On Wednesday 16th October, three of us from St Marys travelled into London to join the “Hearts on Fire – keeping the church on mission” Evangelism Conference.
The day started with a reality check and challenge; our churches are full of Christians who know the great commission, full of Christians who know they should share the good news and want to do this, but who don’t do this. Jesus said, ‘Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising 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.’ (Matthew 28:19,20). So why is the church full of Christians who don’t do this? It was interesting to hear how many don’t get involved because they are terrified of their own version of evangelism, however, whilst not everyone in the church is an evangelist, all of us can respond to the great commission by finding ways to proclaim the gospel in our own lives.
We heard how caring too much about what non-Christians think (being fixated on the world and not the word) and caring too little about non-Christians and their salvation, means that as Christians we can fail to care for the lost. This in turn means that we fail to care about the glory of God. If we do long to see God glorified, we will long for the lost to come to know him and join us in eternity glorifying God.
The Jeremy Marshall Memorial Lecture was based on Psalm 67. Familiar words that ask God to bless us and make his face to shine upon us, ‘that your ways may be known on earth…may all the peoples praise you.’ We are blessed so that God will be known and glorified.
We were encouraged with the promise in Matthew 9:37-38, ‘Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.”’ The harvest is plentiful – sometimes I think we doubt this, but our Lord Jesus has told us that the harvest is plentiful.
Dave Jenson (Assistant Director of Evangelism and New Churches in Sydney, Australia) then sought to share with us common factors he sees in churches which are adding to their numbers by new converts (rather than adding to their numbers by Christians moving between churches). He identified four elements needed: THE WORD + PEOPLE + TIME + PRAYER. A phrase of his that has stuck with me as a real challenge was “Let the word do the work”. We need to obediently and joyfully share God’s word with those who don’t know him and trust the power of God’s word. I had an opportunity to look at “The Word One to One”, available as a book, app or online, (theword121.com) and am praying that I will be able to read the Bible with a non-Christian and that God will cause the seed to grow (1 Corinthians 3:6).
We were reminded of the importance of having an evangelistic course regularly available and that a “bringvitation” is so much better than an “invitation”. I have found letting people know I am going to something at church and asking whether they like to join me a real blessing in getting started with invitations, which I struggled with for many years. This really does work.
We were also reminded not to underestimate the power of the weekly church gathering; it is here that non-Christians can experience the people of God and hear his word faithfully preached. We were reminded that first-time visitors to our Sunday services are often listening less and feeling more. Feeling what it is like to be amongst the people of God. And so, we were asked to think of the person we would most love to come to know Jesus and to imagine they have just moved house or are away on holiday and choose to walk into a church one Sunday. We were challenged to then consider how we would like them to be greeted and welcomed, and we were encouraged to love those visiting our church each week in this way.