Evangelism: The Church in Action

The Church of Jesus Christ is in the world for a divine and blessed purpose. The Lord himself stated this purpose in the words, “Go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature.” The divine purpose and function of the Church on earth is to bring Christ to people and people to Christ. The Lord builds his Kingdom through those in his Kingdom. His Church is extended by those who are the Church. Always the Lord depends upon his people to be “laborers together with him” in making known the “good tidings of great joy.”

We may speak of immediate and ultimate objectives of evangelism. The ultimate objective must always be the new birth of which the Saviour spoke to Nicodemus when he said, “Verily, verily, I say unto thee, except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God.” This purpose is variously stated in the Scriptures. It means bringing the unconverted, regardless of age or race or condition in life, into a blessed relation with their God and Saviour. No one is born a Christian. We become God’s people by the divine miracle of regeneration. The Christian’s final objective in all his missionary activities will always be to labor together with God in saving people from hell and for heaven. “He that believeth and is baptized shall be saved; but he that believeth not shall be damned” (Mark 16:16).

Great and incomparable are the benefits and blessings that come to mankind through the missionary activities of God’s people and through the sanctifying work of the Holy Ghost. In this manner sinful man, dead in trespasses and sin, is made spiritually alive, brought to a living, active, saving faith in Christ, absolved from all guilt and sin, and is clothed in the perfect righteousness of Christ. Thus, he has bestowed upon him the peace of God which passeth understanding, is enabled to live godly and to be rich in good works, is given victory over self, Satan, death and hell, and made an heir of life eternal in the mansions of the Father. Great is our salvation!

Individual Approach Essential

The accomplishment of these ultimate and glorious ends involves intermediate steps. The individual to be won for Christ must be encountered. Biblical evangelism is retail, not wholesale, work. People must be brought face to face with their sin and lost condition, with the Christ who redeemed them, and with the great issues of life, death, and eternity. A study of the person-to-person evangelism recorded in the Gospels and the Acts is both instructive and rewarding (outstanding examples are John 1:43–51; 3; 4; Acts 8:26–40 and 16:25–40).

In a general way those living without Christ and without hope in this world may be divided into two groups: the self-righteous and indifferent, and those troubled and disturbed. In meeting the needs of the first group, the immediate objective must be to create in people a sense of guilt, to arouse them from false security, to bring them to agonize in face of the Law, and then in love and concern, to bring them to faith in Christ the Saviour from sin. Until the individual knows his lost condition, he will not be interested in the divine remedy. Those troubled by a sense of guilt must, in the second group, be assured and comforted with the unconditional Gospel promise that the blood of Jesus Christ cleanses from all sin.

An understanding knowledge of the individual and a correct diagnosis of his religious thinking and spiritual condition are essential. These requirements are attained by careful observation and, in many cases, patient and sympathetic listening. Of equal importance is the wisdom of “rightly dividing the word of truth,” and of knowing when and how to apply Law and Gospel.

The Old as well as the New Testament portrays the Lord’s deep concern for the salvation of all mankind. “God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life (John 3:16). “The Lord is … not willing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance” (2 Pet. 3:9). This same genuine passion for souls characterizes the apostles. Peter and John said, “We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.” Paul, so deeply concerned for his mission and responsibility, exclaims, “Brethren, my heart’s desire and prayer to God for Israel is, that they might be saved.” The loveless indifference of Cain, expressed with the question, “Am I my brother’s keeper?” is entirely foreign to all Christian thinking and conduct.

This attitude of concern for the lost is basic in true biblical evangelism. It is an awareness of one’s obligation and duty as an ambassador of the King of kings. It makes and keeps Christians, both laity and clergy, sensitive to and conscious of their purpose in this world and of their high calling in Christ Jesus. In this concern the apostle Paul said, “Woe unto me, if I preach not the gospel of Christ.”

The Pastor As Shepherd

A study of the New Testament reveals the strategic importance of the local congregation in the whole structure of the Church, particularly in the work of evangelism. And the God-ordained, God-given leader is always the pastor. The pastor of the congregation is a keeper and shepherd of the souls already in the Church. “Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseer, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood” (Acts 20:28). And he is also the God-chosen leader in the congregation’s mission and evangelism work. To be such requires a true shepherd heart. First, he himself must be a winner of souls. Secondly, he must lead, train and equip his parishioners in true biblical evangelism.

The Christian pastor will give this twofold mission his constant attention and prayerful devotion. His position and responsibility has no parallel. In the faithful discharge of it he will often be afflicted with a feeling of inadequacy. But the Saviour’s promise to his ambassadors still stands, “Ye shall receive power, after that the Holy Ghost is come upon you: and ye shall be witnesses unto me … (Acts 1:8).

In serving his Lord and his Church as a winner of souls, the Christian pastor has the apostle Paul as his great example. Paul’s supreme purpose was that he “might by all means save some” (1 Cor. 9:22). The apostle’s farewell address to the congregation at Ephesus, recorded in Acts 20:17–38, reveals how self-sacrificingly he labored in the accomplishment of his evangelism purpose.

The pastor who would be successful in bringing people into the kingdom of God must himself know what it means to be saved by the grace of God. And he will be very conscious of his unique and high calling in Christ Jesus, he will love Christ and will have a compassion for souls. His knowledge that he is but an instrument of the Holy Spirit will give him strength, patience and humility. In public and in private he will speak convincingly and with clarity of the Christ of the Scriptures. He will seek to lead people to an understanding of salvation by divine grace through faith in Christ. He will make personal calls, and thereby build the Kingdom “house to house.” And still, he will guard against cold professionalism, for “where professionalism reigns spirituality wanes.” Finally, he will pray for himself as he thinks of his great responsibility and the apostle’s words “who is sufficient unto these things?”; and he will pray for those whom he is to lead to Christ and into heaven.

The pastor’s daily schedule of work should allow time for personal soul winning. The larger the congregation, the less time there will be for seeking out those “not yet in the fold.” But if he devotes the morning hours to necessary study, and the afternoons and some evenings to making calls, he will, in addition to the visits among his parishioners, have time to make mission calls. The most profitable and necessary visits are with the husbands and fathers, and he will find many doors open to him. Personal soul winning is one of the richest experiences of the Christian ministry, and the pastor will learn to know people and develop a sympathetic understanding of problems and creeds.

The Pastor As Leader

The other important function of the pastor as leader in biblical evangelism is to enlist his congregation in this service of God. Ephesians 4:12 makes the outfitting, the equipping, the guiding and teaching of people for the work of evangelism an important function of the ministry. The hands of God’s people receive from God that they might dispense to the world. This follows the Saviour’s own pattern. When the Lord had added Philip to his disciples, Philip went to Nathanael and said, “We have found him, of whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of Joseph” (John 1:45). The apostle Paul was not only an ardent winner of souls himself; he constantly enlisted and trained those whom he brought to Christ to witness for Christ.

The missionary potential in the apostolic age was in the whole church. Also today it is in the whole congregation, both clergy and laity. It has well been said that the Church is “off center” when the pastor does it all, and it is “off center” when the people do it all.

In Acts and in the Epistles, we find the pattern for Christian evangelism. A part of that pattern is the important place of the local church in the spreading of the Gospel. “New Testament local churches were nerve centers of evangelism, and in this respect constitute a pattern for local churches” (Whitesell, Basic New Testament Evangelism, p. 133).

To the local congregations of Christians have the mysteries of God and means of grace, by Word and sacrament, been entrusted. These means are to be faithfully employed for the saving of people and the edification of the saints. A general church body, synod, district, commission and board can make plans, develop programs, and pass resolutions—all of which may be necessary and important. But God’s kingdom is extended only in the measure in which pastors and people of local congregations separately and together evangelize. The local parish is the front line where those who are faithful wage and win the spiritual battle.

The greatest missionary responsibility and opportunity in our country is where there are Christian congregations with a well-equipped physical plant surrounded with people who are unchurched or who are in churches but not in a blessed relationship with Christ. All too often congregations fail to reach people in the number and measure in which they could and should be reached and brought under the sanctifying influence of the Gospel. A congregation functions best as a divine agency in the building of God’s kingdom when on Sundays and on weekdays, through clergy and laity, the unconverted are confronted with the convicting power of the law of God, with the faith-generating power of the Gospel, and with the great issues of God’s plan of salvation. Where an effective evangelism program on the congregational level is developed and energetically pursued, many of the problems that have a tendency to plague the church and disrupt its effectiveness will disappear.

Program And Aims

As long as Christian congregations are within easy reach of people who are not affiliated with a Christian church and of people who are affiliated with a church but are not in a state of grace, the congregation has a mission field and is in need of an evangelism program.

Such a program should bring information, instruction and inspiration to the members of the church. Christian people need to be kept informed and aware of their soul-winning responsibilities and opportunities. The part of the program designed to reach the unsaved and unconverted must be definite. Various methods and organizational procedures may be developed and followed, but these should be the definite aims:

1. Contact—People must be individually and personally contacted by the members of the family of God.

2. Concentration—By this we mean, “staying with it.” It takes more than one or two efforts to bring in an individual. The teaching of biblical evangelism is an on-going process. It takes time to learn to walk with God. Christians should not become impatient, but clearly, repeatedly and humbly testify and speak the great truth of God’s plan of salvation.

3. Conversion—The great objective of all mission activity and personal evangelism must always be conversion and sanctification of the sinner. “This is the will of God, even your sanctification” (1 Thess. 4:3).

4. Conservation—Soul keeping is an essential part of soul winning. Integration and assimilation of people into the family of God is essential for the development of Christian faith and life. Having brought people under the influence of the Gospel, the church must keep them under the sanctifying power of the means of grace.

A congregational evangelism program with these four essentials will occupy a high priority in the work of the church. Individual members, officers, committees, and organizations can move in one direction. The one great purpose of the whole congregation is the reaching out to immortal souls, purchased and redeemed by the blood of Christ, to make them heirs of life eternal. Christians, laity and clergy, are “laborers together with God.” A congregation that has a biblical evangelism program, has a program that works. Its next concern is simply to work the program.

When an individual knows Christ as his Saviour, knows the nature and purpose of the means of grace, and has become convinced that the doctrines of the Church are in full accord with the Word of God, he should be encouraged to confess his faith and be received into fellowship with the Church. The one essential book for the teaching of religion is the Bible, and it is of utmost importance that the holy truths therein be presented with warmth, with Christian conviction and faith, in terms and phrases which people understand, and related to the needs of man in this life and to his eternal salvation.

The establishment of new congregations is an important part of the Church’s mission and expansion program. The mobility of the American people (30 million change their addresses each year), the growing population, the development of urban and suburban communities, and the many areas and communities which are still under-churched make necessary the establishment of congregations. The church must be where the people are. Where people move and live, the church must follow. And every time a new Christian congregation is born, the whole Church of God should rejoice. Generally too few, rather than too many, congregations are ever established.

In pursuing their high calling as witnesses for Christ, God’s people will pray much and often. They will pray for the gift of the Holy Spirit, for wisdom, and patience and grace. They will pray for one another in the performance of their evangelism responsibilities and privileges. They will pray for individual souls to be brought to Christ.

Arthur H. Haake is Chairman of the Board for Home Missions of the Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod, of which Board he has been a member the last eight years. He is a graduate of Concordia Seminary, served as Pastor in British Columbia from 1930–1941, and in California since 1943 pastoring the West Portal Lutheran Church, San Francisco. The present article is an abridgment of a chapter of a new book on Pastoral Theology to be published by Concordia, St. Louis.

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