“There are different periods in the life of every church and now is one of those times when we just need to focus on strengthening the people who remain in our church rather than trying to share the gospel with unbelievers.”
Believe it or not, I’ve heard something very similar to this from pastors who sincerely believe that their churches should not be doing evangelism. Unfortunately, this approach is deeply flawed and pastors who chose this path for their churches are simply pouring buckets of cold water on any gospel flame that might remain in the hearts of their members.
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(If you want to know what happens when the church stops sharing the gospel, check out this article.)
However, there also exists an equally dangerous mistake that many churches and church leaders fall into. It goes something like this:
“All our services and all our ministries are geared towards one goal, to bring in as many people as possible and to get them saved.”
Unfortunately, this unbalanced approach often leads to a lack in discipleship, which can do great harm to the church. Those who get saved never grow, they never deepen in their faith, they are not given the opportunity to be discipled or to be a discipler. They stay spiritual babes feed with a constant died of sweet milk, short services, and simplistic sermons. They are easily led astray by false teaching and they quickly succumb to the lightest temptations.
Yes, new people often come through the doors of churches like these but they just as often leave through those same doors. They failed to put down roots deep into the soil of the gospel, they dry up quickly and their spiritual life seems to vanish.
How can we find Biblical balance in this and avoid the unbiblical extremes?
First, I would like to identify two common mistakes in our thinking about the gospel that I believe often cause us to misunderstand the relationship between evangelism and discipleship. Second, I’d like to look at how Jesus preached the gospel and how he saw the relationship between evangelism and discipleship.
Mistake #1 We have artificially separated evangelism and discipleship
When I studied theology in seminary we systematized and sorted every theology into their proper places for ease of study and for logical order. While this is sometimes necessary and helpful in theology it can be detrimental in real practice. For instance, in theology the doctrine of salvation (soteriology) and the doctrine of Christ (Christology) are separate but we all know that in reality Christ can never be separate from this work in salvation.
It seems that we have sorted evangelism and discipleship like laundry, everything that has to with evangelism we put in the “evangelism” pile and everything that has to do with discipleship, we put in the “discipleship” pile. Some make the assumption that they can only participate in one or the other but not both. We fail to see that evangelism and discipleship are woven together in one garment. Yes, they are slightly different fabrics but together they make up the whole shirt. You can always unravel the shirt and put the evangelism thread in one pile and the discipleship thread in another pile but that’s not doing to do anyone any good!
Throughout the New Testament we see evangelism and discipleship so closely tied together that sometimes it’s difficult to determine about which one of the two the author is talking about. Let me give you an example.
Before Jesus ascended into heaven he gave his disciples “The Great Commision”
19 Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, 20 teaching them to observe all that I have commanded you. And behold, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”
Mat 28:19-20
I’ve noticed that these words of Jesus are often the refrain of missions conferences and rightly so. However, I’ve also noticed that “The Great Commission” tends to more associated with evangelism than with discipleship in the minds of many believers.
Yet when we look closely at the text we find that words Jesus used may actually emphasize discipleship more than evangelism. The only command here is to “make disciples” “μαθητεύσατε” Jesus clarifies this in 28:20 using a slightly different word “διδάσκοντες” which emphasis the importance of teaching doctrine.
Jesus tells his disciples to make disciples of all nations and to baptise them. This assumes that they are “making disciples” from people who had never heard the gospel before, thus we can conclude that Jesus is also indirectly referring to evangelism in these verses.
The point that I’m trying to make is that as Jesus gives some of his final instructions to the disciples before leaving them the doesn’t cleaning separate the work of evangelism from the work of disciple making. I believe Jesus did this on purpose, he didn’t want his disciples running around the world giving 2 minute gospel presentations and then calling for repentance and faith before heading off to their next destination. Instead he wanted them in the business of disciple making.
Disciple making as Jesus presented it assumes the initial giving of the simple gospel and a sincere and informed faith response which leads to salvation, it also assumes that this is the beginning of a process of discipleship and not the end.
While on one hand Jesus emphasized aspects of discipleship in “The Great Commision” on the other hand, sometimes evangelism is emphasized in contexts that are more associated with discipleship. Take a look at 2 Timothy 4:5 as an example.
5 As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
2Ti 4:5
In this context Paul is primarily focused on Timothy’s role as a pastor of the local church in Ephesus. Just 3 verses earlier Paul tells Timothy:
2 preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching.
2Ti 4:2
Obviously he is talking about his pastoral ministry in the church and I don’t think his exhortation just a few verses later is separate from his pastoral ministry. Paul wants Timothy to be an evangelist even in the church. That means the fabric of the gospel and of evangelism must be woven into our church ministries. As a pastor Paul wanted Timothy to continue to preach the most basic truths of the gospel whether in or outside of the church.
Biblically we must look at evangelism not as separate from discipleship but as necessary to discipleship and as an integral part of discipleship. Similarly discipleship should be looked at not as a separate activity from evangelism but as a natural continuation of the initial work of the gospel.
Mistake #2 We have limited the scope of the Gospel
Unfortunately often our understanding of the gospel and our presentation of the gospel is stunted. We limit the gospel to a few phrases that need to be repeated or a prayer that should be prayed.
- Ask Jesus into your heart
- Pray the “Sinner’s prayer”
- Repent and believe in Jesus
In a proper view of the whole gospel none of these statements are particularly wrong, however, we remove them from a whole understanding of the gospel and God’s Word we limit the scope of the gospel and are in danger of running souls around in shallow theological water.
But too many today pin their faith for fruitful evangelism on harping for ever on a few Gospel facts isolated from the broad and full context of the whole Bible.
William Smith, “The Work of a Pastor”
When we limit the scope of our gospel people often view it as some sort of magical formula that needs to be verbalized at least once in their lifetime and God will reward them with eternal life. They lose the connection between the gospel and real life, they fail to see how the gospel is more than just a ticket to heaven, they don’t understand that when gospel truth is believed it changes their lives from the inside out. They fail to see what “The righteous shall live by faith” means to them daily and thus they also fail to put down deep roots into the soil of the gospel.
I once remember a pastor who told me that the best way to share the gospel was to give a quick 2 minute or less explanation and then invite the person to pray the “Sinner’s Prayer.” He told that people will more often than not pray the prayer because it would be impolite for them not to. Sadly this sort of “Easy Believism” results in many “saved” unbelievers.
This type of stunted evangelism is loathsome! We can easily deceive both ourselves and those with whom we are sharing the gospel. There are no quick tricks to get someone saved, you can’t force someone into repentance and faith. Mere words passing over the tongue can never make you a Christian but can certainly make you a hypocrite!
When Jesus preached the Gospel on the road to Emmaus he explained to them using entire Old Testament.
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
Luke 24:27
Our gospel message must not be limited to a few religious phrases and prayers, we must learn to give the riches and the depth of the gospel as we share with the unbelieving world.
Book of the week
This in the podcast I shared with you several excerpts from William Smith’s book “The Work of the Pastor.
Below are a few quotes I picked out of the book.
I tell you that a great many of the enemies of what God has to say with massive impact to our day and generation, inside the Kirk and out of it, are in the evangelistic camp. I don’t think some of these people are saved at all. The only evidence there is that they are Christians is that they like Sankey, or Redemption, or similar-style American hymns. I have found to my bitter cost that if you take these away (with their repetitive choruses which are to be sung with glazed eyes, moronic expressions, and slightly swaying movement like primitive tribespeople), they hate you like the devil. They will stand any kind of preaching provided it is dressed up in their favourite clichés. But you must not take away their ranty hymns. That is their religion. It is their god. And it is an idol which I believe must be smashed. God is calling some of us to smash it.
A great many of us are far busier propping up our particular brand of democracy and social service than building the church of Jesus Christ against which even the gates of hell shall not prevail, whether our democracy collapses or not. The church is not called to subsidise the state any more than she is called to work against it;
A true Christian fellowship is a place where stray cats and dogs can find a home. It is a hospital, where the only sin is to hide your wounds from the doctor and nurse. And the true pastor’s job is to strip all the fearful ones, however gently, patiently, faithfully, and all the hypocritical ones of their camouflage and cloaks. Grace and truth come by Jesus Christ.
Happy is the minister whose people release him from petting and pampering them, so that he can get on with the real work of building the church, seeking the lost, patiently encouraging others to persevere, and sharing the sorrows, sicknesses, loneliness and heartbreaks of those who are in real need.
When real people come seeking real help, receive them with all grace, patience and forbearance. Let them talk: don’t jump to conclusions and turn the interview into another sermon on the lines they may have heard many times before. If they are real, they know all that. But there may be something that has not been made plain so far, at least to them. Let them talk, and you listen. The hardest thing ministers, who are great talkers, find to do is to listen. Don’t be making up your next speech while the other is talking. Listen! You may hear something you have never heard before. Don’t assume that this problem is like many others you have dealt with. It may seem to be, but as no two people are exactly alike, so no two persons’ problems are alike. You will find that many of your fixed ideas, which you may think are thoroughly Christian and apply to all cases, will be upset if you listen carefully enough to begin to see what the solution to a particular problem may be.
My principal surgery, clinic, vestry hour, consulting room – call it what you will – is the pulpit and teaching desk. If, in the end, I cannot get people to see this, I despair of them ever becoming what Christ means them to be; they will certainly never become the satisfied, happy and, more important, useful people they could be.
To be true pastors, your whole life must be spent in knowing the truth of this Word, not only verbally, propositionally, theologically, but religiously, that is, devotionally, morally, in worshipping Him whom it reveals, and in personal obedience to Him whose commands it contains, in all the promised grace and threat of those commands. To be pastors you must be ‘fed men’, not only in knowledge, but in wisdom, grace, humility, courage, fear of God, and fearlessness of men.
The pastor is called to feed the sheep, even if the sheep do not want to be fed. He is certainly not to become an entertainer of goats. Let goats entertain goats, and let them do it out in goatland. You will certainly not turn goats into sheep by pandering to their goatishness.
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