King's Heart Evangelism
Understanding Evangelism
The King's Heart for Evangelism is to save the lost, spread the Word of God, preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, serve God and our fellow man, and help the needy.
"And the King shall answer and say unto them, Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as you have done it unto one of the least of these My brethren, you have done it unto Me." Matthew 25:40
The following is my Pastor’s Evangelism Mission Statement:-
THE MISSION STATEMENT
Pray……Study……Teach……and Preach
Spreading Christ’s liberating Gospel through Word and Deed.
Seeking out the needy
Saving the lost, and serving God and our Fellow Man.
Being moderate in all things, and encouraging economic development through self-help among our members.
This Mission Statement lines up with what we were taught on “the Function and Role of the Mission Statement.” We learned that a Mission Statement requires a considerable amount of time to develop. There are three basic ways The Pastor can develop the Mission Statement:-
1. It can be developed by the Pastor in isolation from leaders of the Congregation.
2. It can be started by the Pastor and passed on to members for input and completion.
3. The pastor leads his leaders in a collaborative effort in developing the mission statement.
A Pastor should always seek the Direction of the Holy Spirit when developing a mission statement. An Evangelistic Mission Statement should be developed according to the principle mandate of the New Testament:-
Acts 1:8 “But ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and ye shall be witnesses unto Me both in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and in Samaria, and unto the uttermost part of the earth.”KJV
The mission statement should have in it a purpose (how you think about ministry) and a practice (how you do ministry). It must be rooted and grounded in the infallible Word of God.
Evangelism has to be the center and priority of all the ministries of the church. We must intentionally give a place to Evangelism in each of God’s services.
All Church ministries fall into two major categories:-
1. Ministry toward the saved – to bring the saints to spiritual maturity.
2. Ministry toward the unsaved – to evangelize the lost.
Witnessing to the sinner lowers their resistance against the Gospel. Much of our witnessing should be acts of kindness, not just sharing the Word. In other words, we should practice what we preach. We should seek God to show us where the ripe and ready fruit are. We have to ask God to make us soul-winning magnets for Him, so that those that are attached to us will be put in our paths to be won to the Kingdom.
A few examples of internal ministry components that could be included in the church’s mission statement are – Evangelism Training, Discipleship Development, New Testament Preaching, Teaching the Word of God, Praise and Worship, Biblical Principles and Financial Stewardship, Family Development and Christian Education.
Components of external ministry are – Evangelism Outreaches, Before and After School Programs, Prison Ministry Program, Food Assistance Program and Housing Assistance Program.
Most of these components are included in our church’s mission statement.
EVANGELISM AND THE GREAT COMMISSION
The church’s #1 assignment is Evangelism, and the Great Commission.
Matthew 28: 19-20 “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost:
Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen.” KJV
The Church has not yet completely fulfilled its assignment in the Great Commission, and some of the reasons are:-
1. It is important that we love the people we are ministering to. We must love them or we will never reach them.
2. We haven’t been taught to intercede for them. The first thing we should do is pray, cast down and pull down strongholds on their behalf.
3. We don’t pray enough or as effectively as we should, we must seek God for guidance, wait to hear from God and allow Him to open our eyes to see the ripe fruit, those to whom we should minister. We have to be taught how to pray effectively, discern the harvest and know how to hear.
Matt. 9:36 “But when He “saw” the multitudes, He was moved with compassion on them, because they fainted, and were scattered abroad, as sheep having no shepherd.”
The Great Commission has been viewed by the church for many years as simply work, witnessing to the lost, preaching, teaching, and baptizing, working hard. It is viewed as only for those that have the gift of evangelism, or for believers who are trained in evangelism, or for those that are good at communicating, knocking on doors, giving out tracks, some feel the ministry should be done predominately by the Pastor, or the work of a small group of people at our local church.
Many believers think of the work of the Great Commission as a laborious task, they feel the church has the responsibility to evangelize the unsaved, yes, but not just by works.
The 21st Century Church has only ONE ASSIGMENT, and that is to reach the world with the Gospel! Contrary to what most believers think, it is more about the empowerment of the church to fulfill a heavenly mandate, which is the Great Commission. We must understand that the Holy Spirit is the empowering agent that brings the church (believers) into joint covenant relationship with God in order to fulfill their delegated assignment. It is about God empowering His church to reach the world with the gospel. If God gives you an assignment, He will empower you to carry out that assignment (Acts 1:8).
A lot about fulfilling the Great Commission is about our sight and how we perceive things to be. We will never reach more than what is inside of us, if we limit ourselves, we will only reach that number. If you need help, pray to the Lord of the Harvest to send committed labourers. (Matt. 9:36-38).
Planet earth was not made for unregenerated man. So we have to stop thinking it is okay for sinners to occupy planet earth. No unsaved person on earth belongs to the devil.
2 Peter 3:9b “The Lord is…………not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.”
Instead we should think this way, “If I change my thinking, I will change my harvest.”
Think ahead, plan your Evangelistic strategies early, in order to do well in the Great Commission we have to attract the multitudes. (Matt. 9:36) Spend time in intercession before you even go out, then go out to confirm what has taken place in your prayer closet. We have to have a heart for Evangelism, once God fixes our hearts for Evangelism, then God will give us eyes for it.
Our prayer should be – “ Lord, send me to ripe and ready people, or send ripe and ready people to me.”
Matt. 13 – Parable of the Sower. Don’t sow good seed in bad ground. Use discernment and ask God for ripe ground.
Matt. 6:33 “Seek ye first the Kingdom of God and His Righteousness, and all these things will be added unto you.”
Our Aim is to be Kingdom reapers. One of the reasons we don’t have these things added unto us, is because we did not do our work.
Psalm 2:8a “Ask of me, and I will give you the heathen as your inheritance.”
CHRISTIAN DOCTRINES
Doctrines are our belief systems – what we believe.
Methodism and Evangelism are synonymous.
We believe –
1. Perfections (Attributes, Nature & Roles)
2. Holy Trinity
3. Nature of Christ
4. Holy Spirit
5. Sanctification
6. Predestination
John Wesley was the Founder of Methodism. He believed in Salvation by Grace, through Faith and Holiness. Souls were won outside the church, then they came into the church, but the church did not want them, so John Wesley created societies so that they would be taught and to grow, he started this on August 4th, 1786.
It is important to prepare our congregations with teaching to supplement the preaching so that they will not be a dead sect with no power. In today’s church, we still have some of these issues. We get revelation from the Word of God and also by way of the Holy Spirit.
We were taught the Attributes of God which are:-
1. Love and Holiness – God is love! Divine Love includes steadfast loyalty, seeks the good of the object being loved, and finds joy in it. Obedience is a manifestation of love. Holiness distinguishes and separates God from humanity, it is not a human attribute. The Holiness of God is communicated to humanity through the Holy Spirit. Holiness creates distance, love seek communion.
2. Eternal – God’s very essence is to exist “I am that I am”. God always was and is and always will be.
3. Omnipresence – God is everywhere. He is not limited to space, His entire being, not just a part of, is present everywhere, at all times, there is no place where God is not, within or without the bounds of space.
4. Omniscience – God knows everything.
5. Omnipotent – God is all powerful. Creation is dependent on His power, but He allows free will and permissive will.
6. Creator – The creation of the world was an expression of God’s love. The very existence of creation is evidence of the power of the spoken word.
7. Sovereign – As creator, God has complete sovereignty and freedom.
8. Governor – God’s role as Governor is always characterized by justice and mercy, which are expressions of His Holiness.
9. The Human Nature – He came as a babe to earth, lived here 33 years, suffered all our emotions and was tempted as we are, but did not sin.
Hebrews 4:15 “For we have not an high priest which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.”
10. Sanctification – is that renewal of our fallen nature by the Holy Ghost received through faith in Jesus Christ, whose blood of atonement cleanses all sin; whereby we are not only delivered from the guilt of sin, but are washed from its pollution, saved from its power, and enabled, through grace, to love God with all our hearts and to walk in righteousness. Justification comes before holiness.
11. Predestination – Before creation, God decided certain people would be saved and others would be condemned. He insisted that all persons have access to God’s saving grace through Christ Jesus (John 3:16)
These are the attributes of God and we are to press on to walk in His likeness and attributes, so that others will see and desire the same God, and so that He alone will get all the Honour, the Praise and the Glory from our lives as we go forth to share our faith with the world.
FAITH-SHARING by H. Eddie Fox and George E. Morris
Why do we share faith?
Faith Sharing does not start with us, but with God. It is God’s idea. We share faith with others because we worship the God whose nature is one of self-disclosure. Like the hymn written by John Newton, “Amazing Grace” says “I once was lost but now I‘m found”. Also like the story in the Bible about the Prodigal Son, he was lost and squandered all his money, sunk so low, he ended up sleeping with the pigs. But the Father was always looking for him to return. The Bible says the Father saw him afar off and ran to meet his son. The Father had to be vigilantly watching to see him coming from afar. That is how God is with us, He is always moving toward us, seeking us, calling us and enabling us to come to new life. Also as the story ends (Luke 15:31-32) the Father is still outside, no doubt, to be with the older Son who was a bit jealous of the fuss the Father was making over his brother who had acted irresponsible and squandered all his money, yet the Father shows he cares about both of them, not just the one that returned home. He desires a relationship with us. Therefore, any consideration of Faith-sharing must be rooted in an understanding of the living God, who is disclosed as Immanuel, “God with us.” He goes with us through green fields, beside still waters, and through valleys of deepest darkness. His love and mercy have followed us all the days of our lives. When we look back over our lives we see He was with us, even when we were not paying any attention to Him, like the Prodigal Son when he had the money and was living a riotous life, it did not stop the Father from loving and caring for him, and wanting him to come home, just as it does not stop God from loving us and wanting us to come back to Him.
Why we need Christian Faith
Sin causes the human race to turn away from God in an act of self-will and disobedience. A breaking of the relationship with God occurs, and we tend to try to hide from God, which is futile. This separation from God has tragic consequences. Sin violates the will of God and the nature of humankind, it results in bondage unto death. This bondage is so complete and sin is so radically rooted in human nature that to break its power we need a Savior, and Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world.
This is the incredible good news of the faith-sharer: God has acted in the birth, life, death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, making it possible for us to be put right with or be reconciled with God. Through Christ, the entire human race is given the possibility of redemption through the graciousness of God. More good news is that God, through the person of Jesus Christ, and through this revelation, has offered the gift of forgiveness and new life to those who respond in repentance and faith. This is a message worth sharing. This is the message we must get out into the highways and byways and share with the world, so that they can be won for God.
Our Motives for Faith-Sharing
Leaders today dream of a church that will not view evangelizing as a chore, a special ministry, to be done by special people, at special times, in special ways as I said earlier, but rather, that the church would view their evangelizing as the normal, faithful, natural, day by day manifestation of the Church’s ministry. If our motives are not right for faith-sharing, our faith-sharing will fall into disrepute.
Legitimate motivation lies in three affirmations:-
1. Faith-sharing is founded in God’s love
2. It fulfills the Great Commission
3. It focuses on total redemption
What our church is doing in Evangelism
At Bethel, we have an Evangelistic Outreach Ministry called “King’s Heart Evangelistic Outreach Ministry” on Saturday mornings at a venue in our City. It is on a street called Front Street and we walk the length of it ministering as the Lord leads, and then we have a Bible Study Meditation at a waterfront spot. There we meet with the homeless, the lost, the needy, young and old. We realize some of them will never enter the doors of the church, more important is that they enter the Kingdom, but we offer transportation to pick up and transport any who wish to attend our Sunday morning services. Others, the Lord has called us to disciple right where they are.
Many, Praise God, have accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as their personal Saviour. We teach them through Bible Study, every Saturday morning, in order that they may grow in the Lord. We feed them, we take them clothes, shoes, coats, hats, gloves, socks and blankets to keep them warm. We also give them Bibles, and food vouchers for redemption at a nearby Supermarket for further meals.
They have learned to trust us and look forward to our coming because we have been faithful and committed to the task, but most of all, they now know with a surety that we love them, and we do show them the Love of the Father. It is so important to show them love. For some of them, we may be the only love they will see. We have to be sensitive to their situations, hurts, their needs.
I am praising God and giving him glory because though the harvest is plentiful, and the labourers are few, He is sending faithful workers to us to help on Saturday mornings, workers who have the same heart for these Young and not-so-Young men and women. Faith-sharing is founded in God’s love. The Church is forever being challenged to become God's instrument of seeking and sending. Jesus said, “As the Father sent me, so I send you.” The Church has to be structured to serve its missionary God. We share faith because we are servants of the living God and we have to share God’s Agape love.
Agape love is a love shown by the desire to help the object of its devotion. Agape love is not a natural endowment; it is a gift from God. When we say yes to God’s love, we become vulnerable. By allowing God to love others through us, we also find ourselves sharing the pain of rejection and the joy of acceptance. We find ourselves loving the unlovable, even those we don’t particularly like.
On the Saturday before Christmas, we ministered with the homeless and gave them a Christmas celebration. It was our aim to bless them as much as we could. We went with cars full of food, gifts, clothing, blankets, hats, socks, candy, Bibles and everything that God instructed us to take. We just wanted to bless them and to pour out God’s love on them and to see them happy. A Word was given with a Christmas message about Mary and Joseph, and the Baby Jesus, and during the invitation, 8 people came forward, 6 to give their hearts to the Lord, and two to rededicate their lives to the Lord.
We also have a Prison Ministry. We visit the women and young boys on the First Sunday in every month at the Co-Ed Correction Facility, and the men of the Evangelistic team visit the young and older men every Wednesday night at the Prison Farm Facility in Ferry Reach, St. Georges. Our Choirs do periodic visits as well. Recently, on a visit our choir made just before Christmas, 6 young men gave their hearts to the Lord. That was a Monday night, and on the day before, which was when our team made their regular visit(Sunday morning), one young man got saved, and at the Saturday outreach ministry the day before that, one young man got saved. We give GOD all the Glory for what he is doing.
We have another group that visit the schools and help with reading programs, breakfasts, lunches, etc. on a weekly basis. This ministry is facilitated mainly by the older retired men of the church and they a have a good relationship with the students, and are receiving some fine results in the reading programs.
At the Women’s Day Kingdom Multi-Faceted Evangelistic Outreach held on Oct. 23rd, 2010, it was awesome watching our whole church work together and getting involved. In Evangelism, everybody has a part, not just those we think should do it. Every part of the body is needed; we miss a toe if it is cut off, or a finger, so it is the same with every part of the Body of Christ, all parts are needed to function efficiently.
INVITING PERSONS TO CHRIST
No responsibility is more important in the ministry of sharing the good news of Christ than helping a person in the process of receiving Christ. When a person is seeking God and needs help with coming to faith, this enabling ministry is a great privilege and joy to the Christian witness. In the process of sharing faith, the closure of an encounter with another person depends on four factors:-
1. The leadership of the Holy Spirit.
2. The faith-sharer’s assessment of the quality of the relationship,
3. The degree of receptivity on the part of the other person.
4. The context.
Sometimes a person will come seeking God. They will ask “What must I do? This person is ready to receive Christ. The Spirit has been preparing this person to be receptive.
Here are a few guidelines for inviting persons to Christ:-
1. The invitation flows out of the nature of the gospel.
2. The human response consists of turning and trusting.
3. There are many methods of inviting persons.
4. In inviting persons to receive Christ, we do not pressure people, but take pressure off people.
5. The faith sharer is sensitive to life’s important intersections.
6. The faith sharer offers the invitation with clarity.
7. The faith-sharer offers the invitation with integrity.
8. The invitation to respond in faith is a community affair.
9. In inviting a person to receive Christ, one must be willing to wait in expectant hope and humility for a response of faith.
I pray that God will give us greater discernment to see the ripe fruit that He places in our path, so that we will not miss any opportunity to lead them to Christ.
We give God all the Glory for the Outreach projects that He is using us to do in our community. And our prayer is that He would add to the church daily.
To God be the Glory!!
“Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” (Mark 16:15)