Evangelists in the team

A challenge to Christians to re-orientate their whole way of church life around people who need to know Jesus as Saviour and a removing of the traditional barriers between pastors and evangelists, has come from Stephen Gaukroger and Luis Palau.
Stephen, senior minister at Gold Hill Baptist Church as well as a regular Spring Harvest (Word Alive) speaker, and international evangelist Luis, gave the challenge as they toured Britain to share the vision of city and area-wide missions in the Bristol and Bath area, East Midlands and the North West. Luis will be leading the 'There's More to Life!' mission centred on Bristol's Ashton Gate football stadium this coming June, while the East Midlands regional mission will probably take place in 1998.

Dribbling

'We are both committed to the same thing - to see here in Britain a wonderful harvest of men and women coming into the Kingdom of God,' explained Stephen, who is Chairman of the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association European Board. 'Neither of us are satisfied with the sort of dribbles into the Kingdom that we have seen, but we are praying for a tidal wave of people to come to Christ. Many of us will not be satisfied until we have actually seen the power of God break into the secular strongholds of our nation.'
A church which will see revival come again 'will have to be a church turned inside out and have a refocusing of its mission as this century comes to a close,' said Stephen, pointing out that the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost immediately focused on mission activity. 'Acts 1.8 says the Holy Spirit came upon the church for the specific purpose of it being witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria and the uttermost parts of the earth. My prayer is that there will be a new generation raised up of people filled with God's Spirit for the task of engaging non-Christians with the good news of Jesus.'

Releasing

This means that the church 'will have to be releasing pastors and evangelists and the other ministries to work together to release all the people of God to tell their story, because unless our people are walking the streets of this nation singing the songs of grace, the other sounds will drown out the message of the gospel. In a way, we are simply reverting to the power of testimony,' declared Stephen. 'Individual leaders are never going to win the nation for Christ - there are not enough of us. But there are thousands in our churches who could be telling their stories in shops, homes and streets everywhere as the Holy Spirit fills them with what God has done.'

The net

The problem is that most Christians in the UK do not believe they can make a big difference spiritually in the nation, but God wants 'an army of confident people to build friendships so that Jesus can walk across the bridge into their lives. As most Christians are witnesses, they struggle to close the net and actually bring people to a point of decision - but that is where the evangelist comes in', said Stephen. 'My vision for the church is that the evangelist is honoured and the witness is honoured in their different roles. Mass evangelism is not going to work unless we build friendships. It has got to be on the basis of an anointed evangelist coming to speak to people who are prepared. The two ministries linked together is going to make a significant difference to the nation.'

The team

An evangelist 'should see himself as part of a pastoral team,' said Luis Palau, emphasising that every Christian is called to be a witness but not everyone is called to be an evangelist. 'But there are some to whom is given the gift of evangelist. It is not always stadium evangelism, but to small groups and one to one in the local church.' It is the duty of the pastoral team to discover the evangelists in the church and train them to go and preach the good news 'as fast as they can and as far as they possibly can'.
Luis appealed for churches to stop arguing over methods of evangelism. 'Methods are not sacred - only the message and the Person of Jesus Christ are sacred. Methods are just the vehicle, not to waste time arguing over. Being outrageous and unethical is another issue, of course, but we argue about the unimportant. We are engaged in God's saving purpose. We are bone of his bone and flesh of his flesh. When he saves he uses us as his instruments - instruments of salvation. It is priestly work proclaiming the gospel - worship, it says in Hebrews: 'the fruit of lips that confess his name'.'
In talking to Christian leaders, Luis senses there is a greater hunger now for a spiritual harvest than in all the twenty years he has been coming to Britain to lead missions. 'There is good cause for you to be encouraged. There is an openness as emphasised by testimonies coming in of people coming to Jesus Christ in amazing spontaneous ways as well as through ongoing church ministry. There is a touch of God and a rising expectation in the UK that I feel the Lord is going to honour.'

Luis Palau and Stephen Gaukroger talk about re-orientating church life towards evangelising those outside

Dribbling

Releasing

The net

The team

Eddie Tait

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