeatedly they had invited the couple to attend church, but they had always refused. roclaim the gospel inside churches regularly and clearly... Finally, they agreed to go just once. “My wife and I took them to the Pentecostal church,” said the elder. Surprised, I asked him why they had not taken them to their own church. “Well, you

know how it is in our church,” he replied. “Our preacher is great, but he is usually very deep, and we were afraid they wouldn’t hear the gospel.” That was an awful indictment on the elder’s church and its pulpit ministry. It sheds light also on the fact that particular church has sent scores of members into para-church ministries, all of them legitimate in themselves but not contributing in any direct way to the growth of the congregation. Various attempts over the years were made by the church to develop an effective outreach programme, but nothing seemed to work. The church kept nourishing the faith of its members, many of whom went off to engage in evangelistic ministries through outside organisations, while the church hardly drew a new member except through its own children, occasional transfers and a few marriages. The preaching of sound doctrine without a burning heart for evangelism is as unbiblical as it is dangerous. Likewise are pastoral prayers without tears for lost souls. The evangelistic tone of the congregation is set on Sunday where the passion of the pastor’s heart becomes evident and is transmitted to the members. purgeon on having Christ in your spirit... In a sermon entitled “Without Christ – Nothing” Charles H. Spurgeon said the following: “You may have sound doctrine, and yet do nothing unless you have Christ in your spirit. I have known all doctrines of grace to be unmistakably preached, and yet there have been no conversions; for this reason, that they were not expected and scarcely desired. In former years many orthodox preachers thought it to be their sole duty to comfort and confirm the godly few. These brethren spoke of sinners as of people whom God might possibly gather in if he thought fit to do so; but they did not care much whether he did so or not.

As to weeping over sinners as Christ wept over Jerusalem; as to venturing to invite them to Christ as the Lord did when he stretched out his hands all day long; as to lamenting with Jeremiah over a perishing people, they had no sympathy with such emotions and feared they savoured of Arminianism. Both preacher and congregation were cased in a hard shell, and lived as if their own salvation was the sole design of their existence. If anybody did grow zealous and seek conversions, straightaway they said he was indiscreet or conceited. When a church falls into this condition it is, as to its spirit, ‘without Christ.’ What comes of it? Some of you know by your own observation what does come of it. The comfortable corporation exists and grows for a little while, but it comes to nothing in the long run; and so it must: there can be no fruit bearing where there is not the Spirit of Christ as well as the doctrine of Christ. Except the Spirit of the Lord rest upon you, causing you to agonise for the salvation of men even as Jesus did, ye can do nothing.”6 aving the heart of Jesus for the lost... Spurgeon spoke directly to the point, and the only corrective for the “comfortable corporation” is to be led by pastors who have the heart of the Great Pastor, Jesus. His heart must increasingly become ours so that His ministry may shine through us. Preachers and churches without Christ’s Spirit of compassion for the lost have always been around. They display certain strengths for a while, even a long while, but eventually they divide, dwindle and close down unless they repent and return to the spirit of the Lord.

6 Charles H Spurgeon, Sermons on Revival (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 1958), pp 187-88

In our day we see how thousands of renewed Christians spend their energies on ministries apart from organised churches mainly because of this condition. Worship and preaching stand at the core of congregational life. Whenever churches have growth problems, you can be certain something is wrong with their worship life. On the other hand, preaching that is biblical, intelligible, winsome and delivered in the power of the Holy Spirit sets churches on fire and sends members into the streets charged with enthusiasm to draw others in. Lyle E. Schaller, whose writings about the church and the ministry every pastor should devour, has given what he calls the “Seven Earmarks of Growing Churches.” In an article that appeared in Second Monday, May 1981, Schaller says that churches that grow successfully through evangelism are characterised by the following elements, which I have slightly recast: Biblical Preaching. To the surprise of many church members, says Schaller, more people on the outside are looking for good biblical preaching than we generally assume. They will come to a church where the preacher delivers an authentic word from the Lord and applies Scripture to the real needs of today. I will say more about this point later. Emphasis on Evangelism. In growing churches, evangelism is not left to the pastor or a few “mission enthusiasts.” Such churches have a cadre7 of unpaid lay evangelists who are motivated by what they hear from the pulpit to go out and win others to Christ. Strong Emphasis on Fellowship. Whereas in most traditional churches the membership circle is larger

1 2 3

7 The nucleus of trained servicemen forming the basis of a military unit.

5 6 7

than the fellowship circle because a percentage of members do not get involved and never become active, the growing churches have a fellowship circle that is larger than the membership circle. Outsiders are continually being drawn toward Christ and His church by the services and activities of the congregation. Opportunities to Express Commitment. Schaller says that growing churches recognize that different people have different gifts and different needs, and these churches intentionally present a wide variety of opportunities for members to affirm their faith, even in its early stages, and express their commitment through the church. When churches have only narrow programs and stifle creative expression, the gifts and talents of many members remain unused or people go elsewhere to express their commitment. Openness to New Leadership. Growing churches take advantage of new leaders that come into the fellowship from outside the original “church family.” Nongrowing churches, however, keep the key leadership positions for people belonging to the “mainline families” that have run the church for a generation or more. A high percentage of churches fall into this category. Specialties in Ministry. Churches that continue to draw newcomers into their fellowship are churches that, in addition to the basic ministries found in all congregations, focus on special ministries for which they become well known. These ministries are person-centred, are designed to meet particular needs, intentionally include an evangelistic dimension, and offer church members fresh opportunities to express their gifts and interests. A Pastor Who Likes People. Surprisingly enough, not all pastors like people, and it shows. Some pastors prefer books 29

and the solitude of their private studies to the topsy-turvy world of interpersonal relationships and bleeding people. They may be highly trained and skilled in professional ways, but they lack the essential ingredient of love for people. oving people... I was called in once by the pastor of a large Presbyterian church in Mexico City to help him assess what was wrong in the Sunday School. The Sunday School director was highly educated, a professor in the denominational seminary, and he seemed to have everything organised very well. In fact he took his position in the Sunday School seriously and chose the best curriculum. After a long talk with him, however, I discovered what the problem was. He realized it himself, and admitted, “I love organising and directing the Sunday school, but I hate kids.” The pupils felt it, the teachers chafed under his leadership, and the whole program suffered. I wonder how many stagnant churches suffer from the same problem. Returning to point one of Schaller’s list of growth characteristics, we note that quality biblical preaching is absolutely essential. reaching and worship on Sundays are the key... Preaching and Sunday worship set the tone for the whole life of the congregation. What happens on Sunday is the key. Here the character of the church is formed, directions are set, visions are shared, and the Spirit through the Word moves the church in one direction or another. Romans 10:17, a text that years ago I chose as the theme text of my pastoral and missionary ministry, is the clue to it all: “Faith comes from hearing the message, and the message is heard through the word of Christ.” Good biblical preaching builds Christians and makes churches grow, and this is the pastor’s foremost task. Edgar Whitaker Work expressed it this way: “Courage in the ministry is a contagious spirit felt by others. When men preach in

this spirit their preaching has a power of appeal that grips souls. You catch it in the way they use the Bible. You feel the strong word of truth coming to you as you listen to sermons of this kind. Circumlocutions8 give way. Direct, positive ways of speech take their place. Plain, simple, straightforward utterance in the Gospel wins attention. Men feel the ribs and structure of the gospel. Again and again the preacher who is bold and outspoken in these ways makes irresistible use of his text. He thrusts it, as it were, beyond the mind, into the heart. He gives it imperative force with his hearers. They must hear, he will not let them close their ears.9â&#x20AC;? odelling â&#x20AC;&#x201C; Test of the Preacherâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Grit and Integrity... Good preaching, however, does not stand alone. It must be in combination with the whole ministry of the pastor and the life of the church. This principle has been reiterated in various ways throughout the book. he ultimate test for any pastor... Vincent Taylor once said that the test of any theologian is, can he write a tract? Taylor was not interested in any kind of theology that did not help to evangelise. I would add another question: Can the titan in the pulpit lead one soul, in private, to Christ? It is one thing to deliver a fine sermon, and still another to take the message to the street, the sick room, and the house of mourning. These occasions occur over and over again in the normal routine of pastoring, and it is in these day-by-day situations that the pastor becomes the model for the congregation. The members can be depended on to take notice. Pastoral visitation, particularly in homes and hospital, is a key to success in ministry and evangelism. When churches become stagnant and membership drops off, it is

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8 An indirect way of expressing something. 9 Edgar Whitaker Work, Every Minister His Own Evangelist (Fleming, 1927) p.125

usually the case that the pastors and the elders have not been calling on the people. When it comes to visitation, there is little difference between the work of the local pastor and the work of the home or foreign missionary. Both require the aggressive pursuit of people. A Presbyterian pastor in Canada told me recently what had happened in one of the large churches in Toronto. “The pastors didn’t think visiting was part of their job,” he said. “They didn’t even visit the families of the Kirk session and as a result the elders didn’t visit either. The minister had the idea that if members needed help, they’d come on their own, and the minister didn’t have to go out looking for them.” The church he was describing was once one of Toronto’s finest, but today it stands almost empty. isitation evangelism powerful... Visitation evangelism is one the great needs of the hour. Some sixty million people in the country are classified as “unchurched.” That is, they are not members of a church, nor have they attended religious services for a six month period except for religious holidays. Many of them are not hostile to the Christian religion, and they show interest in religious subjects. They may buy religious books, including the Bible. What keeps them from joining the community of active believers? One reason is that they have not been personally invited to do so. Many pastors and congregations are neglecting the fundamental step of going out after people and inviting them to attend the place of worship. Coupled with this is the need for evidence of pastoral concern and availability. Unchurched people generally have notions about organised religion and about clergy in particular, which can only be dismissed through pastoral visitation.

Pastors need to seek out every possible opportunity to talk to unchurched people about spiritual matters and dispel by personal word and example the false notions outsiders have about churches. In actuality, pastors by virtue of their office and the respect in which they are held in the community, have tremendous advantages when making calls. Pastors are the last professionals to make home visits, and seldom do they have a door slammed in their faces. And if they do, so what? They are then in good company, for Jesus was “despised and rejected of men” for their salvation. I used to tell my students in the Juan Calvino Seminary in Mexico City that there were two pieces of leather they must expect to wear out if they wanted to plant churches and see them grow – the leather around their Bibles and the leather on the soles of their shoes. One student took this advice seriously, and when he told me that the church to which he had been assigned over the summer break had doubled in size, he added, “And maestro, I wore out three pairs of shoes!” He hardly needed to tell me, because churches seldom grow without a great deal of visitation. The concern the pastor shows in the time he spends calling becomes the model for the members of the congregation in their concern for one another and for outsiders. There is simply no substitute for the pastor’s visits, in the home, the hospital, and wherever people are found. astors must model evangelising strangers... Furthermore, it is excellent therapy for pastors to engage regularly in direct evangelism on strange and unfriendly turf. They need to face the same world ordinary church members confront day after day. Away from the security of the pulpit and church building, pastors should expose themselves to hostile ridicule, barbed questions and instant rejection. Jesus exposed Himself in that way,

and we should not avoid it. In the rough and tumble of the world the evangelising pastor gains fresh insights into the non-Christian mind. When hecklers in a prison block, a campus gathering, or the open street challenge his religious assertions, he learns new things about human depravity and the harsh realities of evangelism. He finds out what it takes to prepare and preach evangelistic messages without the use of familiar clichés and the religious background we tend to take for granted in the church. In my own ministry, some of the hardest messages I ever preached were in the open air before a mixed audience of Buddhists and Hindus, where anything, including violence, might be expected. And I never felt closer to the ministry of Jesus, who was seldom on safe turf and was a street preacher who made Himself vulnerable to hostile listeners. More important than formal study is prayer. It takes a lot for a teacher of homiletics to say that, but I do. When the pastor has a passion for souls, it shines through in everything he does and says, especially his prayers in private and before the congregation. he people will catch the spirit and habits of their pastor.. Parishioners who breathe an atmosphere charged by evangelistic passion conveyed through the pastor’s sermons and prayers, and attested by his ministry among them and their neighbours, eventually partake of the same spirit. rayer all important... It grows on them, and they touch others. Their prayers echo his, and his ministry carries over into theirs. As Edgar Whitaker Work put it, “The minister’s own practice of prayer will have much to do with the evangelistic force of his sermons. If his sermon is based on prayer in the making of it, if he rises from his knees to go to the pulpit, a power goes with the sermon that opens the way to the

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hearts of men. Prayer as a background to preaching is a condition we can little understand, and certainly cannot measure. Men of power in prayer cannot preach a sermon, no matter what the subject, without making it evangelistic.”10 Prayer makes the preacher, and prayer makes the pastor. Men of great prayer for the lost and straying turn churches into powerhouses of evangelism. rganising the Church for Evangelism... Some pastors have special gifts in evangelism. Many do not. But all pastors have the responsibility to facilitate evangelism in and through their congregations. Pastoral leadership in evangelism extends from the pulpit and classroom to the people in the pew who are moved to action by the Word and the Spirit and encouraged by the pastor’s interest and example. There is one step more, and it extends to the structures and programmes of the church, including new ones created intentionally with outreach in mind. In this area it is especially important to define clearly the target people. In one church I pastored we spelled out repeatedly to the congregation that in the geographical area around the church we were aiming our evangelism programme toward the “unsaved, unchurched, and un-cared-for.” There were plenty of people in all three categories. Some had a flimsy church connection but knew nothing of personal salvation through Christ. We worked through the Sunday school, youth organisations, and a chain of midweek evangelistic home Bible studies to reach them. Some of our neighbours had never connected to any church. We found that a midweek women’s programme held at the church, which focused on fellowship and Bible study, proved to be one of

10 Edgar Whitaker Work, Every Minister His Own Evangelist (Fleming, 1927)., p. 41-43

the fruitful things we did to reach the unchurched. The physically and spiritually uncared-for were all around us, and the deacons were mobilised to respond to appeals for help, especially food, and to tie in their ministry with the overall evangelistic thrust of the church. ocial services must never take a higher priority than evangelism... Physical and emotional needs are seldom found in isolation from spiritual needs, and evangelistic deacons are a church’s vital link to a neighbourhood where there are poor, troubled, and unsaved people. Pastors should have no fear of social ministries so long as they are not given a higher priority than the spiritual. In the past, mainline denominations went wrong at the point when social service was given a higher priority than evangelism. Churches stopped their former activities in evangelism and spiritual outreach and shifted to social service as their main concern. That shift precipitated the downward spiral of those churches and denominations.

(This chapter is kindly reprinted with permission from the ‘after word’ in Donald McGavran’s book entitled Effective Evangelism. A Theological Mandate. The ‘after word’ of this book is a chapter from Professor Roger Greenway called The Pastor-Evangelist: Preacher, Model, and Mobilizer for church growth (1987). I thoroughly recommend this book to you for further reading).

ummary

• The reason most churches in Europe are not growing is that their leaders have never seen the connection between evangelism and pastoral ministry. • Leaders have defined evangelism as social action with disasterous results. 36

• Unevangelistic leaders produce unevangelistic institutions which in turn produce unevangelistic pastors, which in turn produce unevangelistic congregations. • 350 European pastors were asked how many had ever studied evangelism. Only five said they had ever taken a course in the subject. • Most courses on missions and evangelism at seminary are heavy on theory but light on practice, and some graduates have never studied evangelism at all. • Christian colleges and seminaries will have to revamp their programmes or face decline. • The programmes taught by most colleges turn out pastors who are static and isolationist. • Research shows most seminaries are not producing the kinds of pastors lay leaders are wanting in their churches. • Church leaders must acquire what Spurgeon called “the spirit of Christ for the lost” within them. • Visitation evangelism is very effective. • Pastors must model evangelism before their people. • The ultimate test of a pastor is can they write a tract. • The sermon and the worship on Sundays, along with prayer are the power house of every church. From these three elements, evangelistic zeal in the congregation will spring. • Pastors should have no fear of social ministries so long as they are not given a higher priority than the spiritual. • The secret of enabling the church to press forward in the nonChristian world is one of leadership. By virtue of his position he can be a mighty force in the world’s evangelisation. • In defence of some pastors, heaven will reward many who receive no laurels on earth. Let us not look down on those less-fertile fields, but honour the labourers for their perseverance. 37

A P P E N D I X

THREE

evyn Harris is the National Director of Voice of Friendship NZ, and has a background in business and ministry. He has been a pastor and senior pastor, as well as a business trainer and skills assessor. Kevyn is a graduate of Emmanuel Bible College, New Zealand Baptist Theological College, Melbourne College of Divinity, and Massey University. He has practised as an employment advocate and mediator as well as being a consultant to companies and organisations in the area of conflict management and dispute resolution.

True Gospel Must Be Heard1 K e v y n

H a r r i s

director@vof.org.nz

bviously the answer would be directed by the response to other questions: Which gospel? What is the content of the good news? How is it received and therefore communicated? No one questions the need in our world. It is tragically apparent, 1 T his article first appeared in Challenge Weekly, a New Zealand Christian newspaper, Vol 63, Issue No 6. February 21, 2005

and even more so if you live in or regularly visit developing countries. Along with poverty, there are graft and structural injustices which are endemic in some Southeast Asian and African countries. Westerners, either from the guilt which comes from having too much when others have so little, or from altruistic motives, contribute generously to disaster relief such as we recently saw following the Asian tsunami. e respond with social action but no evangelismâ&#x20AC;Ś Along with other citizens and groups, evangelical churches responded with prayers and monetary help. All this is laudable, but unmatched by their support of the propagation of the good news of God concerning His Son. When it comes to guilt and altruism, Christians have competition. It takes no faith or special revelation of God to respond to these needs. But when it comes to the business of evangelical mission we have only the faithful. The problem appears to be that the faithful believe a humanitarian response is the Gospel. he gospel is redefined as social actionâ&#x20AC;Ś We have become subverted by need instead of by what is needful. The maxim of General Booth, that I feed a man so he is able to hear the gospel, has become: feed the man and he has heard the gospel. Social concern is dangerously close to becoming a contradiction of the truth that the Word is heard, not eaten. It is a subtle shift but, like all subtle suggestions, a potentially dangerous one which should not go unquestioned. The evangelical church is falling over itself to be a good citizen and show that, yes, it too cares. But then so does Jesus, and yet the poor will always be with us. If all we offer is what the world can offer how does our response configure to the axiom that man does not live by bread alone?

vangelism ministries struggle while social action agencies boom… For some years the missions that have the preaching of the gospel and the encouragement of the saints as their first priority have been losing out to those agencies that have the meeting of material need as their first objective. We might be defined as being in the same business, and we do certainly work to complement each other. However, the Government does not believe we are in the same business, even if evangelicals might be confused in this area. If you are a Christian organisation and confront poverty and structural injustice your donors are likely to be afforded a tax refund. If you are a Christian organisation and your first priority is to declare the Lordship of Christ and make disciples, your donors are not afforded a tax exemption. If the evangelical church has drifted into believing the two activities are synonymous, the world has not. Someone’s thinking has shifted and it is not the world’s. vangelistic enterprises must be supported… If evangelicals do not support evangelistic enterprises, who will? Certainly not the Government and not the average generous New Zealander either. Charitable appeals have a huge pool from which to draw; the work of the gospel has, by comparison, a limited constituency. The question is not, should we care for our fellow man? The question is, what do I believe about humanity in the light of the cross and resurrection? There appears to be a theological dearth, with our theology looking more like anthropology. Moreover, it is an anthropology which owes more to Marx and Jung than to Moses and Jesus. Marx famously defined religion (and he meant the Christian religion) as the opiate of the masses. The promise of a better world when we died lessened our determination to improve this one.

id Jesus die for the forgiveness of sin or not?… However, what do we believe about the human condition and its remedy? What do we profess concerning the nature of God and of man and the status of their fellowship? What do we hold to any more, concerning eternity? If Christ came and died so that the debt of developing nations would be forgiven, then let us throw all our efforts to that end. If God gave Himself in the person of Jesus so that the hungry could eat, then let’s go into the food production business. The tsunami left us with a question. For those who perished, did the food they ate or the aid they received make an eternal difference? Or was it by hearing and believing the good news that they were accepted by God in Jesus Christ? If the Church does not hold to the priority and presentation of this message, who will? None of the arguments preclude material assistance for those in need, in conjunction with the proclamation of Christ’s Lordship and the call to faith. No doubt there are many testimonies of how the recipient has gone on and inquired as to the reason for the kindness. Neither should we deny assistance even to those who hate us and persecute the Christians among them. However, neither must we forget the primary communication which is the command and invitation of the gospel to repent and believe. This must be the primary thrust of the evangelical effort.

ummary

• It takes no faith or special revelation of God to respond to the many needs of the poor by doing such things as giving food, money, shelter, clothing etc. Non-Christians do these things as well. • Many Christians believe in error that helping the poor in these ways is to be equated with proclaiming the gospel. 41

• Thus, genuine biblical evangelism, the priority of Jesus, doesn’t exist, let alone feature in the “help” packages offered by churches to struggling nations. • This indicates that the Church has lost her way. Her compass is spinning. She has become confused about her mission and purpose. • Accordingly, evangelism ministries around the world struggle for funding and support whereas social action ministries boom. • If Christ came and died so that the debt of developing nations would be forgiven, then let us throw all our efforts to that end. • If God gave Himself in the person of Jesus so that the hungry could eat, then let’s go into the food production business. • The Asian tsunami in 2004 left us with two questions. For those who perished, did the food they ate or the aid they received make an eternal difference? Or was it by hearing and believing the good news that they were accepted by God in Jesus Christ? If the Church does not hold to the priority and presentation of the gospel message, who will?

A P P E N D I X

FOUR

Signatories to “The Gospel Of Jesus Christ: an Evangelical Celebration” The Drafting Committee

John N. Akers John Ankerberg John H. Armstrong D.A. Carson Keith Davy Maxie Dunnam Timothy George Scott Hafemann Erwin Lutzer Harold Myra David Neff Thomas C. Oden J.I. Packer R.C. Sproul John D Woodbridge Danny Akin Eric Alexander C. Fitzsimmons Allison Gregg Allison Bill Anderson Darrell Anderson J. Kerby Anderson

Don Argue Hudson T. Armerding Kay Arthur Myron S. Augsburger Theodore Baehr B. Clayton Bell Sr. Joel Belz Bryan Beyer Henri Blocher Donald G. Bolesch Kenneth Boa Scott Bolinder John Bolt William Bouknight Todd Brady Gerald Bray Gerry E. Breshears Bill Bright Harold O. J. Brown Stephen Brown George Brushaber David Cerullo 43

Peter Cha Daniel R. Chamberlain Bryan Chapell Ian M. Chapman David K. Clark Brian Clarke Sam Clarke Arthur M. Climenhaga Edmund Clowney Robert Coleman Chuck Colson Clyde Cook David Cook W. Robert Cook Mike Cordle John R. Corts Michael Cromartie Roger Cross Jimmy Davis Alan Day Lane T. Dennis David S. Dockery David Dryer Michael Duduit Paul Engle Ted Engstrom Stuart Epperson James Erickson Tony Evans Jerry Falwell Sinclair Ferguson R. Scott Foresman

Michael Friend John Galbraith Kenneth L. Gentry Dwight Gibson James A. Gibson Billy Graham Brad Green Wayne Grudem Stan N. Gundry David Gushee Brandt Gustavson George Guthrie Corkie Haan Ronald Habermas Mimi Haddad Ben Haden Kevin G. Harney B. Sam Hart Bob Hawkins Jr. Wendell Hawley Jack W. Hayford Stephen A. Hayner Jim Henry Hutz H. Hertzberg Roberta Hestenes Paul Hiebert Ed Hindson Oswald C. J. Hoffman Woo Jun Hong James M. Houston Jeanette Hsieh R. Kent Hughes 44

Bill Hybels Paul Jackson Frank James Kay Coles James David Jeremiah Ronald Johnson Arthur P. Johnston Howard Jones Walter C. Kaiser Jr. Kenneth Kantzer D. James Kennedy Jay Kesler Craig Klamer In Ho Koh Woodrow Kroll Beverly LaHaye Tim LaHaye Timothy Lam Lewis C. Lampley Richard D. Land Richard G. Lee James Leggett Don Lester Arthur Lewis David H. Linden Duane Litfin Crawford Loritts Max Lucado John MacArthur Stephen A. Macchia Marlin Maddoux C.J. Mahaney

Ronald F. Marshall Ray M. Mathsen Victor Matthews Richard McBride Bill McCartney Jerry McComber David Melvin Ron Merryman Mike Messerli Jesse Miranda Beth Moore Peter C. Moore T.M. Moore Richard J. Mouw Kenneth Mulholland Toby Nelson Thomas J. Nettles Roger Nicole William Nix Phil Olsen John Orne Luis Palau Earl F. Palmer Hee Min Park James Patterson Cary M. Perdue Zoltan J. Phillips Hal Poe Phillip Porter Paul Pressler Ray Pritchard Richard W. Reiter 45

Kurt Anders Richardson III Robert Ricker Pat Robertson John Rodgers Adrian Rogers Tom Rosebrough Doug Ross Hugh Ross Joseph F. Rayan Ken Sande H. David Schuringa John Scott Paul Scroggins Frank Severn Warren Shelton David Short Ronald J. Sider Stephen Smallman John T. Sneed Russell Spittler James J. Stamoolis Charles F. Stanley Brad Stetson C. Bruce Stewart Brian Stiller John Stott Joseph Stowell Stephen Strang Lee Strobel Douglas Sweeney Charles Swindoll Joni Eareckson Tada

Paul Tambrino Peter W. Teague Greg Thornbury Kimberly Thornbury Thomas E. Trask Augustin B. Vencer Jr. Marion Von Rentzell Billy Walker Paul L. Walker John F. Walvoord Raleigh Washington Greg Waybright Jim Weaver Timothy Weber Collins D. Weeber David F. Wells Luder Whitlock Bruce H. Wilkinson David K. Winter Charles J. Wisdom Mike Womack Richard F. Woodcock Ravi Zacharias Anne Zaka

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DEVICE 84 HAVE US REACT NEGATIVELY TO THE THOUGHT THAT WE ARE BEING TOLD TO DO EVANGELISM I have left this device until last, and given it its own special place as an appendix, because I have realised that it is for many the prince of all the devices Recently, a pastor and his elders met do discuss how evangelism was going in their church. Over the past two years, they have been gradually implementing the 28 strategies which we as a ministry have developed. These strategies help churches achieve, and maintain, evangelism momentum. They are crucial if a church wants to develop a culture of evangelism - if they want to have 100% of their people active in evangelism at least once a week on a regular basis. As has already been discussed in this book, evangelism is defined as “the spread or proclamation of the gospel”. That is to say, in the six days between two Sundays if someone in the church gave a non Christian a booklet with the gospel message inside, they would be classed as ‘active.’ (i.e. spreading the gospel). If another person actually verbalized the gospel to a non-Christian, they too would be active. (i.e. proclaiming the gospel). After a two year journey, what is the assessment of the pastor and 47

elders of these 28 strategies? 1. They want to continue to make evangelism the priority of the Church. This is because they now believe that Biblically, the evangelisation of the world is the priority of the Church. That is to say, that it is the responsibility of the Church, and that means of all Christians, to ensure that every non-Christian on the earth hears and understands the gospel at least once. 2. They want to strive to achieve 100% mobilization. 3. They commend the resources they are using (especially the 28 strategies) and will continue to use/implement them. However, there is one problem, and it was voiced by some of the elders and some of the people in the church. And what was that problem? The pastor told us that some of the people in his church “didn’t like being told to do evangelism.” We asked the pastor how he knew this? He said “it was feedback from a few people.” The pastor was told that when the Evangelism Team Leader (ETL - this is the person in a church who works with the pastor to achieve 100% mobilisation) spoke about evangelism, certain people and some of the elders got the feeling they were being told to do evangelism. In protest, the protestors folded their arms, furrowed their brows, puckered up their lips, dug in, and smoke billowed from their ears. They simply refused to do evangelism when they felt like they were being told to do it.1 They wanted - so they said - for the desire to do evangelism to be internally motivated (i.e. the work of the Holy Spirit), rather than external (i.e. a person telling them what to do). Or better still, 1 The irony is this - when the people who were complaining about being told to do evangelism were not being told to do evangelism, they still weren’t doing any evangelism! In other words, whether they were being told to do evangelism or not. they still didn’t do any evangelism.. It made no difference either way. That is to say, their objection was not sincere. It was nothing more than a cop out. What other conclusion is there?

they wanted to be able to decide for themselves when and if they wanted to do evangelism. When I heard all this, I became extremely interested and gave the issue considerable thought and prayer. I already had a feeling that this particular objection was running at epidemic levels in churches which were trying to mobilise their people for evangelism (but is rarely voiced) and I concluded that it could be yet another significant device of the enemy. As reflected on this issue, some questions came to mind. Is this objection fair and reasonable? What would the Bible say about it? What would Jesus think of it? I think there are ten reasons why Jesus would dismiss it immediately, and we ought to do the same.

Jesus is Lord. When we became Christians, we accepted Jesus as Lord, not just as our Saviour. It is impossible to become a Christian and not submit to Jesus as our Lord (Romans 10:9-10). When we declared publically that “Jesus is Lord” at our point of conversion, we were saying “Jesus, your desires and goals and aims now become mine. From now on, I will unreservedly follow you whether I feel like it or not.” As you know, one of the commands Jesus issued to the disciples was “go into all the world and proclaim the gospel” (Mark 16:15) and since we are His disciples, He is commanding us today as well. If the disciples had said to Jesus, after He had given this command (or any other command) “We are not going because we don’t feel internally motivated to do so” He would interpret this as a sign that they were not His disciples and He was not their Lord. Remember in Matthew 7:22, Jesus said there will be people who will come to 49

Him at judgment saying “Lord, Lord etc” and He will say to them “…away from me, I never knew you.” In other words, it’s only the people who have made Him their Lord who are truly His. It is my observation that very very few of us make Jesus Lord on a daily / hourly / moment by moment basis. This is why Jesus said “But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.” (Matthew 7:14). Making Jesus Lord moment by moment can be hard and painful, but it is entirely possible. We have the Holy Spirit to encourage, inspire, and empower us. This is particularly so in the case of evangelism. The Holy Spirit was given specifically to us to enable us to do evangelism (Acts 1:8) As such, in the heart of a genuine believer, the Holy Spirit will be continually goading, coaxing, urging, reminding, prompting us to do evangelism. This goading can be, of course, overruled by human free will, but not permanently overruled in the heart of someone who has made Jesus Lord. To keep saying “no” to evangelism is to keep on sinning. Where do we get the truth that to not engage in evangelism is a sin? James says “If anyone, then, knows the good they ought to do and doesn’t do it, it is sin for them.”(James 4:17). Every genuine believer knows deep down they ought to be doing evangelism on a regular basis. Evangelism was a major part of the life of Jesus, Paul, the Apostles, a fact impossible to miss as one reads the New Testament. So if we say we are Christians, and live in on-going disobedience to His command to evangelise the world, there can only be one reason why. We are not indwelt by the Holy Spirit, and have not made Jesus Lord, and therefore we are not saved. What other conclusion is there? Jesus is God and our creator. Jesus is God and our Creator, and we are created beings. Who is greater? The Creator or the created ones? If our creator commands something, who are we to hesitate to obey, claiming “we don’t feel internally

motivated?” Wouldn’t that be interpreted as the created one telling the Creator what to do? I think so. Isaiah would agree. He says “What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator. Does a clay pot argue with its maker? Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying, ‘Stop, you’re doing it wrong!’ Does the pot exclaim, ‘How clumsy can you be?’ (Isaiah 45:9) Those who object to being told to do evangelism have assumed the position of the creator, and have relegated Jesus to being the created one. What other conclusion is there? Church leaders have a responsibility to pass on to their flock what Jesus taught. Jesus said “what I whisper in your ear, shout it from the roof tops” (Matthew 10:27). When Jesus spoke these words, He was telling the disciples to boldly and unashamedly declare all His commands to everyone, especially fellow believers, and to not hold back or water them down. A true leader, therefore, exhorts, encourages, pleads and even tells (lovingly) the flock to obey the commands of Jesus. If a command of Jesus continually goes out and the flock via a Church leader and the people continually respond by saying “we don’t like being told to do such and such command of Jesus” then are they truly submitted to their Creator and living under His authority? I think not. What other conclusion is there? The disciples didn’t object to Jesus telling them to evangelise: When Jesus sent out the 12 (Matthew 10) and the 72 (Luke 10) to preach the gospel, there is no record of any of them objecting to being told to go and do evangelism. The Lord commanded, and they went. They obeyed immediately and completely because they knew Who it was who was giving the instruction. Some today might be tempted to say “I would do evangelism if it was Jesus speaking to me. But my pastor and the Evangelism Team Leader in our church are not Jesus!” How should we respond to this objection? To those who are born

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again, the instructions in the Bible are the very words of God. As such, we could say that the Words in the Bible are literally Jesus speaking to us. This is why we call the Bible “The Word Of God.” So if a person says they are a Christian, and lives in continual disobedience to Jesus’ command to evangelise, they can’t be truly one of His disciples. Please think this through. Imagine if after Jesus gave His command to the discples to evangelise the world, some had responded “No thanks. We object to being told what to do!” It is unthinkable that the disciples would have responded in this way. Such a response would have proved that they were not His disciples. Yet today, 98% of people in the Western Church are living in on-going disobedience to His command to evangelise the world. Are the 98% not His disciples? What other conclusion is there? Jesus calls us to overcome our feelings in order to obey Him: Jesus said “Unless a man picks up His Cross daily and follows after me, He cannot be my disciple” (Luke 9:23). In light of our discussion here, what is Jesus saying in this verse? He is saying that no one likes being told what to do. Everyone has things to do that they don’t feel like doing. But when we do the things we don’t feel like doing, that we don’t want to do, that is, the “hard” commands of Jesus, we are picking up our Cross. Taking up a cross is painful. It is a symbol of death to self will. As Jesus said to His Father “Not my will, but yours will be done.” (Luke 22:42). When it comes to evangelism we too need to say “Not my will, but yours be done Jesus.” If someone says they are a Christian but they never overcome their feelings in order to obey Jesus’ command to evangelise, they can’t have picked up their cross. And if they have not picked up their cross in the area of evangelism, according to Luke 9:23 at least, they can’t be saved. What other conclusion is there?

Every true Christian ought to already be internally motivated to do evangelism as a result of regularly reading their Bible: I have been involved in evangelism for 30 years. It is my observation that deep down every Christian knows that they have been commanded by Jesus to do evangelism. Where did we get this knowledge? We have received it via the Holy Spirit by simply reading our Bibles. No one who reads his or her Bible faithfully and regularly will fail to get this idea. That is to say, God will speak to us over and over as we read becuase the New Testament is overflowing with examples of people doing evangelism.. So when you or I or someone else comes along and exhorts the Church to do evangelism, why do they object? Genuine believers would say to themselves “The Holy Spirit has been speaking to me about this through my Bible reading. It’s time to obey. Thank you Lord.” Genuine believers feed on the Word of God. It’s indispensable food for them, as indispensable as natural food is to the natural man. Jesus said “Man shall not live by bread alone but every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4: Deuteronomy 8:3). Not only do genuine believers feed on the word of God, but they hear what He says to them through their reading, and do what He says “My sheep listen to my voice; I know them, and they follow me.” (John 10:27). You’d have to conclude that those who object to being told to do evangelism either can’t be reading their Bibles regularly, and therefore are not hearing his voice. Or, they are reading their Bible, hearing Him, but willingly disobeying. As such, they can’t be one of His sheep. What other conclusion is there? The Holy Spirit is constantly motivating all genuine believers to do evangelism:As I have already said, all genuine believers are in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit (Romans 5:5). It is impossible to be a Christian and not be in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit. In Acts 1:8, the Holy Spirit was given chiefly to

motivate and empower believers to do evangelism. The Holy Spirit does not sleep, or go off duty. He is constantly motivating those in whom He lives to do evangelism. So how is it that those who say “I object to someone telling me that I must evangelise” have not already been internally empowered and motivated to do evangelism by the Holy Spirit who is living in them? Where is the blockage? Are they resisting the promptings and empowering of the Spirit within them? What can we conclude? Either they have hardened their hearts to the prompting of the Holy Spirit (which, according to Hebrews 3:8 we are not to do) or they are not in-dwelt by the Holy Spirit, and are therefore not saved. What other conclusion is there? Paul tells Timothy to do evangelism: Some have asked “Where in the Bible do we see Christians (i.e. someone other than God) telling other Christians to do evangelism?” 2 Timothy 4:5 is one place. Paul, a man, told Timothy, another man, to do evangelism, and there is no record of Timothy objecting. Timothy did not tell Paul he didn’t want to do evangelism because he didn’t feel internally motivated. Timothy simply recognised that Paul was only faithfully passing onto Him a command of Jesus, and both men had made Jesus Lord at their conversion. Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus: I have heard some say “Julian, Christianity is not about obeying rules and commands. It’s about a relationship with Jesus!” What are we to make of this? As always with the devil and his devices, there is truth mixed with error here. It is true that Christianity is about a relationship with Jesus. But what kind of relationship are we to have? It’s a servant / master relationship. Yes, we are adopted sons and daughters, but we are still sons and daughters who are servants of Christ. In our relationship with Jesus, the greatest thing we can do is love Him. In John 14:21, Jesus defines “loving Him” as obeying His commands. What Jesus is saying in John 14:21 is that those who are related to Him

savingly are those who obey His commands. Furthermore, I have noticed that many Christians say that they have a close intimate relatioship with Jesus yet they don’t do evangelism. What are we to make of this? Close friends (i.e. those who have genuine relationshp) tell each other their deepest hearts desires, don’t they? If the scholars are adament that the priority of Jesus’ commands is to evangelise the world, then wouldn’t Jesus share this heart desire with his closest friends? Wouldn’t the closest friends of Jesus (i.e. those who claim to have an intimate relationship with him) listen carefully to Jesus? Wouldn’t they want to help Jesus see His heart’s desire completed, or brought to fruition? You know the answer. We’d have to conclude then that those who claim to have a close intimate relatioship with Jesus but who don’t participate in evangelism don’t have much of a relationship with Him at all! They certainly don’t love Him, for if they truly loved Him, they’d obey His commands (John 14:21). o if someone says “Julian, Christianity is not about obeying rules and commands. It’s about a relationship with Jesus!” and they are not engaging in evangelism, we’d have to question whether their relationship with Jesus was genuine. What other conclusion is there? We are saved by Grace, not by works: Some have quite rightly pointed out that we are saved by grace and not by works (Ephesians 2:6-8). But then they go onto to elaborate on what this actually means for them. They claim that any call or command to “do” something contradicts being saved by grace. What are we to make of this? Titus 2:11-12 says “For the grace of God has appeared that offers salvation to all people. It teaches us to say “No” to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.” It’s clear in these verses that “grace” is not an excuse or a licence

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to disobey God. In fact, it’s because we are saved by grace that we want to obey Him. For example, what is “ungodliness” in these verses? It is living a life not pleasing to God. As I have already pointed out, a life which pleases Jesus is an obedient life. In fact, nothing pleases Jesus more than obedience to His commands (John 14:21). So those who pull out the “I am saved by grace so don’t have to do anything” card are contradicting Titus 2:11-12. These verses also teach that “being saved by grace” leads to self control. What does “self control” mean in this verse? It means living a life controlled by the Spirit, which is solid, stable, and resolute, not a life controlled by the flesh and natural feelings, which are fickle and change like the wind. And a life controlled by the Spirit is a life which loves the things Jesus loves, chief of which is the evangelisation of the world. Furthermore, James said “Faith without works is dead” (James 2:17). Faith without works is dead faith because the lack of works reveals an unchanged life or a spiritually dead heart. An unchanged heart is an unsaved heart. Doing evangelism doesn’t make us righteous, but it does prove that we have experienced the imputed righteousness of Christ. How can someone genuinely experience the wonderful matchless saving grace of Jesus not want to tell others about it? How can a cow be a cow and not want to eat grass? How can a fish be born with gills, tail, and fins and not want to swim? How can someone win the lottery and not be excited and not want to tell anyone about it? You know the answers to these questions. So what are we to make of those who claim to be saved by grace but who don’t do evangelism? We’d have to question whether they were saved by grace at all. What other conclusion is there? ummary: For the 10 reasons I have given, it would be very very difficult to justify, theologically and Biblically, being a Christian and not particpating in evangelism.

At this point you may ask, “when is it NOT Ok for one Christian to tell another Christian to do evangelism?” This is a good question. Lest you think that those who object to being told to do evangelism have it all wrong, let me make three final points in their favour. irst, if we as leaders give tub thumping, rousing sermons which exhort, encourage, and even tell Christians to evangelise but fail to give them cutting edge, road tested, contemporary tools/ resources, and training (and not just one off “weekend” training but on-going training ) and strategies to maintain evangelistic momentum, we are making a fatal mistake. All we are doing is discouraging the church from doing evangelism. How so? It creates an unbearable frustration in the minds and hearts of the people in the pew who are listening to our sermons exhorting them to evangelise if we don’t at the same time give them the training and resources to do the job. The vast majority want to obey God and their pastor to do evangelism. But in their hearts they cry “How can I obey if you don’t show me how! Give me the tools! Give me the training! Give me the strategies to keep me going in evangelism! Help me!” If we don’t provide the tools and resources when we preach about evangelism, those listening will despair, and so begin to develop a hard heart towards it. econd, if we as leaders are exhorting, encouraging, and even telling our fellow Christians to do evangelism, we must do so gently, humbly, winsomely, and graciously, out of a heart of great love. If the flock feels whipped, rather than lovingly wooed, they have every right to object to being told to do evangelism. hird, if we as church leaders are telling our people to do evangelism, but we are not doing it ourselves on a regular basis, we become a stumbling block for those listening. Those listening will quite rightly say “Why is he or she telling me

to do something he or she is not doing? Isn’t that hypocritical?” I can’t stress enought the importance of leaders leading by example in evangelism. If there was one single factor which determined whether a church could be mobilised for evangelism or not, it would be this one. It’s just wonderful when new, fresh, testimonies of evangelism encounters are regularly weaved into the weekly sermons of the pastor (and I don’t mean recalling some event two years ago when we did some evangelism). These three objections are therefore quite fair. So what shall we conclude? It’s entirely biblical for one Christian to tell another Christian to do evangelism. On one hand, and as a general rule, it would be fair to say that those who object to being told to do evangelism are either Christians who have hardened their hearts or they are not Christians. However, there are some exceptions to this general rule. Even genuine believers have a right to object to being told to do evangelism if those doing the telling: 1. are not doing so in a loving, gracious, humble, winsome way. 2. do not provide tools, resources, on-going training, and strategies to maintain momentum. 3. Are not doing evangelism themselves. Jesus met all three conditions: out of a heart of love He commanded the disciples to do evangelism; he showed them how to do it; and, most important of all, he as the leader was doing evangelism himself. If these three conditions are not met in a church situation, even genuine believers have a right to object to being told to do evangelism by their leaders. f you are a pastor or a leader reading this, and you want to mobilise all your people into evangelism, this is what I advise you to do. First, please watch this video: https://youtu.

be/_A2ySX1xZw0 Before you proclaim /teach in you church about Jesus’ command to do evangelism, you must prepare your people to receive the command. That is to say, you as leader must prepare the ground. What does this mean, practically? It means at least seven things: 1. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church what it means to make Jesus Lord. 2. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church about the Bible: why we trust it, why it’s the Word of God, why it is free from errors, why its infallible, how we know it has not been changed over the centuries, how we know what was first written down was accurate, and why we must live under its authority? How were the words of Jesus recorded? How do we know? Et 3. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church on what it means to “take up one’s Cross” 4. Take a series on Sunday mornings to teach everyone in the church about heaven and hell. What they are like and who is going there? 5. Take a series on Sunday mornings about the plight of the lost. Who is lost and headed for hell, and who is not. Define the boundaries clearly. Sadly, most Christians today really believe all people in all religions are destined for heaven, as long as they are sincere in their beliefs about God. Others believe that God will save all those who have never heard of Jesus. These and other heresies must be highlighted, discussed, and rebutted. 6. Have the leaders in your church learn to do evangelism regularly before the general church is trained, so that when the church is trained, they are one step ahead. In this way, the church won’t be able to say of their leaders “why are they asking us to do something they are not doing themselves?” 7. Teach everyone in your church how to have a powerful 59

devotional life i.e. Spiritual disciplines. hese seven points, when executed with love and grace, will do three things: they will soften the hearts of those who have become hard hearted towards evangelism; they will flush out the unsaved in your church; and they will mightily encourage the soft hearted genuine believers to hunger for training in evangelism and to do it regularly. Pastors and leaders - if you don’t do this preparatory work (i.e points 1-7 above), your “one off” weekend evangelism seminar will create some excitement, but the fizz won’t last. You’ll only waste everyone’s precious time and resources. Worse still, you’ll inoculate people against doing evangelism. They will reason “We did some evangelism training and nothing lasted. Let’s not try that again.” If you want to mobilise your whole church for evangelism, and sustain them in it, you must do three things. 1. prepare your church for evangelism 2. teach your church how to do evangelism 3. provide on-going strategies to maintain evangelism momentum. All three phases are critically important. Leave any one of these three phases out, and you’ll have as much chance of mobilising 100% of the people in your church for evangelism as the Pope has of becoming a Protestant. Finally, if you have read this appendix and you are not doing evangelism, try and establish the reason. There are only three possibilities: 1. You are a soft hearted genuine believer who desperately wants to evangelise, but you have never been given the tools and training to get going, or the strategies to maintain momentum. You’d like to be able to evangelise, but you just don’t know how. If this is you, we can help you. 60

2. You are a genuine believer who has become hard hearted towards evangelism. Perhaps your pastor has told you in an unloving, dictatorial, ungracious way to do evangelism? Perhaps your pastor has told you do to evangelism but you know he is not doing it himself? i.e. he’s being hypocritical and thus a stumbling block for you? Perhaps you’ve never been provided with the tools, training, and strategies to “do” evangelism. Perhaps all three apply to you! If this is you, we can help you. 3. Or are you a church goer who is not saved? If this is you, go and tell your minister / pastor and they will show you the next steps. Whichever of these three you are, do something. But don’t do nothing. Determine to become part of the solution. Be an active participant in the Great Commission and the evangelisation of the world, for the glory of God.

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The Great Commission Is Under Attack. The following is a blog which I wrote which received an unprecedented response. The response was not because of what I said, but because of what John Piper said. Hi everyone, As you know, I have been fighting for the gospel and the evangelisation of the world for over 36 years now. Today, like never before in history, the Great Commission is under attack. Over the last 2000 years, the giants of Church history (e.g. people like Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Wesley etc) have defined the Great Commission as having four parts. 1. 2. 3. 4.

Go Preach the gospel Baptise those who are saved Disciple those who are baptised

Part 2 of the Great Commission, ‘preach the gospel’ is under attack. Let me explain. “The gospel” has three aspects: word, works, and effects. For example, if I pray for a sick person, my prayer is a work of the gospel. If the person prayed for is healed, the healing is an effect of the gospel. But have they heard the words of the gospel? No, they have not. “Preach the gospel” has only and exclusively ever to do with the Words of the gospel. 62

So what is the content of ‘the words of the gospel’? According to scholars, in order for someone to say “I have faithfully communicated the words of the gospel” certain content must have been communicated / covered, namely a clear explanation about: (1) why we must be saved (2) how Jesus can save us (3) what we must do to be saved (4) the cost of being a disciple. “Evangelism” is only and exclusively about communicating this content to the lost. Part 2 of the Great Commission, ‘preach the gospel’, as Jesus used the phrase in Mark 16:15, is only and exclusively about communicating 1-4 above to the lost. The point I want you to notice is that part 2 of the Great Commission, preaching the gospel, strictly speaking, by definition, must be kept, and was always meant to be kept, separate from the works and effects of the gospel. Sure, when Jesus preached the gospel, often signs and wonders followed. But the signs and wonders were not the words He spoke when He preached the gospel. They were the effects of the words He spoke. They were the result of what He spoke. What He spoke was different from what happened as a result of what He spoke. What He spoke were words (part 2 of the Great Commission). What happened was effects (signs and wonders). The works and effects are the highly desirable and Bibilical fruit of preaching the gospel, but they are not to be equated with preaching the words. When the words are proclaimed, sometimes people are saved (an effect). But the effects don’t stop there. These saved people go on to do the works of the gospel (e.g. feed the hungry, clothe and naked, visit those in prison etc etc). Biblically, the works and effects of the gospel, by definition, are not to be mixed up with preaching the words of the gospel. In history, they have never been mixed up, and were never meant to have been mixed up. 63

Yet today, this mix up is happening right before our very eyes. Instead of preaching to the lost about hell, the wrath of God, the holiness and justice of God, the Cross, forgiveness, righteousness, repentance, faith, heaven, etc etc, which is what historically part 2 of the Great Commission used to be only and exclusively about, “preaching the gospel” is being subtly redefined as ‘going into all the world and doing good works, or social action or social justice.’ The historical boundaries separating words, works, and effects are not just being blurred, they are being trampled over. The Biblical meaning of ‘preach the gospel’ is being decimated. When this happens, false gospels spawn and multiply. This is a total disaster because it leads to the shut down of evangelism and therefore the collapse of the Great Commission. Please take a moment to read the blog below. What the author of the blog is saying is ‘right on the money’. Particularly notice what John Piper has to say. Wow! What an awesome astute man of God he is. Pray for this man. The Church in the world so needs him (and others like him) right now. It also needs you and me to be sharp and discerning so when we see this stuff happening in the Church we can confront it and fight against it in order to preserve the faith in all its purity. To sit on the fence and do nothing is to join in with the decay. As one seasoned Christian of old once said “A church that never passes things on to another generation—reliably, faithfully, with training, with instruction, with understanding, with an eagerness to evangelize— that church is doomed to obsolescence, shrinking ranks, and finally, irrelevance.” THE BLOG I WOULD LIKE YOU TO READ PLEASE In October 2010, 4,200 evangelical leaders from 198 countries gathered in Cape Town, South Africa, for the Third Lausanne Congress on 64

World Evangelization. Hundreds of thousands more participated in meetings around the world and online. It was a big deal—the congress has gathered only three times since its inception in 1974. Gospel purity and practice were the foremost matters of discussion for ten days in Cape Town. It was hardly surprising that the prosperity gospel, a real juggernaut on the continent of Africa, came under heavy rebuke in the confession they drafted. The widespread preaching and teaching of “prosperity gospel” around the world raises significant concerns. We define prosperity gospel as the teaching that believers have a right to the blessings of health and wealth and that they can obtain these blessings through positive confessions of faith and the “sowing of seeds” through financial or material gifts. Prosperity teaching is a phenomenon that cuts across many denominations in all continents. . . . We believe that the teachings of many who vigorously promote the prosperity gospel seriously distort the Bible; that their practices and lifestyle are often unethical and un-Christlike; that they commonly replace genuine evangelism with miracle-seeking, and replace the call to repentance with the call to give money to the preacher’s organization. We grieve that the impact of this teaching on many Churches is pastorally damaging and spiritually unhealthy. The prosperity gospel offers no lasting solution to poverty, and can deflect people from the true message and means of eternal salvation. For these reasons it can be soberly described as a false gospel. We therefore reject the excesses of prosperity teaching as incompatible with balanced biblical Christianity. [1] That part of The Cape Town Commitment is a clear and necessary formal rejection of the prosperity gospel. They rightly point out that it is indeed a “false gospel”—a perversion where health, wealth, and happiness have usurped the glorious gospel truths of forgiveness, righteousness, and eternal life. 65

In light of such a strong repudiation, it was hardly surprising that the theological pendulum swung forcefully in the other direction. Large numbers of delegates at the Third Lausanne Congress pushed hard for matters of social justice to be enshrined in their doctrinal statement. And that involved drafting an expanded definition of Christian mission that included a strong social dimension. We commit ourselves to the integral and dynamic exercise of all dimensions of mission to which God calls his Church: God commands us to make known to all nations the truth of God’s revelation and the gospel of God’s saving grace through Jesus Christ, calling all people to repentance, faith, baptism and obedient discipleship. God commands us to reflect his own character through compassionate care for the needy, and to demonstrate the values and the power of the kingdom of God in striving for justice and peace and in caring for God’s creation. [2] The second half of that definition sounds perfectly reasonable. As Christians, we should always conduct ourselves in a caring and compassionate way. But one enters dangerous theological territory when those good works become part of the [words of] the gospel rather than being rightly classified as the works of the gospel. And it certainly sounds that way when The Cape Town Commitment includes the alleviation of material poverty as a Great Commission responsibility. We embrace the witness of the whole Bible, as it shows us God’s desire both for systemic economic justice and for personal compassion, respect and generosity towards the poor and needy. We rejoice that this extensive biblical teaching has become more integrated into our mission strategy and practice, as it was for the early Church and the Apostle Paul. [3] So what’s the problem with broadening the scope of the Great Commission? Isn’t honoring God through personal sacrifice a 66

repudiation of those who honor themselves for personal gain? Shouldn’t evangelism go beyond eternal matters to the rectification of problems in the here and now—especially when the added focus is on good works that are commended by Scripture? John Piper, who was present at the Lausanne Congress, was hesitant to affirm those ideals. He was clearly troubled by the social gospel trajectory and expressed his concerns as to where it might lead: I want to point out one [biblical] phrase which is indispensable in this congress if we’re to get the gospel right and evangelism right. . . . “We all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind” [Ephesians 2:3, ESV]. That’s terrifying. All human beings are children of wrath. . . . It’s their nature, my nature, your nature, is sinful and corrupt and rebellious. Christ did not have to die merely because I’m a sinner. He had to die because God, in His infinite holiness and justice is angry at the world. We are children of anger. We are justly deserving of the wrath and the anger of God. This is the greatest problem for mankind in the universe. There isn’t anything that surpasses lostness and being bound for an everlasting suffering under the wrath of God. . . . When the gospel takes root in our souls it awakens us to the horrible reality of eternal suffering in hell under the wrath of a just and omnipotent God. And it impels us out to rescue the perishing. We cry, “Flee the wrath to come, flee the wrath to come.” That’s our message because Christ has died. He has absorbed the wrath of God. He has cancelled sin. Everyone who is united to Him by faith alone is forgiven of their sins and counted righteous in Christ and has eternal life. . . . It is the most important news in the universe. . . . What I want us to be able to say—could Lausanne say, could the global church say?—“For Christ’s sake we Christians care about all suffering, especially eternal suffering.” 67

The reaction by many at the conference to Piper’s last sentence revealed that his corrective was called for and his concerns were real. Robertson McQuilkin, a world-renowned missionary and former president of Columbia International University, wrote about the pushback he felt to Piper’s statement on the preeminent importance of eternal suffering: “Such a simple statement—how could anyone object? Yet many at Lausanne III objected. In fact, from the dozens of sermons at the conference, this one sentence in John Piper’s presentation proved a lightning rod. Many quoted it to me with delight; but from Italy to England, to Bangladesh to America, I received feedback from representatives who went home incensed by the statement. I wasn’t surprised that the battle raged. Why? I had read a position paper prepared for the conference by high-level evangelical leaders. They rejected the church’s historic position of giving priority to the evangelistic purpose of missions, so cogently expressed in Piper’s simple statement. So I was apprehensive about the outcome of Lausanne III. Imagine my delight to find, in the consensus documents emerging from the Congress, a reaffirmation of the historic position of the Church that gives priority to the evangelistic mandate. But a very large minority of attendees waged war against this position in favor of giving equal emphasis or even priority to the social or cultural responsibilities of the church”. [4] There are two major lessons in the Third Lausanne Congress when it comes to getting the gospel right. First, the right diagnosis of a problem doesn’t guarantee the right corrective treatment of that problem. Second, any attempt to expand the gospel’s range of meaning ultimately diminishes its true meaning. Unity over what the gospel is, also demands unity over what the gospel isn’t. The delegates in Cape Town recognized that fact by formalizing their opposition to the prosperity gospel. But many of them overcorrected, embracing the social gospel as an antidote. Moreover, 68

they failed to recognize that the two seemingly antithetical views actually reflect the same theological deviation. The prosperity gospel and the social gospel may look very different to the casual observer, but they both fall into the same deadly error of gospel expansion at the expense of the gospel. One adds temporal riches to eternal riches. The other adds the alleviation of temporal suffering to the alleviation of eternal suffering. Good works should be commended, as they are in Scripture. But they are an extension of the gospel rather than a fundamental aspect of it (Ephesians 2:10). The gospel is the good news concerning the forgiveness of sins through the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ (1 Corinthians 15:1–5). It is not subject to alteration (Galatians 1:8–9). To expand the gospel’s meaning beyond its eternal ramifications is to dilute, and possibly jettison, those eternal ramifications. Being together for the gospel, by implication, demands that we stand together against all attempts to expand its meaning beyond its biblical boundaries.

The Full List Of Books In ‘The Truth About Evangelism’ Mini Series Book One

Evangelism Lost! Exposing The True State Of Evangelism In Today’s Church

Book Two Seven Deadly Motives Exposing How The Enemy Is Shutting Down Evangelism.

Book Three

The Sorrowful Collapse Of The Great Commission- A Dangerous Redefining Of Evangelism

Book Four Evangelism Redefined? Six Subtle Yet Devastating Redefinitions Of Evangelism

Book Five Confusion Busters 7 Things You Should Know About The Gospel Message

Book Six

Six Ways To Move From Gospel Confusion To Gospel Clarity

Book Seven

The Evangelisation Of The World Is The Ulimate Purpose Of The Church. 7 Irrefutable Reasons It Is Time To Prioritise

Book Eight

A Gift, A Call, Or A Commission. Are All Christians Commanded To Evangelise

Book Nine

12 Keys To Fearless Evangelism In The 21St Century

Book Ten Take Them Down. 12 Road Blocks And How To Get Through Them

Book Eleven

The Key To Victory. Start Viewing Evangelism As An Event, Not A Process

Book Twelve

Confidence In The Gospel, Come Back! Four Essential Steps To Reclaiming Lost Ground!

Book Thirteen Prepare To Be Amazed! What Jesus Really Taught About Evangelism!

Book Fourteen

What Leaders Must Do To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism

Book Fifteen

A Plan Of Action To Cause A Resurgence In World Evangelism

Book Sixteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 1)

Book Seventeen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 2)

Book Eighteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 3)

Book Nineteen

Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 4)

Book Twenty Church Leaders! This Is Your Time To Step Up! (Part 5)

Book Twenty One

Climb On Board! 4 Reasons Why Doing Evangelism Will Help Create A Better World!

Book Twenty Two

Devastation! How Pseudo-Conversions Hinder Evangelism And What You Can Do To Stop The Rot!

Book Twenty Three

“Friendship evangelism.” What’s good about it, and what’s heretical?

Book Twenty Four

Unholy Grief! Five Ways Evangelists With The Gift Can Grieve The Holy Spirit

Book Twenty Five

The Highest Motive For Doing Evangelism? You’ll Be Amazed What The Bible Teaches! Conclusion

Book Twenty Six Appendix One : If We Fail To Evangelise, We Fail. Period. By Dr K.P. Yohannan

Appendix Two : The Pastor Evangelist. By Dr. Roger S. Greenway

Appendix Three : True Gospel Must Be Heard, By Kevyn Harris

Appendix Four : This We Believe Signatories

Appendix Five : Device 84. “I don’t like being told to do evangelism!”

Book Twenty Seven The Evangelism Fitness Test