My Stance on Evangelism

Hi all,

It seems that everywhere I look there are people telling me to go out and share my faith, to engage the culture and to evangelize the lost. Okay, fair enough. Jesus commanded His disciples to go and make disciples of all nations. See Matthew 28:18-20.

Matthew 28:18-20 NIV

Then Jesus said to them, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. 19 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. 20 and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Now to me, this scripture clearly tells me that Jesus told His disciples to go and spread the good news to other nations, baptizing them etc. Now as Christians we consider ourselves to be disciples of Jesus, so naturally, we too want to go out and share the good news. It's understandable. However, I personally feel that evangelism is NOT something that just anyone can do or should do.

Look at the original 11 disciples and one new one to make a nice even 12 being sent out to do this work. All of these men I believe had spent years with Jesus, learning from Him on a daily basis, being corrected, rebuked and made to be servants of others. What kind of training do we as Christian evangelists have? What kind of evangelistic training did you receive, if any?

I myself received about 4 hours of training in evangelism to go share the good news. After that, I watched programs like The Way of the Master and Acquire The Fire and I thought I was ready to take on the world, that no one could make me believe anything different. No one has. But there are some tough questions out there that really made me think about the things I've read in the bible and the theology contained in there. Like a good Martini my faith has been shaken a time or two.

After some thinking on the subject of evangelism and talking to others on the internet who also engage or have engaged in this practice, my view has changed. My stance on evangelism now, is that yes we are compelled to share our faith which is evidence of Christ in us, but evangelism is a serious business and should not be entered into lightly. As evangelists we are essentially asking people to make a decision with eternal ramifications.

It's not a decision that should be made after listening to a person on a street for a few minutes convict you by God's law, which should be the basis of all evangelistic efforts. As a church body we shouldn't just send a brand new convert out to share their newfound faith because I personally don't think they understand fully what their new faith is. We should send people out there who know this stuff inside and out and can present a sound case for Jesus. Then that person should hand the person being witnessed to a list of churches in the area that they can go to for more information.

The preaching of the "turn or burn" gospel and telling people that they have to make a choice right now because there may be no tomorrow for them, does not sit well with me. Because then we're relying on fear and emotional responses to convict the person instead of the law of God. And the church wonders why there are so many backsliders out there and where they are coming from. It's simple, we're creating them. I will go into more detail about that in my next post.