A
poll ran in November of 2007, asking pastors where they would put money if
starting a church plant, revealed that websites, church marketing, and logos/design
are the top necessities after staff. With 195 million
individuals not attending churches, and with the church plant survival rate at
20%, it is vital to use a church consultation company with a proven track
record with thousands of churches and ministries with the ability to provide an
array of media and church marketing tools.
Following this group’s logic:
A. The majority of
pastors/church planters rank websites, church marketing, logos, etc. as
necessities after staff.
B. Only 20% of churches that
are planted actually survive.
C. We are here to help you
make flash new websites and logos and to provide you with church marketing
advice.
The discerning mind will interpret their statement somewhat
differently:
A. The majority of
pastors/church planters rank websites, church marketing, logos, etc. as
necessities.
B. The majority of church
plants fail.
C. The majority of
pastors/church planters are wrong about what is necessary.
Life in the digital age means that websites are indeed
important, and its not a bad idea to come up with a little something that grabs
people’s attention while also faithfully summing up the identity of the church
being planted (and let’s face it, no logo is better than a dodgy logo). That
said, while nice, these things are not ‘necessary’ to planting a local church.
You can invest in one of the most amazing websites on the net and have the
cleanest, freshest looking logo imaginable without actually accomplishing
anything remotely in the realm of church planting. Promoting a good brand may
be the means by which a manager builds his business, but Christ builds his
church through the Spirit-empowered preaching of the God-breathed gospel.
Forget marketing: this is evangelism.
1. What is evangelism?
To ‘evangelize’ means, from Greek to English, ‘to proclaim
the good news’ or ‘to preach the gospel’. Paul writes to believers in Rome , ‘I am eager to preach the gospel to you also who are
in Rome
God created the world (1:20), including the first man, Adam
(5:14) who, as all humanity after him, knew God but did not honour him as God,
and claiming to be wise became a fool serving himself over the One who had
created him (1:21-23). By Adam, sin entered the world, and death through sin
(5:12) because the wages of sin is death (6:23a). All are under the righteous
and just condemnation of the immortal God for trading in the Creator’s glory
for images of earthly things and ‘serving’ creatures rather than the Creator.
Man knows the truth, but believes a lie and seeing as they have chosen a
self-serving religion, God gives them up to a self-serving life. Just as in
faith, what was unnatural has become the new natural, so in practice. The
greatest example of this unnatural, God-dishonouring, self-serving, sinful
lifestyle is homosexuality, but man is filled ‘with all manner of
unrighteousness’ beyond this (1:24-32). For sin, all men must stand before God
in judgement, because he is righteous. In seeking to escape this judgement, men
seek out various means to get right with God. But no amount of good-behaviour
or law-keeping on our part can stop his wrath, for we are still but filthy
sinners. What we really need is a forgiving Saviour, one who represents all who
believe on him, lives a perfect life, dies a brutal death with God’s righteous
anger poured out on him, and is resurrected so that his people might obtain the
blessings and assurance of his victory and their cleansing. We have such a one
in Jesus Christ, and so whoever believes in him is ‘justified by his grace as a
gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a
propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith.’ In Christ, God is just
(punishing our sins) and the justifier (blotting out our sins) of all who have
faith. By faith man has peace with God, is delivered from an eternity of his wrath
in Hell and from the tyranny of
Satan, sin, and death. The believer has the promise of eternal life in Heaven,
and now lives on earth empowered by the Holy Spirit to repent of sin and live a
life of triumph over the flesh in Christ Jesus the Lord and the love of God
(8).
My purpose in running through all of that is not so you can
have something to recite every time you proclaim the gospel. Please don’t do that. Nor am I saying that each time you evangelize,
your conversation and gospel presentation could be sketched out in exactly the
same way. My purpose, rather, is to demonstrate how Paul was unashamed of the
content of the gospel message, while many preachers and church planters cringe
inwardly and do a little dance around plain, hard truth to avoid hurting
people’s feelings, and to draw and keep a crowd. Creation. Sin. Homosexuality.
Righteously angry God. Man’s need of salvation. Propitiation. Resurrection.
Satan. Heaven. Hell. Repentance. Are these themes that commonly appear in the
majority of preaching in this land today? And yet Paul speaks of them freely,
actually saying he is ‘eager’ to proclaim the message which speaks of these
things in a world that was just as much offended by them then as now, and
perhaps even more-so!
It is no good if the evangelist is unashamed of the gospel
message and yet unable to express it in its simplicity. Romans is a letter written to believers, not to the lost. It is not
an intentionally evangelistic book, but is rather meant to assure believers of
the righteousness of God, and I believe to instil within them the same joyful
eagerness to preach Jesus that Paul had. It doesn’t take sixteen chapters to
share the gospel. Note the simplicity of the sermon Peter preached to the
Gentiles in Acts 10:34-43:
So Peter opened his mouth and said: “Truly I understand
that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who
fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him. As
for the word that he sent to Israel , preaching
good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all), you yourselves
know what happened throughout all Judea, beginning from Galilee after
the baptism that John proclaimed: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth Jerusalem
All the essentials are present are they not? I think that it
is very possible that the church planter can become so concentrated on the larger
content of the gospel that eventually he is no longer simply calling sinners to
repentance and faith in Jesus Christ from the Scriptures but is reciting his
own systematic theology. In a display of some of the very sins he speaks about
in the ‘Total Depravity’ chapter of his increasingly longer message, he blindly
believes the lie that he is confronting people with their sin and gripping them
with news of the Saviour, when in reality, they are confounded and just want to
go. ‘It is the hearer’s fault’ the
church planter exclaims and misapplying Scripture, shakes the dust off his feet
and gradually runs out of people to evangelize that he hasn’t already consigned
to the blazes. I say that the problem is not always that of the hearers (though
indeed they are often hard of heart, at times aggressive and at others
apathetic) but often it is that of the herald. He is unable to express the
gospel in its simplicity. Put such a man in Paul’s position when the Philippian
jailer asks ‘Sirs, what must I do to be saved?’ ‘Well,’ the man says, ‘Let’s
see if you have an adequate understanding of the gospel. First, ‘In the
beginning…’ and so begins not just a time of instruction in which the
evangelist speaks ‘the word of the Lord’ (Acts 16:32), but a whole theological course
which is apparently necessary for the man to come to saving faith. What
happened to an explanation of who Jesus is, why Jesus came, and what Jesus
means for the world, that is ‘Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be
saved.’?
Evangelism is the Spirit empowered proclamation of the good
news of Jesus Christ, in order that, as Stuart Olyott in his article ‘What is
Evangelism’ writes, ‘men may seek God, repent of their sins, and believe on the
Lord Jesus Christ and be saved; and then order the whole of their lives by his
Word.’ But why ‘do’ evangelism?
2. Why should I
evangelize?
What made Paul so eager to preach the gospel to the Romans?
And why should the church planter or local church evangelist press on with his
work?
First, evangelize
because of what the gospel is. I am not referring here to an understanding of
the gospel message, but an awareness of the gospel essence. It is, ‘the power
of God unto salvation’ (Rom. 1:16)! By the preaching of the good news of Jesus
Christ people are saved. The one who believes the gospel has experienced this
power. It is only natural that he would then want to proclaim it, through any
means possible, using whatever gifts God has given him. In the case of church
planters and evangelists those gifts will include preaching and the ability to
have personal conversations with individuals. Church planters and evangelists
must recognize that the message they proclaim is not their own, possessing varying
degrees of somewhat faulty human power, but rather it is breathed out by God,
and does not merely possess God’s
power, but it is his power for the
salvation of everyone who believes. Many scientific theories exist, but when a
scientist discovers something which is actually true, he makes it known to the
world. The world is full of legends and myths, but when the historian digs up a
fact, he publishes it for all to know. Many a piece of news professing to be
good has been told in the history of humanity and has in the end turned out bad
like the rest, but if you believe in Jesus Christ, you know the truth and you
possess news which really and truly is good. Why cover it up? Man is perishing
in the chains of sin and death and you possess that which alone can free him,
but you stay home? There are people all around you, where you live, where you
work, where you go to church, that are headed for an eternity separated from
right relationship with God in Hell and the most
you can bring yourself to do is put a leaflet through someone’s door at
Christmas and Easter and perhaps a tract in some Halloween kid’s
jack-o-‘lantern? It is your duty to preach Christ and voice the command of God
for ‘all people everywhere to repent, because he has fixed a day on which he
will judge the world in righteousness’ (Acts 17:31).
That reference to ‘all people everywhere’ reminds me, we
should evangelize not simply because of what the gospel is - ‘the power of God for
salvation - but we should evangelize because
of those whom it is for – ‘to everyone who believes, to the Jew first and
also to the Greek’. Whoever they are, wherever they are from, whatever language
they speak, whatever they have or have not done, the gospel is the power of God
for salvation to everyone who believes. In Christ, racism is crushed, in the
church the walls of segregation are broken down, at the cross both the wronged
and the wrong-doer meet, forgive, and reconcile. In Romans 1:14, Paul, a Jew
who had preached to the Jews and believed that one day they would be saved
(Romans 9-11) says ‘I am under obligation both to Greeks and to barbarians, both
to the wise and to the foolish. So I am eager to preach the gospel to you also
who are in Rome
“Those who have never been
told of him will see,
and those who have never
heard will understand.” (Paul quoting Isaiah 15:21, in Romans 15:21)
and so that the nations may see the Lord’s continuing
faithfulness to the everlasting covenant he made with Israel, and praise him
for it (Romans 15:8-13).
It is a good thing to reach certain groups of people in a way
that they will understand, but the goal of such targeted evangelism should not
be to create ethnically based churches, or age divided church meetings. Worship
with people of your own background can be a joyful thing and there is
definitely a place for smaller groups designed to reach people of different
ages, but on the Lord’s Day, when a local church assembles for worship I
believe they should meet in a spirit of oneness as fellow believers in Christ,
rejoicing in the unity accomplished on the cross. Reach different people in
different ways, but don’t forget that the gospel is the power of God to
salvation for everyone who believes
and that the church sees everyone truly together in Christ.
Evangelize because of
what the gospel reveals. Paul writes that ‘in it the righteousness of God
is revealed from faith for faith.’ We see how God is righteously angered by
man’s sin (unrighteousness). We recognize that the world is under the righteous
wrath of God. We know that one day all will stand before God to be judged in
righteousness (Romans 1-3:20). This is God’s righteousness manifested in the
law. But in the gospel we see a righteousness not which separates us from God,
but which brings us to God, a righteousness which we ourselves obtain and share
in, the righteousness which is, as some versions translate Romans 1:17, ‘by
faith, from first to last.’ Chapter 3:21-26 tell us:
But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart
from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it—the
righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For
there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of
God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be
received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine
forbearance he had passed over former sins. It was to show his righteousness at
the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has
faith in Jesus.
The gospel reveals how foolish, filthy wretched ones may be
cleansed and enter into a joy-filled relationship with the faithful, forgiving Righteous
One. With a revelation like that, the question should cease to be ‘why should I
evangelize?’ and should become ‘why shouldn’t I evangelize?’
3. How should I
evangelize?
How should a church planter or evangelist preach the gospel? Forget
evangelistic methods and techniques in this section. I will let you think
through such matters yourself in relation to the area in which you serve. When
I ask ‘how’ I refer not so much to the church planting evangelist’s methods,
which are important but may vary in the smaller details, but to the
evangelist’s mentality. What should his attitude be as he evangelizes?
Love
for God, love for others.
Evangelism is a work of love. You know that God loved and
loves you and so you love God and therefore want to keep his commands, and so
love others. The ridiculous eisogetical cop-out that tells us the Great
Commission was only applicable for those who first heard it is not worth pence.
Don’t waste your thoughts on it, and please don’t ever be heard to voice it. Think
about it: the reason you are saved is because someone was obeying the Great
Commission. The real danger for many of my readers, however, is probably not disregarding
the Commission in theory, but more likely disregarding it in practice.
And Jesus came and said to them, “All authority in
heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go therefore and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, teaching
them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with
you always, to the end of the age.” (Matt. 28:18-20)
And he said to them, “Go into all the world
and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation. Whoever believes
and is baptized will be saved, but whoever does not believe will
be condemned.” (Mark 16:15-16)
Jesus said to them again, “Peace be with you.
As the Father has sent me, even so I am sending you.” (John
20:21)
He said to them, “It is not for you to know times or
seasons that the Father has fixed by his own authority. But you will
receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you
will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in
all Judea and Samaria
If you love God, and you love your fellow man, keep God’s
commands.
Certainty
that God will fulfil all his plans and keep all his promises
Gareth Crossley writes on the Great Commission in Matthew 28:
there is no uncertainty concerning the outcome of evangelism
because there is no limit to the authority of the Lord Jesus Christ; therefore
there should be no hesitation in the obedience of the church.
Doubt before ‘evangelism’ will lead to discouragement and
despair after ‘evangelism.’ True, biblical evangelism is not done with doubt as
to what will be achieved. While the church planter/evangelist has no idea who
will respond to the message, he is not particularly bothered. Rather he humbly
preaches to everyone with bold assurance by the Spirit’s power the message that
‘God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him
should not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16). He knows that among the
‘everyone’ to whom he preaches there is an ‘everyone who believes.’ He does not
know who exactly ‘whosoever’ is, but he knows that if he preaches Christ the
Lord, ‘whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved’ (Acts
2:21). He pleads with men to repent of sin and seeks to persuade men to believe
the gospel. He believes, in the words of John Frame, that "God’s sovereign
purpose is to save people through the witness of other people."
I began by mentioning a website that promises it will equip
clients with the right stuff to attract people to their church plant. Its
reasons classed nice things as necessities. All you really need though is the
gospel. Preach it. Avoid pragmatism, which is all about drawing a crowd and
keeping it. Flee isolationism, which is not concerned with drawing a crowd, so much as it is with drawing
the right kind of crowd. Evangelism
is about reaching the crowds, going into all the world and making disciples, baptizing
them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,
teaching them to observe all things commanded by Jesus Christ and trusting in
his promise to always be with his people.
Thank the Father. Remember Christ. Walk in the Spirit. Preach
the gospel. Know that through the preaching of the gospel sinners are converted,
God is glorified and Christ is exalted.
The above post is based on an address delivered by the author at the Grace Baptist Partnership's Basic Training for Church Planters Day (London), 14 January, 2012. To find out more about GBP, visit http://www.gracebaptistpartnership.org.uk/
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