With my local ISI staff team we have felt it appropriate to articulate "how we do evangelism". This is occasioned as we add increasing numbers of volunteers in our outreach initiatives. We felt it incomplete to simply point those people to the ISI national statement of "Core Values", though they too are worthy of review and appreciation.
I drafted (below) what we may decide to publish and use as a template locally for further training [of volunteers].
How do we go about the work of Gospel
proclamation? How do we do *evangelism*
within the specific challenges and opportunities of Christian ministry with
international students?
- Humility
- Responsibility
- Ingenuity
Since most Bible informed Christian answers include
one of several repeated Scripture texts, let’s begin there.
“Sing to the LORD, praise his name;
proclaim
his salvation day after day.
Declare
his glory among the nations,
His
marvelous deeds among all people.” (Psalm 96-2-3)
“As
the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” (John 20:21)
“All authority in heaven and on
earth has been given to me.
Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them
in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely
I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”
(Matthew 28:18-20)
“… you are a chosen people… that
you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his
wonderful light.” (1 Peter 2:9)
We who have been born again into a
living hope, therefore, bear the incomparable privilege and responsibility of announcing in word and in deed the
good news centered in Jesus, the living God’s Chosen One. We have learned and continue practicing how
appropriately and truly to outline or illustrate that News. Whether with a tool
or a life testimony we each and together share in the responsibility
of pointing, and hopefully introducing others, to Jesus. In this we are responding to the God of our
salvation who in His wise plan determines to employ us humans who are regularly
prone to pride, dysfunction, doubt or inhibitions, for example. It is truly
amazing. But neither is evangelism ever
seasonal only or optional for, “You will be my witnesses” (Acts 1:8).
It should be obvious that with this
high responsibility there is no room for patting
ourselves on the back. To represent the
living God calls for action permeated by humility.
“Since
we know what it is to fear the Lord, we try to persuade others…. For Christ’s
love compels us…. All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through
Christ and gave us the message of reconciliation…. And he has committed to us
the message…” (see 2 Corinthians 5).
In carrying out the work of, for
example, relating to, shining among, declaring or persuading, and pointing
others to Jesus, we must maintain a posture of learners - slow to speak and
quick to listen. We want to always be
going deeper with the Lord ourselves; we want to live and work with integrity,
while ready to renounce anything that may impugn the name of our Champion. In cross cultural evangelism humility
is certainly the operative attitude!
Though we are highly blessed by and entrusted with Good News for all, we
are not ignorant of the challenges inherent in winning others’ attention. Among those are cultural, prejudicial, philosophical
and personal obstacles as well as the relentless opposition of the Enemy of our
souls! Sometimes slowly, but vividly, we learn to throw ourselves on the
Almighty God for His Spirit to break the hold of these various challenges and
win people for Jesus!
Many in the churches and the
academy inquire with questions of, How
many…? How large…? What are significant
results? We choose to resist the
temptation to quantify the work of Gospel proclamation, recalling John the
Baptizer’s disclaimer, “He [Messiah
Jesus] must increase, but I must decrease,” while expecting God’s Spirit to
breathe new life in a few or many at any time.
To include ingenuity with our understanding of evangelism that builds
on both remarkable responsibility and a humble bearing may seem inappropriate.
The chances of overcoming the kind of obstacles we encounter may appear, humanly
speaking, insurmountable – except that we depend on God’s Spirit to show us the
way through. Aware that we ourselves are not responsible for students’
responses to the Gospel – God forbid that we be guilty of detracting from or
distorting that Good News in any way – nevertheless we accept that the Lord
purposes to use us to “plow the earth, till the soil, and soften the ground” of
hard hearts for the entrance of the seed of Salvation’s hope. So we seek meaningful ways to bless
students in the power of Jesus’ name through, for example, acts of practical
service, gestures of genuine welcome, initiatives that cultivate trust and
develop authentic friendship, words of encouragement or healing, and hearts
sensitive to students’ deepest needs such as love, respect, appreciation and
security.
We
have come to imagine evangelism not so much as a moment but as a series of
apparently interconnected moments, woven into an ornate tapestry - saturated
with prayer. These moments may be infused by personal testimony, attention to
Scripture, dreams, provocative conversations or life experiences, Gospel
proclamation, apologetic exchanges, or the disequilibrium of mind and soul prompted
by disappointments or questioning of
prior
beliefs.
We
also believe the range of soul softening
methods is limited only by our lack of ingenuity or insensitivity to both
student-expressed needs; but also and very much the Spirit’s supremely wise
assessment of what the circumstances call for.[1]
So
we trust that personal consideration of the Gospel will ensue sooner or later,
while we pray also that God protect our efforts to bless so as not to
manipulate students’ spiritual journeys.
Engage with us further!
Perhaps read and consider how these
weigh-in on the subject:
- Commentary on Colossians by N.T. Wright: “The task of evangelism is therefore best understood as the proclamation that Jesus is already Lord, that in him God's new creation has broken into history, and that all people are therefore summoned to submit to him in love, worship and obedience. The logic of this message requires that those who announce it should be seeking to bring Christ's Lordship to bear on every area of human and worldly existence” (pp. 79-80)
- Evangelism & the Sovereignty of God by J.I. Packer
- Christian Mission in the Modern World by John R.W. Stott (see especially chapter 2, “Evangelism”)
- Speaking of Jesus: The Art of Not-Evangelism by Carl Madearis (Prepare to be unsettled!
[1] “All Christians
were convinced that Jesus Christ was God’s last word to man, the one who
brought as much of God to us as we could appreciate in the only terms we could
take it in, the terms of a human life; the one who in dying and rising again was
manifestly vindicated in his claims and achievement. This they all believed in common: their modes
of expressing it depended to a large extent on their own intellectual and
spiritual background and on that of their hearers”. Michael Green. Evangelism in
the Early Church, p. 63 (see especially chapter 3, “The Evangel”)
In the process of editing the above I reviewed chapter 3 and the Epilogue of Green's book. Struck by the force of Green's summary features of the early Church's evangelism, I was moved to kneel and confess my own drastically falling short living out those qualities.
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