At Cell Group last night we approached the subject of evangelism. It’s a subject that troubles cells pretty much everywhere that I have had some contact with. How, as a group, are we able to reach out?
I guess the first question that needs answering is; is this something that we need to do, ‘as a group’? The dynamic of cells is such that they are, generally speaking, made up of different types of people, in different places on their walk with Christ, and in different places in the big wide world. For example, in our particular group we have mix of people who are married and single. We have teachers, IT professionals, engineers, and those who work for the church. We have age groups from early 20’s to late 50’s. We are all involved in different areas of church life; youth work, working with the homeless, admin, part of the worship group and alpha leaders. Our group, like most others, is very diverse and moves in different circles outside the context of cell so as a group it is difficult to see what things we can actually do together to reach out.
As a result we have been thinking that maybe the way forward is to see how we can support each other in our circumstances. How can we aid each other in developing our attitudes towards others to be like that of Christ? To have the same love for people that He had when He walked the earth as a man.
Dallas Willard, a favored author of mine, talks in this article about how we as a church need to rethink what evangelism is. He even suggests that evangelism is not the primary function of the church but is something that should flow out of a growing community of God’s people. I think that I would have to agree with this, at least in part. Having previously been involved in running large scale evangelistic events I know first hand that there ’success’ was more down to ground work put in to the relationships of those who attending than any great presentation of the Gospel that we could do from the front. And I use the word success reservedly because as Willard points out, the point of evangelism is not to get people over the finish line. It is not to get people into Heaven. It is bring people into a life changing relationship with Jesus. To bring them into discipleship.
So it seems clear that we need to be in relationship with people to bring them to know Christ. And it seems obvious to me that we should be in relationship with those who we are already in contact with; colleges, friends, and family for example. But there is a danger that we can put too much pressure on ourselves.
Yes, Jesus had a love for everybody. And we should also share this love. We should not befriend people to ‘make Christians’, but we should because we love them and we want to spend time with them. However, we must realize that Jesus did not sow his life into everybody that he met. As far as we know, He did not ever turn people away in need, although he did not always give them what they had asked for, but he had only 12 friends who He sowed His life into. And of these 12 there were 3 that He was closest too. And even amongst these 3 there was the ‘one who Jesus loved’, His best mate.
As cell we are going to embark on the task of getting to know each other as well as we can. So our group has that love for each other; ‘…by your love for each other, all men will know that you are my disciples…’ As part of that process we are going to commit to supporting each other in prayer for our relationships outside of cell and pray that God will reveal those around us who we are to sow our lives into. Not to make Christians, although that may well be a side effect, but to love them.
This is obviously a developing, and difficult thought process which we are sure God will mold as we give it to him. I’m sure this whole area of, ‘What is Evangelism?’ will return.
