AN EVANGELISTIC CHURCH

Roger Shepherd

Evangelism is one person talking to another person about his or her need for the salvation, that is only in Christ, with the intention of bringing him or her to a positive decision (Acts 4:12). Evangelism is personally teaching the lost. This is significant to church growth, because Christianity is a taught religion. The mission of Jesus is “make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you” (Matt. 28:19–20). The terms “make disciples” is an imperative! He left us no choice but make and teach disciples to make other disciples. I am personally a Christian because my parents taught me one-on-one how to be saved and remain faithful to the Lord.

The Restoration Movement reminds us of the need for evangelism. Traverce Harrison and C. J. Sharp said, “By evangelism we do not mean merely the conduct of revival or protracted meetings. We do not mean alone the work done by professional evangelists. By evangelism we do mean the use of the Word of God by as nearly as possible every Christian to win to Christ as nearly as possible everyone who is unsaved. The thought needs to be restored and reemphasized that every minister of the gospel is an evangelist first of all, and that, second of all, every Christian is capable of being, and therefore, ought to be, a winner of souls for Christ” (Evangelism, 39). It is amazing that this urgent plea was written in 1924. It is little wonder why the church grew so dynamically in the first century and during the Restoration Movement. Christians taught the gospel to lost people! Therefore, I ask, “What is an evangelistic church?”

A DISCIPLE MAKING CHURCH

The first Church of Christ was all about making disciples. Luke said, “Now in those days, when the number of the disciples was multiplying…Then the Word of God spread, and the number of the disciples multiplied greatly in Jerusalem, and a great many of the priests were obedient to the faith” (Acts 6:1, 7). The “number of the disciples multiplied” because the “Word of God” kept spreading. Church growth is the result of teaching the gospel referred to as evangelism outreach. Why? It is because people are personally taught how to be a Christian (Acts 5:42). Is the church multiplying where you worship?

How do we make disciples? A disciple is a follower, pupil, learner of Jesus, and adherent to the gospel of Christ. Therefore, we encourage the lost to follow Jesus and teach them to be “obedient to the faith” (John 3:36). They are taught to obey the gospel, because it is the “power of God to save” (Rom. 1:16; 10:17). Paul changed the morality of Rome by teaching “the gospel of God” (Rom. 1:1, 14–15). Today, do we understand the POWER of DUPLICATION? A discussion on the topic of disciple making according to Jesus’s command is at hand. I suggest the following:

1. Call them to follow Jesus as a learner in their journey (Mark 1:16–17).
2. Engage people in kingdom work such as helping the sick (Matt. 10:6–7).
3. Intercede: pray for and with them in disciple growth.
4. Invest: deepen your relationship with them.
5. Inquire: ask questions and listen.
6. Invite: ask for appropriate next step commitments.
7. Instruct: discuss the commands of Jesus.
8. Involve: connect them to others on their spiritual journey in small groups.
9. Inspire: encourage the next steps of study, immersion, and more active ministry (Early and Dempsey, Disciple Making Is…How to Live the Great Commission with Passion and Confidence, 129).
10. Implement: spiritual teaching in the assembly, Bible class, and one-on-one.

A TEACHING CHURCH

Disciple making includes teaching about Jesus. Disciples are not born into Christ. They are taught to follow Jesus and “observe” everything commanded by him. In the book of Acts alone there are more than ten occurrences of the disciples teaching others to be faithful followers of Jesus. Please note the following:

1. Luke recorded “all that Jesus began to do and teach” (1:1).
2. The “Sadducees came upon them, being greatly disturbed that they taught the People” (4:2).
3. The disciples were asked “not to teach in the name of Jesus” (4:18).
4. The “high priest asked, ‘Did we not strictly command you not to teach in this name? And look, you have filled Jerusalem with your doctrine, and intend to bring this man’s blood on us!’” (5:28).
5. Disciples “daily in the temple, and in every house, did not cease teaching Jesus as the Christ” (5:42).
6. “But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word” (6:4, 7).
7. “Philip ran up and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and said, ‘Do you understand what you are reading?’ and he said, ‘Well, how could I, unless someone guides me?’” (8:30–31).
8. “Paul and Barnabas (evangelists) remained in Antioch, teaching the word of the Lord, with many others” (15:35; 28:31).

What do we learn to motivate evangelism from these passages? We learn significantly that evangelism with the early disciples was intentionally following the example of Jesus. Teaching the gospel disturbs and threatens the growth of the enemies of Christianity and the denominational world. Christ is taught in the assembly and in every house in an evangelistic church. The church grew because preachers were involved in personal teaching and “other” Christians followed their example.

The teaching of the gospel to lost people and to keep the saved begins with the elders or shepherds of the church. It is followed by the preachers, or in better terms, the evangelist. Paul told Timothy: “do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry” (2 Tim. 4:5). The word “evangelist” means a “proclaimer of the gospel, evangelist” (BDAG, 403). This is first exemplified by the preacher and elders. An evangelistic church motivates individuals to teach the gospel person to person and by group teaching, such as in Acts 16:11–15 when Paul and Timothy taught a group of women of which Lydia and her household were immersed into Christ as a result.

AN OUTREACH CHURCH

The evangelistic church is involved in community outreach. How was this accomplished? First, the church reached out to the community in daily evangelism. For example, “praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to the church daily those who were being saved” (Acts 2:47). Second, in benevolence “all who believed were together, and had all things in common, and sold their possessions and goods, and divided them among all, as anyone had need” (Acts 2:44–45). Who is needy in your community? Evangelism outreach applies to those hungry, naked, homeless, sick, in prison, lonely, lost, discouraged, and millions of others (Matt. 25:31–46). An evangelistic church reaches its community with the good news of Jesus. The fact is the church will “Reach out or Fade out!”

The Bible school was created to be an evangelistic outreach for the local congregation (Heb. 5:12). The Restoration Movement reminds us that “the richest and most fruitful field for evangelism is in the Bible school. Indeed, if the Bible school is awake to its opportunity with an intelligent evangelistic program, it will make the early ages a period of careful preparation, so that when the proper age is reached, there will be little difficulty in winning every boy and girl to Christ” (Harrison and Sharp, 60). Ira North helped build a dynamic church in Madison, TN, in years past with this slogan: “As the Bible School goes, so goes the Church.”

CONCLUSION

An evangelistic church is active in at least three areas: first, making disciples; second, personal teaching of lost people and the saved how to mature in their faith; and third, reaching out with the saving gospel of Jesus to the community. How does your congregation measure up to the teaching of Jesus, the apostles, and the early church?