Outreach: Get Motivated to Reach Your Friends

INTRODUCTION

It is my prayer that by the time you finish reading this book your thinking will have changed a little concerning evangelism. The word ‘repent’ simply means to change our thinking. It has been my prayer we repent about the way we think about outreach and evangelism. It seems to me the ones who still care about the lost are the new believers. Somehow in the midst of serving Jesus, we have lost the burden He has for those He came to ‘seek and to save.’ New believers usually make the best soul winners ever. It might be because they have such a burden for those they love who have not discovered what Jesus can do for them. The tragedy is they hang around those of us who have grown cold toward the lost and before you know it they become just like us. I am not sure why that is, but the new believers have much more of a passion for their lost friends then those who have been 'around church' for a while.

You would think that the longer someone has been around Jesus and His Word, the more he would want people to have the same relationship with Jesus. Those of us who have known the Lord for long periods of time should ask Him to restore us to that ‘first love’. I know that we all want to be the kind of ambassadors that represent Him in a worthy manner. We are therefore Christ’s Ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. (2 Corinthians 5:20 NIV).

A good restarting place is to take a good look at the importance evangelism plays in our lives. Does the importance evangelism plays in my life match that of the New Testament? Is the depreciation of evangelism a sign of our spiritual temperature? Is it strange to you that the longer we serve Him the more scriptures we can come up with to justify our actions? I know. I have been guilty of the same action. Let’s allow the Holy Spirit to show us the truth and not try to cover up our short comings. The truth will set us free.

Please don't let this book be just an inspiration, but let it go deep inside of your heart and bring about a change in your thinking. We are not all called to be soul winners, but we are all subpoenaed to be witnesses. So let's get started by giving the Holy Spirit the right to show us where He wants to bring change into our lives. It wouldn't hurt to stop now and pray and give your heart over to the Holy Spirit. Say to Him, I am open to your speaking to me about areas of my life that you would like to change.

When I began the journey of writing a book on this subject of evangelism, I struggled with the fact that books on evangelism don’t have a large reading audience. It seems to me after serving God for over 35 years in full time ministry, I have seen evangelism take the back burner in the church. The church has moved away from soul winning campaigns to seminar and conferences. Seminars and conferences are important to the church and help us to grow spiritually, but so is obeying the Great Commission.

God called me to his miraculous salvation out of drugs and alcohol during the Jesus Movement of the ’70’s. I was amazed at how God set me free and gave me a purpose in life. He called me to the ministry of evangelism almost immediately. For 18 years my wife (Michelle) and I served God faithfully in full time evangelism. We planted an evangelistic church in East Texas and served there for 14 years. I have been on numerous mission trips and presently work with the Maasai Tribe in Kenya Africa. It has been quite an education traveling the world and sharing Jesus.

In my travels to hundreds of churches in the USA, I have heard time and again many reasons why evangelism is not a priority. I know for a fact this breaks Jesus' heart. Let me share just a few with you of the reasons why evangelism has fallen so far down the list of church and individual priority.

‘The evangelist of the past few decades has given us a bad taste of evangelism.They blow in, blow up and blow out’. As an evangelist I apologize for those who have been bad examples of the God given gift of evangelism. The days of the flashy colorful suit, flamboyant, fleshy approach has long been gone. We cannot judge the gift of evangelist by bad examples of evangelist.

Just like we cannot judge the gift of pastor by pastors who have been terrible examples of what a pastor is supposed to be. Many pastors have been hirelings, exploited God’s people, had affairs, embezzled money and so on, yet I still believe in the God given gift of pastor. I believe this to the point that I am a member of a church and have a pastor myself. The same should be true of the evangelist and other gifted men given to the church (Ephesians 4: 11-13). We do not need to throw out the baby with the bath water. I guess the question we should ask ourselves Is, ‘are the evangelist still a gift given to the church?’, if so then how are we going to handle that truth. Is it possible that the church has moved away from evangelism because the church has moved away from the voice of the gifted evangelist. Just think about that for a while. We must have the voices of the gifted men given to the church.

11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds [2] and teachers, [3] 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, [4] to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Ephesians 4:11-14 ESV

We need to decide whether or not these few verses are true and apply to the church today. If they are true and do apply, it is up to us to work out the personal issues we might have with people and get back to what God wants for HIS church.

According to Paul, inspired by the Holy Spirit, the church will not, (1) be fully equipped to do the service God has call us to, (2) the church will not be equipped to build one another up like He intended us to do, (3) we will not attaint the unity of the faith or come to full maturity as He desires, (4) and the church will be tossed to and fro by every crazy doctrine available. This would be a great personal study if you want to see what God intends for His church by believing in and practicing the use of His gifted men given to the Body of Christ.

I firmly believe if the Church was hearing the voice of the evangelist we would not be in the terrible condition we are in today. The evangelist has a special anointing of sharing the Gospel. This is a message the church should never get away from. So many pastors are tired, worn out, burned out and getting out, because they have spent years trying to disciple lost people. This is absolutely impossible. I don’t care how called you are, it is frustrating to try to get children of the darkness to walk in His light. It simple cannot be done. The evangelist has an anointing of calling out the lost. You have to be able to allow God to save those around you, who you were convinced were already saved. Many in our churches today, are tares that look like wheat. When the Holy Spirit convicts them that they are not saved, we cannot run to their rescue and talk them out of their salvation experience. In Matthew 7 many were deceived about their salvation and called God ‘Lord’, yet He told them He never knew them.

Now I am aware of those people who never come to the complete assurance of their salvation, but even then we must be careful to not interrupt what the Holy Spirit might be doing. God is able to convince them they are the children of God, (Romans 8:16 ‘The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children’.) God’s spirit is quite able to do the convincing if we allow Him to. I know of a pastor’s wife who gave a testimony that she walked the isle 4-5 times and each time the pastor would tell her she was already saved. Finally she said, she had to tell the pastors she was not and wanted to be saved. Basically she had to argue with the pastor to get saved. My point is, we must get out of God’s way and not let our pride get in His way. I know we need to use the Word of God to help these people come to an understanding of what it means to be in a real relationship with God, but we must also understand it is a spiritual experience that is out of our control. Only God can save.

One of the other reason I have heard evangelism is not a priority is:

We are struggling spiritually ourselves. I had a group of leaders at a church tell me, that until the church was spiritual and rooted and grounded they could not be a part of reaching other people. I was completely blown away. How in the world do you become a spiritual group of people when you live a life of disobedience to the Word of God and the great commission. It will not happen. Spiritual growth comes from being obedient. Could it be that the spiritual apathy, and lack of spiritual maturity is directly related to the lack of the DNA of the evangelist being imparted to the church and defiance of God’s command