The New Testament teaches that God has given people with the calling of evangelism to congregations (Eph. 4:11). Therefore, one of the keys to reaching the lost is identifying and equipping believers with the calling of evangelism and releasing them into society to minister. It is puzzling and self-defeating that extremely few congregations have full-time evangelists on staff.
Evangelists must be highly committed to a biblical approach to evangelism. An authentic evangelist should be able to convict others of their sin, their separation from God and God’s coming judgment. They should be able to lead seekers to make an initial surrender to Jesus’ lordship. Evangelists need to understand the culture, be excellent listeners and be able to speak God’s truth so that it shakes listeners to their core. They should be gentle, kind and humble. They should be successful in converting adults individually and not rely on large meetings. Evangelists also need to inspire and equip members of their congregation to reach their neighbors through listening and friendship.
Above all else, we need evangelists who are accountable to competent spiritual counselors so that they will be blameless and shine like the sun. Then their very presence will carry the fragrance of the holy and beautiful realm of God, challenging listeners with their character.
Through biblical evangelism individual citizens will be transformed from the inside out so that they can transform their homes, communities and nation. Whether we can improve the general godliness of a society or not, God’s faithful kingdom citizens are always victorious because they live in the new creational kingdom of God, enjoying the gift of the Spirit and abiding in Christ. Our “homeland” will one day fill all the earth and all kingdom citizens will live in peace and harmony.
We also need to be careful that we do not weaken our salvation presentations in order to please our culture. This is especially important when convicting listeners of sin. Seekers need to hear and believe the message that “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23, ESV). In other words, we have lost the glory of the image of God. The bible is replete with this teaching. This is why, after his resurrection, Jesus told his disciples to preach “repentance for the forgiveness of sins” (Luke 24:47, NIV) to all nations. There is no salvation unless one believes that they need salvation due to their sin and that they need to repent. As believers we had to come to that realization when we trusted Jesus for salvation and others do too. Evangelists and other presenters need to make every effort to insure that their words have this effect on listeners who want to receive Jesus. Anything less is disrespectful to the Son’s sacrifice on the Cross.
In this way we can obey Jesus’ command to “make disciples” (Mt. 28:19-20). What is better than leading someone to be a disciple of Jesus?
