Rethinking Evangelism by Frank Viola

This is taken from Frank's blog. to comment and exchange with him on this topic or others, please see link below article.... 

The subject before the house today is evangelism.

Please read the entire post else you’ll very likely misunderstand the whole discussion.

With few exceptions, every traditional church I’ve ever been a part of emphasized evangelism to be God’s grand goal. And every believer was divinely obligated to share the gospel with lost souls.

As I’ve pointed out elsewhere, this sentiment is fairly recent, harkening back to the teachings of D.L. Moody. Moody, who was a gifted evangelist, had his paradigm circulate through mainstream evangelicalism through Bible colleges all across America. (Moody Bible Institute was among the very first). His paradigm is now in the drinking water of modern-day evangelicalism.

A number of my friends on the missional church scene continue to work from D.L.  Moody’s paradigm despite that it’s been publicly refuted scores of times.

Last year, I was flipping through the TV channels and came across a very well-known pastor telling his congregation about the desperate need for them to evangelize. He went on and on, warning them that if they didn’t tell others about Jesus and bring them into the church, the building they were all sitting in would be converted into a furniture store. He told stories about this happening with other churches he knew of. He then went on to tell them that his ministry as pastor is to teach the sheep and motivate them to go out and bring others into the sheepfold. The saving of lost souls was their complete responsibility. If the church failed in this and the building was lost, it was their fault.

With every word, the guilt and condemnation piled higher upon the heads of God’s people in that audience. I felt sickened. Yet they took it like good Christians, and I suspect that it wasn’t the first time.

Let me make a few observations about evangelism that, I hope, will help all believers seriously rethink the subject:

• People who use the number of souls saved as a metric for anything demonstrate that they don’t understand God’s eternal purpose. Einstein was dead-on when he said, “Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything that counts can be counted.” Think of God’s purpose for every human like a race track with a finish line. (Paul actually used this image.) The finish line is God’s intention, His goal. Every person is born 5 miles away from the race track in a dark forest. Bringing someone to the Lord is like taking them by the hand out of the forest onto the starting line of the track. However, many different people may be instrumental in that process. Let’s use you as an example. At some point, someone took you by the hand and brought you 1 mile closer to the track. Later, another person took your hand and brought you another mile closer. Another brought you a few feet closer. Another brought you some yards closer. Perhaps it took 10 different people at different seasons in your life and through different means to bring you to the race track. However, once you set foot on the racetrack – that is, you repented, believed, and were baptized thus becoming a disciple, a believer, and a convert (the New Testament knows no difference between the three), God hasn’t yet fulfilled His purpose in your life. There’s still the finish line which is 3 laps around the track! Someone else may come along and help you finish the first lap. Another may help you make the second, and another the third (which is the end of your life). Or more accurately, many people will bring you to various points in the track. Now here’s my point: It is utter blindness and absurdity to place special value on the person who brought you to the last leg of the forest to the starting gate of the race track. Each step and each person who has been and will be instrumental in helping you take the next step toward the finish line is equally valuable. God gets the most glory when you have finished the race. Nothing short of that is His goal. What many evangelical Christians have done is to make the whole ballgame bringing people from the last leg of the dark forest to the starting line. And they wrongly assume that this is the calling of every Christian.

• There is nowhere in the NT epistles to the churches where one word is said to them about the need to evangelize. There’s also not one word of command to evangelize. The silence is deafening, and it cannot be dismissed.

• The so-called “Great Commission” was an apostolic commission that Jesus gave to the 12 apostles – the men whom He lived with for 3.5 years, trained, and then sent out to the apostolic work. It is a huge assumption, therefore, to put that on all of God’s people. (Paul made clear in 1 Corinthians 12 that not all are called to be apostles.) Furthermore, that commission is often wrongly translated “go into all the world . . . ,“ etc. In the Greek, the phrase is actually “having gone on your way . . .” It was a prediction rather than a command. Jesus knew that they would be going at some point. And they did.

• The 12 apostles stayed in the city of Jerusalem for at least 4 years before they began bringing the gospel to other parts of Palestine. They weren’t trying to get the world saved in a hurry, John R. Mott notwithstanding. That blows past and present movements to “save the world in one generation” higher than a kite.

• Sharing Jesus Christ with others is not a duty, a religious obligation, nor something that Christians should feel guilty or condemned about if they fail to do it with instant results. You can’t find any of this in the New Testament. It’s a post-apostolic idea. Sharing Christ was and is a spontaneous thing that issues forth from one’s life in Christ and his or her love for others.

• Christians who love the Lord Jesus Christ cannot but share their Lord with others, when the season is right and when a door has opened by the Spirit. You don’t have to command or guilt a woman who is in love with a man into telling her friends about him. She just does it by instinct. Now a word to preachers and teachers. For the last 25 years, I’ve observed the following: If you preach to people that they “must evangelize, and if they don’t, God won’t be happy with them,” you’ll end up with people who aren’t very good evangelists and who live in guilt. But if you preach the glories of the Lord Jesus Christ to where God’s people are intoxicated with Him, you’ll have a group of fire-brands that will naturally share their Lord as opportunities arise. As I have often said, pursue Jesus Christ with others, get to know Him deeply, and evangelism and the like will take of itself. And you they be found trying to sell something to others that they themselves haven’t been utterly sold on.

• In the first-century, the greatest evangelist was the ekklesia of God, a close-knit community of believers that loved Jesus, showed Him forth by their life together, took care of one another, and served others. Whenever she – the ekklesia – is functioning according to her spiritual nature, she trumps every other evangelism program known to man. That’s still the case today when she’s reflecting her Bridegroom as God called her to. I hope that those who love evangelism, but think that the way a church expresses itself isn’t important will give this point serious consideration. The way a church expresses itself is terribly important. Biblically speaking, the church is the premier witness to Jesus Christ. (For those who aren’t familiar with my work, you can read my discussion with Neil Cole to get an idea of what I mean by “the way a church expresses itself.”

• During seasons of revival, the salvation of souls happens quite effortlessly. In a revival, scores of people are open to hear about Jesus Christ and are ripe to receive Him. For instance, a massive amount of disciples were made from 1968 to 1977 in the USA. You could say the name of “Jesus” and people would be open to believe on Him. We aren’t in a time of revival right now. This doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t share Christ if we feel the Spirit compelling us to do so, but it does mean that far fewer people will come to the Lord right now than in a time of revival. So don’t get befuddled when few people come to the Lord right now.

• Sharing Jesus Christ with others can be done in many ways other than giving them “the plan of salvation” verbally. A believer’s life that is lived by Christ embodies the gospel. Paul and Peter make this clear throughout their letters. A life lived for Christ will often provoke open-hearted questions from others. It will be reflected in acts of mercy, love, care, giving, and kindness. Equally so, someone who shows the love of Christ to their coworkers (for instance) will often be sought out when a coworker is going through a trial. Their heart will be opened to hear about the living Christ, and what makes you so different. Such cases are often the best opportunities to share the Lord with others.

• Israel was called to be a light to all the nations. God said that through her, all the nations of the earth shall be blessed. The church is the new Israel. It is by the ongoing life of an authentic local assembly that meets under the Headship of Christ – through the reality of authentic community, mutual love, mutual sharing, justice, care, open-participation, and fellowship that the church reflects the kingdom of God to a watching world. There will be seasons where a local assembly will be called to serve their city, to serve the lost and to show Christ to them. However, it will only be effective if it is done “in season” and the Lord Himself is leading it. If not, the people will burn out, and there will be little fruit that will come from it. As I’ve described in Finding Organic Church, there are seasons for in-reach and seasons for outreach. There are also dry spells and wet spells. All come from the hand of God. For a church to always be in-reaching spells death. The same is true for a church that makes outreach its only focus. It must learn how to bear the light of Christ outside its own walls (metaphorically speaking). This gets into the subject of living by the indwelling life of Christ, which is the source of all things spiritual.

• Many Christian leaders today will argue fiercely that not all Christians are called to teach or to be pastors, yet they will fiercely teach that all Christians are called to be evangelists. The New Testament is clear that not all are called to be evangelists (see 1 Cor. 12). Philip was an evangelist. And Timothy, who was an apostolic worker, was encouraged by Paul to do “the work” of an evangelist. While all believers can evangelize and teach and shepherd, not all of them are called to be evangelists, teachers, or shepherds. This point is often overlooked and a double-standard exists when it comes to evangelists which is different from teachers, prophets, apostles, and shepherds.

• There’s an immense need to learn to read Scripture with fresh eyes instead of reading it through a 100-year old lens. N.T. Wright is known for arguing that contemporary Christians come to the New Testament and read it through the lens of the Reformers with respect to justification and the works of the Law. I submit that contemporary Christians come to the New Testament and read it through the lens of D.L. Moody with respect to God’s mission.  It’s high time that this changed and we begin to explore the fact that God has an eternal purpose that’s been beating in His heart since before time. That purpose, in fact, preceded the Fall. It’s what provoked Him to create. And it’s not the making of individual disciples.

Those are just some quick and cursory thoughts on evangelism. If you find this post helpful or thought-provoking, please pass the link on to others. But permission is not granted to copy and paste the entire post elsewhere.

I kindly ask that if you disagree with any of the points that you post your challenging questions in the comments section here instead of blogging about it somewhere else where none of us will see it.

Which point in this post resonates with you the most? And can you add any more “Rethinking Evangelism” point to the list?

http://frankviola.wordpress.com/2010/10/13/rethinking-evangelism