|
| Christian news worldwide |
 Home |
 Archives |
 Subscriptions |
 Adverts |
 Find a church |
 About us |
 Contact us |
 Site Map |
 PrintableVersion Where have all the evangelists gone?Open the church press to the situations vacant pages. What do you see? Jobs for administrators, musical directors, pastors and youth workers - especially youth workers, who in recent years have become a welcome new fixture on many staff teams. But what about the evangelist? I suspect that he will only find a home once the musical director, pastor, assistant pastor, worship leader and youth worker are already present and correct. To have an evangelist on the staff is the equivalent of buying a deep pile carpet, a villa in the Maldives or in-car satellite navigation. It's nice if you can afford it, but it's a bit extravagant, surely? Surely not. As a church, we're struggling to draw people in and keep them there. Could this be the legacy of the disappearing evangelist? Endangered speciesThis particular endangered species seems to have all but disappeared from our shores because he is so misunderstood. Many people seem to think that the evangelist's only role is to win others to Christ. (And to be fair, that's all many evangelists do.) But that's not the full extent of it. In Ephesians 4, Paul tells us that Christ gave the gift of the evangelist 'to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ' (Ephesians 4:12-13). That means that the evangelist does far more than simply win people for Christ; he is to 'prepare God's people for works of service'. Presumably, given the context of Ephesians 4, the evangelist trains Christians to do the work of evangelism. A luxury item?That being the case, is the evangelist a luxury? After all, how many churches honestly feel that their congregations are ready and willing to tell others about Jesus Christ? Well, that is what the evangelist can - and must - do. His job is to make sure that every Christian man and woman in his care knows the gospel, is prepared to explain it to others, can answer the tough questions that unbelievers ask, and will be ready to relate Christian truth to unbelievers of any and every persuasion. And once the evangelist has done that, he is to help the church develop a strategy for evangelism, communicate that strategy to the congregation and always strive to keep evangelism on the agenda with the staff team and the elders and deacons. It is a full-time job and it is a vital one. Situations vacantIf we want to inherit the promise of Ephesians 4, if we want to be a part of a Christian body that is being 'built up' towards 'unity in the faith' and 'maturity', if we want to 'attain the whole measure of the fullness of Christ', then we might want to reassess our current situations vacant. Because without the gift of the evangelist, a church cannot reach unity, maturity, or become all that it should be in Christ. Paul Williams,
|
|
