Wednesday 26 April 2017

The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly: What Does Evangelism Look Like in Your Day-to-Day Life?

As you go, wherever you go, make disciples of all people.

And the Lord added to their number …

What was behind the amazing growth of the Church in the Book of Acts? How did the Early Church grow—and grow so rapidly and with such diversity?

The 21st-century Body of Christ is exploding with evangelism-related resources. Christ-followers across the globe have immediate, at-your-finger-tips access to websites with seemingly unlimited links to articles and interviews, podcasts and video channels, even strategies for citywide collaboration.

Conferences, consultations, and cohort groups abound. Even as the Church declines in attendance it appears to be losing its upcoming generations and is now considered irrelevant, even dangerous, by our culture.

Gospelizers

Like so many words we’ve lifted from the biblical text, “evangelism” has become more theoretical or methodological than personal and relational. When most think of evangelism, what comes to mind is an event or gathering we invite lost persons to attend so they can listen to someone else explain the gospel to them.

With so many in the Church bound to a programmatic or performance or professionals-only mindset of proclaiming the gospel, we are in desperate need to reimagine evangelism more as a living description than a textbook definition. Scripture anchors evangelism in our lived-out, new-creation identity in Christ; it’s a lifestyle.

We are, as my friend Walter McCray has written, “Gospelizers”—people who have been radicalized by the good news in and from Jesus the Christ. We have been changed by the hope-filled, faith-giving news of His divinity and humanity, His life and death, resurrection and ascension, and His return to reign and rule over and through all who authentically believe ...

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