Has Evangelism Become ‘Offbeat’?

When this writer decided in 1953 to come into the Presbyterian ministry as an ordained and appointed evangelist, he was then greatly encouraged by glowing reports from the Standing Committee of the Department of Evangelism. These reports indicated that we Presbyterians were becoming “evangelism conscious.” The writer attended the General Assembly meeting in Minneapolis in 1953, where a dynamic program for increased vision and interest for evangelism was lauded. The impetus of the program was shared by both laymen and the professional ministry. However, all this was in 1953.

What are the results in 1961 of all this “increased vision and interest” for evangelism? However noble the words vision and interest may be, they never quite get a job done. Are we satisfied simply to laud a spiritual principle without launching its program?

NEED FOR A DEFINITION

Perhaps before we go much further, we should define some terms. By evangelism we mean that contagious enthusiasm to present Jesus Christ that, by the power of the Holy Spirit, men may accept Christ as their Saviour from the guilt and power of sin, may come to know, love, and trust God through him, may grow in grace and in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, and serve and follow him as Lord in the fellowship of the Church, in the world-wide redemptive work of his Kingdom, and in the vocations of the common life. This task is in no way limited to ministers or theologians, but must be the leavening force in all local congregations and among all persons who are committed to Jesus Christ. This is evangelism.

Now let us define the word evangelist. The writer of Ephesians sets forth the word evangelist in its proper position: “And he [Christ] gave some apostles, and some prophets; and some evangelists; and some pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” The proper function of the evangelist is within the framework of the Church. The Lord in bestowing gifts to men also determines where these gifts are to be used. “Some” (churches or places) need pastoral service and shepherding. “Some” churches have need for a teaching ministry. And of equal importance to the life of the Church, “some” churches need an evangelist. Our Presbyterian constitution in its form of government lists evangelists, pastors, and teachers as “needful … laborers” for the life of the Church:

As the Lord has given different gifts to the ministers of the Word, and has committed to them various works to execute, the church is authorized to call and appoint them to labor as pastors, teachers, and evangelists, and in such other works as may be needful to the church, according to the gifts in which they excel (Form of Government VIII 1, p. 122).

And yet, in spite of the abundance of scriptural and constitutional fortifications for the word evangelist so as to warrant its acceptance in our Presbyterian vocabulary, the word is still approached with overt caution and ominous contempt. Why? Must every evangelist be categorized as “another Elmer Gantry”? Is there sufficient evidence to label all evangelists as “Christian charlatans” and “biblical Barrymores”? Was Moody a money grabber? Was Finney a fraud? Was Chapman a charlatan? Is Graham a Gantry? No! These men accepted their God-given talents for recruiting men into the kingdom of God … seriously. They discharged their duties with vigor and vitality, but also with sobriety and solemnity. Would not our own church program today be revived and revitalized if such a list of men were available from the rolls of our presbyteries and synods? Or, would such men ever be called upon for their services by our churches? There is no purpose in putting up a shingle in our synodical and presbytery windows “Have Evangelist … Will Travel” unless our churches see the need of such rendered service. Must our own people “sneak” off to some evangelistic service at another church, because our own church program does not include such services on its “spiritual menu”? Must the intake of this type of evangelism by our own people always be provided by other denominational bodies who “pick up the tab”?

A SURVEY ON EVANGELISM

In the past four months this writer has been conducting a private survey on evangelism and has covered at random many parts of the United States. The questionnaires were mailed out to pastors, stated clerks of sessions, stated clerks of presbyteries, synodical executives, national secretaries for the commission on evangelism, as well as leading laymen in our churches. To those pastors whose names appeared on presbytery ministerial rolls, behind which there were the initials Ev (i.e., evangelist) and P-Ev (i.e., pastor-evangelist, a designated term which is applied to a pastor of a church who may be on call for evangelistic meetings), the following set of questions was sent:

1. First, do you believe, because of specially endowed gifts that God has granted you, that you were definitely called to this calling of an evangelist, rather than a pastorate?

2. What type of preaching mission services do you conduct? Do you preach for a decision or a verdict in each message?

3. What have you found to be the ideal length of time for your preaching missions?

4. How many “preaching mission crusades” have you conducted in the past year?

5. Do you feel there is an awakening amongst our churches for the need of such preaching missions?

To the other persons listed above, the following questions were addressed:

1. What has become of the traveling evangelists for the United Presbyterian Church, U. S. A.?

2. How many ordained and commissioned evangelists does your Synod have on its rolls for its churches?

3. Would you please give the date when the last evangelist was commissioned?

4. If ever a qualified person were to apply for said position, what would be his chances of ever being employed and used by our church?

I have never conducted a survey which met with better co-operation. Approximately 93 per cent of all questionnaires mailed out were answered and returned to my desk in less than two weeks. The genuineness and candor of most of the answers proved very enlightening, if not amusing. For instance, one pastor in seeking to answer the question “Do you believe … that you were definitely called to this calling of an evangelist, rather than a pastorate” replied:

As you probably know, when they don’t know what else to call you at your ordination in our church, they call you an evangelist. If you are going directly into a Presbyterian parish, you are ordained a pastor. If you go into something a little offbeat, they ordain you an evangelist since they don’t have any other categories.

Another pastor answered the same question this way:

As you no doubt realize, evangelist is a catch-all term applied to any ordained minister in our denomination who is not a chaplain, pastor, or secretary, or a variation of those three. I am none of the above, hence I am an evangelist. My work is in the factory of the Cadillac Motor Car Division of the General Motors Corporation. I am employed as an hourly-rates worker on the assembly line. I don’t preach (except to the ostensibly already converted in some of our local congregations).

These answers (a sampling of many similar replies) contain an admixture of humor and pathos. There is humor, because theoretically the word evangelist has been bantered to and fro so much that it has become a “catch-all term” for some “offbeat” church work. The real pathos is seen in the over-generalizing of the word. Here is a word which has all of the pregnant meaning of “reconciling men to God” and “proclaiming the good news of Christ” that he has come to seek and to save that which was lost. Then we take this word, which represents what every pastor, every church member, every Christian everywhere must be, and we cheapen it into something less. This is an insult to the Name that officially and originally gave the word to the Church. The word should be solemnized by all who know its true meaning, rather than sloganized or scandalized by its ambiguous applications. Ultimately Christ alone is the evangelist, not man; yet men feel the compulsion to evangelize. And herein lies the great dilemma of what the word evangelist should mean to each Christian. How does one plan to do something which ultimately one does not do; and what does this mean for the content and method of evangelism?

THE EVANGELISTIC MEETING

What now is to be said for “evangelistic meetings”? Is there room for this type of evangelistic endeavor in our outreach for the souls of men? Do we appreciate the aim of these services, or are we afraid of them? My questionnaire raised forth considerable discussion about the “evangelistic service.” One pastor from New York replied rather negatively:

A series of “evangelistic services” is often nothing more than a week of meetings where a guest minister digs into the barrel and preaches a series he has used in his church. In recent years we have been calling these “preaching missions,” where the sermonic messages are aimed usually at those already professing members.

A pastor from Michigan says bitterly:

We are especially concerned, as you might expect, with the “inner city.” We are examining the work of religious groups which have used high-powered evangelism with little serious effect on the people or the society. We have watched the formerly powerful city church, replete with evangelistic meetings, slowly wither.

Are these pastors right? Does this represent a majority point of view? Or, should we also hear the views of others, such as one New York Synodical Executive:

This is not to deny, however, that in keeping with the New Testament understanding of special gifts, there may be those who have special gifts in persuasive preaching which the Holy Spirit may choose to use to bring non-Christians or nonbelievers to the point of Christian commitment. There are many men in our denomination who have unique gifts of preaching in whom I have real confidence, and whose ministry the Holy Spirit has indeed blessed in special services and in other ways.

A St. Paul, Minnesota, pastor-evangelist writes:

In honesty, I receive more and more invitations outside of the Presbyterian church than in it. The whole official trend in evangelism is toward personal work rather than mass evangelism. I do not object to the first, but I do regret the official attitude towards the second.

Is this not the heart of the matter? No one denies or repudiates the validity of a realistic Christian experience that is obtained through personal work. But are we Presbyterians broad-minded enough to validate the equally realistic Christian experience that is obtained through the evangelistic meeting?

PREACHING FOR A DECISION

What does an evangelistic service seek to accomplish? Basically, the evangelistic service calls men to repentence and to put faith in Jesus Christ as Saviour and Lord. An evangelistic sermon specifically or indirectly seeks a response. There need be no labored pointing of a moral or a public invitation at the close of every message, but, whether evident or implicit, the call to commitment must be there.

Preaching for a decision or verdict must always be predicated upon the sovereignty of God. Men are to be won by “the foolishness of preaching,” but it would be foolish indeed to hope to win people to Christian living by preaching alone. We do not call men to God in ourselves. “No man cometh unto me,” said Jesus, “except the Father draw him.” The evangelist must always be conscious that men and women are not won simply by the skill or persuasiveness of his preaching. “Not by might, nor by power [nor by preaching], but by my Spirit,” says the Holy Writ. The sacredness of the individual personality is to be respected and it would be presumptuous to suppose that everyone who hears the evangelist is, as a consequence, ready to make a decision.

Now, what of all this in our church program? Is there really a desire to have this type of evangelistic thrust in our church life? There is considerable evidence from certain Presbyterian leaders that perhaps such a thrust is easier to write about than to implement. For instance, a Minnesota stated clerk of presbytery replies:

At the present time, we have no commissioned evangelists in our presbytery. I have been stated clerk of this presbytery for many years, and it is my recollection that we have not ordained an individual for the specific assignment of evangelism for many years. This probably dates back even to dates prior to 1940.

A stated clerk of a Wisconsin presbytery says this:

The records of the Presbytery previous to 1926 are on deposit with the Wisconsin Historical Library in Madison, Wisconsin. Since that time, no man has been ordained as an “evangelist.”

A Michigan synodical secretary replies:

I can only say that I have been a member of this synod for about 14 years, and during that time we have not commissioned any evangelists as such.

And finally, the executive secretary and stated clerk of the synod of California sums up the situation of existing and available evangelists for our churches when he says:

I have been a stated clerk for some 30 years and cannot recognize what you mean by “traveling evangelist” for the United Presbyterian Church. As far as I know, no evangelist without a pastoral charge has ever been commissioned in the synod of California and there certainly are none in existence now in this synod.

Must these statements of seeming utter pessimism be the final word on the subject? Or, will we try to rethink our position on evangelism in such a way as to include on our ministerial rolls a place for the evangelist who will be available to all churches who may want evangelistic services that point for a verdict!

Preacher In The Red

SQUELCHED

In the Presbyterian Church ministers are designated as “Teaching Elders” while the Session is composed of “Ruling Elders” who work with the minister.

In my pastorate there was an old Elder who had “served” for many years. He was rather the dominant type, which at times caused some difficulties. As a young minister I hesitated to “tackle” him, but one time I really had to do it, to prevent further difficulties. Trying with the utmost care, I approached him and made some suggestions. Looking over his glasses at me, he said, “Listen, young man, let me remind you that you are the teaching Elder, but I am the Ruling Elder here.” … This brought the conversation to a close.—The Rev. A. C. VAN PUFFELEN, First Presbyterian Church, Coleraine, Minnesota.

For each report by a minister of the Gospel of an embarrassing moment in his life, CHRISTIANITY TODAY will pay $5 (upon publication). To be acceptable, anecdotes must narrate factually a personal experience, and must be previously unpublished. Contributions should not exceed 250 words, should be typed double-spaced, and bear the writer’s name and address. Upon acceptance, such contributions become the property of CHRISTIANITY TODAY. Address letters to: Preacher in the Red, CHRISTIANITY TODAY, 1014 Washington Building, Washington 5, D. C.

Samuel M. Shoemaker is the author of a number of popular books and the gifted Rector of Calvary Episcopal Church in Pittsburgh. He is known for his effective leadership of laymen and his deeply spiritual approach to all vital issues.

Have something to add about this? See something we missed? Share your feedback here.