Making a difference. Evangelism. Part 1:

I had the privilege of being raised in a Christian home and being part of a Christian family, I remember spending a lot of time with my Grandmother,  Mildred Whitton in the latter years of her life, and she used to tell me stories of her early Christian Life, she told me one story out of many that impacted me greatly,  in the 1930’s my great grandmother took my Grandmother and one of her Sisters to hear the Evangelist George Jefferies in Swansea, both my Gran and her sister had issues with their eyesight, and both were healed at the meeting held by George Jefferies.

My mum’s parents Frank & Mildred Whitton were both Christians and very involved in their local church in Resolven, my dad David was not raised in a Christian family, and had contacts at a local Church in Pontardawe; through them he went to hear Billy Graham in Swansea in 1958, where my Dad became a Christian. My Mum, Alison, became a Christian as a child.

I was at my church’s Bible Week recently where we alongside our related churches throughout the UK where inspired by Godly Speakers such as Andrew Hughes, David Lavery and Keri Jones and of course others as well, I’ve mentioned my friends Andrew, David and Keri because God used them specifically to speak into my life, something Keri said we had to evangelise or we would die!

Throughout my Christian Life, I’ve seen and have been part of many evangelistic outreaches and strategies, I remember being an eager and enthusiastic teenager and being part of an evangelism team in Bradford, and seeing God save people and lives being changed by the Good News of the Gospel, my dad was part of an evangelism team in the 1970’s and early 1980’s, I used to go with my dad, I think I was more of a team mascot than part of that team but I loved being part of both teams.

For many years,  Church Growth here in the United Kingdom has been mostly transfer growth where people leave one church and join another church, transfer growth can be successful it also can be unsuccessful,  I’m not going to say something positive or negative about transfer growth, this is not the purpose of this post,  for many churches, evangelism is done through the spectrum of the Alpha Course and similar courses,  I think Alpha is great, but evangelism isn’t spelt alpha, alpha can be part of an evangelism outreach programme but it isn’t the entirety of an evangelism outreach programme/strategy.

There have been countless evangelistic programmes/strategies some have been successful and many have been unsuccessful, we invent strategies and ask God to bless our strategies, and we wonder why they don’t work or fail our expectations, we read books attend conferences on evangelism, research evangelism yet we don’t do any evangelism or reluctantly evangelise.

 We have superstar or celebrity Christians who bring evangelistic outreaches to our towns and cities, we pray that evangelist a will come to our town, then countless people will be saved,  when this doesn’t happens we pray for evangelist b to come, and this cycle repeats itself for years and sometimes decades. Yet while we sit in our comfortable pews, playing our self-indulgent games, people are going to a lost and Christ less Eternity, The Lord hasn’t called us His Church to be full of active and committed spectators rather he has called us and is calling us to be active and committed participants in His Great Commission.

Matthew 28:18-20 New American Standard Bible.

And Jesus came up and spoke to them, saying, “All authority has been given to Me in heaven and on earth. 19 Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.”

 Mark 16:15ff New American Standard Bible.

¹⁵ And He said to them, “Go into all the world and preach the gospel to all creation. ¹⁶ He who has believed and has been baptized shall be saved; but he who has disbelieved shall be condemned. ¹⁷ These signs will accompany those who have believed: in My name they will cast out demons, they will speak with new tongues; ¹⁸ they will pick up serpents, and if they drink any deadly poison, it will not hurt them; they will lay hands on the sick, and they will recover.”

I have often wondered, why here in the United Kingdom, our evangelistic outreaches/programmes/strategies have either failed, or are less effective than we hoped or dreamed, is our message the same Gospel Jesus preached or is it either a watered down or wishey washy presentation of The Gospel?

What Gospel did Jesus preach ?

Matthew 4:22-24 New American Standard Bible

23 Jesus was going throughout all Galilee, teaching in their synagogues and proclaiming the gospel of the kingdom, and healing every kind of disease and every kind of sickness among the people 24 The news about Him spread throughout all Syria; and they brought to Him all who were ill, those suffering with various diseases and pains, demoniacs, epileptics, paralytics; and He healed them.

See a breakdown of The Gospel of The Kingdom here

http://www.charismamag.com/spirit/spiritual-growth/17652-the-difference-between-the-gospel-of-salvation-vs-gospel-of-the-kingdom

I will continue this in Part 2: