I'm sure many of you have done similar things, I'd appreciate your feedback...
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Following on from this post....
Who Do I Know Who Needs to Know?
There’s no science behind this. It’s just an opportunity to sit down and think prayerfully about our friendships. Think of family, friends, neighbours, workmates, club members, children’s friend’s families etc!
Before the Lord ask yourself where you are with the people around you, and where they are with the Lord.
How open are they to me?
1) Nodding acquaintance / rarely see them
2) We talk, not very deeply
3) A friendship is there
4) We could talk about most things
5) We talk about everything
How open are they to the gospel?
1) They don’t know I’m a Christian / Don’t want to know
2) They know I’m a Christian but not much more
3) We’ve spoken about gospel things once or twice
4) They’d come to something / read a book / have a deep conversation
5) They’re open to exploring Christianity in a deeper way
List the people you know - the more the better. Think through their current levels of openness (not where you wish they were). Pray through them and ask the Lord to lay on your heart one or two.
Perhaps with these in mind you could form a prayer triplet in which you pray regularly for three non-Christians to come to faith.
Just an idea.
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Suffice it to say that proselytization does not at all serve the cause of Christ, viz.: "true worship" of a personally knowable God, in his death on the cross, transcending the Christian religion (John 4: 231-26 et al.).
woldeyesus,
And what is Jesus doing when He says those words in John 4??
St. Paul tells us the "faith comes by hearing". "How can they hear if they don't have a preacher?"
Yes, we need to speak of Christ and His forgiveness of sins to all that we can. We can be smart about that and catch people one on one, maybe at their low point (there are certainly a lot of those in all our lives), so's not to harden their hearts.
I always pray that the Lord will send people into my path that need to hear the gospel. And that He will use my poor words for His purposes.
Quite often, He answers that prayer in the affirmative.
You specifically asked for feedback.
Sigh.
I disagreed with the whole notion of the church being primarily an evangelistic (in the commonly understood sense of the word, not its ancient root) body the day I learned you were to be a full-time evangelist, and I still do. A preponderence of sermons exaggerating the business of focusing mostly on winning the lost confirm me in that supposition.
I'm struggling hard to think of a single time Jesus or the apostles or anyone else commanded the church to be about the business of praying for the lost.
It's easy to think of the church being commanded to be holy, to bear each other's burdens, to provide for each other, to pray for each other, to pray for workers in the gospel. It's easy to find places each of us is told to be ready to answer, quick to teach, caring, forgiving, loving. It's clear that there's a serious labor involved in persuading the lost, but it's not clear that labor is the church's first business.
The bible begins with the Tree of Life and ends with the Tree of Life, the Book of Life, and the Water of Life. Jesus came that we might have Life exceedingly. The church's job is to live.
Life expresses and supports life through love, so the church's first job is to love and the church's first love is Jesus. Immediately after Jesus we love each other. That's a full-time job, but it prepares us for loving the world.
I don't believe there's a place for evangelism outside the context of first giving ourselves to the Lord, then to each other, and only lastly to the world from the same heart.
Hi Code,
I wholeheartedly agree that the church's job is to live. To flourish in being who we are. And in order to flourish at being who we are we need to be outgoing. We are a priesthood. We are the children of the Great Missionary - missionary kids if you like. We are the body of the Sent One. We are filled with the Spirit who perfects creation, bringing all things under Christ. So, absolutely, lets *be* that.
And I love your last paragraph (with the proviso that we think through the meaning of "first" and "lastly" theologically and practically).
But yes, there is a fountainhead from Christ to us, from us to our brothers and sisters and out to the world. And there are many ways in which we must respect that order. I'm not advocating we drum up evangelistic passion from anywhere other than the overflowing life of God.
I'd say the first, second and lastly order is appropriate when considering the Source of our missionary life. But they are not discrete stages that can be compartmentalised or detached from each other. In fact, by the nature of the case, they can't be split off from each other. Theologically speakign I don't think God has a life and then is outgoing. I believe His life *is* a life of outgoing-ness.
Therefore what does godliness look like? What does a church look like that's really living its life? That's the angle I'm coming from.
And there are certain people - evangelists - who can equip the saints for their works of service (Ephesians 4:11-12). Certainly they must be constantly pointing to the Fountainhead or else it will only be a wearying work of the flesh. But there are evangelists, there is an evangelistic task so there must be some way of equipping the church while respecting the kind of overflow you've pointed to? I hope!
The following is fully documented.
Short of proselytizing into Judaism, Jesus baptized a needy Samaritian woman in the Holy Spirit revealing his divine identity and completely transforming a once isolated life! (John 4: 1-42)
I enjoy a lot of our chats, Glen. This one not so much, though you're being more than gracious. It's just the subject. It really does get under my skin.
> Therefore what does godliness look like? What does a church look like that’s really living its life? That’s the angle I’m coming from.
It looks like people loving Jesus quietly and out loud and together and individually, and loving each other the same way. And whenever anyone else comes along, they join the love, too.
> And there are certain people – evangelists – who can equip the saints for their works of service (Ephesians 4:11-12).
Yes and apostles and pastors and prophets. When I read this passage and hear it preached I don't hear anyone saying that everyone should be an apostle, a pastor or a guardian. Every one called to be one of these things should be one, yes, but not everyone should be all these things.
And yet every preacher preaches everyone should be an evangelist.
Why?
Why burden ungifted sheep with guilt about the souls of those they have not been called to save?
Every last one of us is called to bear the fruit of the Spirit. Where that fruit is being manifest, the Spirit is at work. But not every last one of us receives the same gift.
What should a church look like whose members are living its life? It is gentle, kind, longsuffering. It doesn't count wrongs, and it gives freely from the heart. And there are a few people who really know their stuff and teach everyone else. There are a few people who know how the Spirit is moving and point it out to everyone else. And there are some who dearly love to tell others the good news about the Life Who's come to Earth. The mere fact some are gifted proves unequivocally most are not.
The first work of an evangelist is to evangelize the lost. The second is to train up others who share the same gift. You can saddle as many cows as you like, and give them as many bridles and bits as you please, but you still won't make them horses. You'll just make them feel bad about being cows.
Going from church to church having targeted meetings with brothers and sisters gifted to tell the story is a great way to build up the body. That just might be revolutionary. Teaching everyone those same lessons, irrespective of gifting, just gifts 90% of the hearers with guilt. There's got to be a reason neither Jesus nor Paul nor John nor Peter took such a tack. But Jesus, Paul, John, and Peter all took gifted brothers under their wings and mentored them.
And it just might keep you from burnout.