Acts 2:41, “So then, those who had received his word were baptized; and that day there were added about three thousand souls.”
Roman 10:14-15, “How then will they call on Him in whom they have not believed? How will they believe in Him whom they have not heard? And how will they hear without a preacher? 15 How will they preach unless they are sent? Just as it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who bring good news of good things!’”
I love this little book by Mack Stiles entitled, “Evangelism.” If you click on the image, you will be sent to a website where you can purchase the book if you want. It is barely over 100 pages. You could easily read it in one sitting. What you probably cannot see from the image is the subtitle, “How the Whole Church Speaks of Jesus.”
I cannot keep from thinking about what would happen if our whole church were regularly and faithfully speaking of Jesus. Students to their friends between class, at lunch, or in the locker room. Young adults at lunch with work colleagues, on coffee dates, and during game nights. Young mothers on play dates with their children, young dads at the gym before work, older adults sitting with people watching grandchildren play soccer or perform at a band concert. Men and women with their neighbors as they go for a walk, water the lawn, or plant mums for the fall.
There are so many opportunities to speak of Jesus. But the best thing about this little book is the clarity it brings to exactly what evangelism is. The church has sometimes confused some of its activity as evangelism. What that does is cause everyone to think we are doing evangelism well, so we check it off the list of things the church has done, and now we need to move on to deeper things in the faith.
Mack Stiles says in his book that, “evangelism is teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade,” [emphasis his]. He goes on to point out that sharing our testimony, defending the Christian faith, doing good deeds for the oppressed or the needy are not evangelism. He says these are good things to be done and can serve or support our evangelism. But in and of themselves they are not evangelism.
Evangelism is teaching the gospel. Stiles writes, “We want to express the truth about who God is, why we are in the mess we are in, what Jesus came to do, and how we are to respond to Him. It’s no wonder that Paul often described his evangelistic ministry as a teaching ministry.”
Teaching can sound like a passive approach to evangelism. Teachers give information. Students learn or do not learn based on what they do. But evangelism is teaching the gospel with the aim to persuade [emphasis mine]. Stiles writes, “Evangelism isn't just data transfer; we must listen to people, hear their objections, and model gentleness because we know that souls are at stake. And we know what it means to truly convert: a true Christian has put his complete faith and trust in Jesus, so much so that he has repented of a lifestyle of unbelief and sin.”
What makes Stiles book stand out to me in the arena of evangelism is that the emphasis is not on ways to share your faith individually, but on developing a culture of evangelism within the congregation. Oddly enough, programs of evangelism can dampen a culture of evangelism, rather than create one. According to Stiles, “When people are pulling together to share the gospel, when there is less emphasis on getting ‘a decision,’ when the people of God are pitching in to teach the gospel together, a culture forms that leads us to ask ‘Are we all helping our non-Christian friends understand the gospel?’”
He goes on to write, “We need to replace evangelistic programs with a culture of evangelism. Programs are to evangelism what sugar is to nutrition: a strict diet of evangelistic programs produces malnourished evangelism. So, we should feel a healthy unease with regard to evangelistic programs. We must use them strategically and in moderation, if at all.” I take this to mean that we use evangelistic programs as a means to lubricate the machine, not as the fuel that makes the engine run.
This is why the gospel really is central to the gathered church. We sing the gospel, we see the gospel in the ordinances, we hear the gospel when we preach and when we pray. We are creating gospel air for the body of Christ. So that when we are in the world, we are exhaling the gospel, and we sense the need to return to the gathered body to refill our lungs for another week in the world.
Grab this book. Engage weekly in gospel-centered worship. Pull on the rope of evangelism together. See if God does not work among us like He did in Acts 2.
By His Grace and For His Glory,
Pastor Mark
