We are doing so for the sake of increasing numbers among us who are largely unaware of their inheritance as Covenanters in both life and thought.The complete Glad Hearts volume is available for purchase under the Resources Link on the Home Page of the rootedwings.com website. Comments or questions regarding any of the readings here are always welcome.
Biblical Moorings
To depart from evangelism is to depart from Holy Scriptures. It is interesting to note in history that a return to the Bible is always accompanied by a resurgence of evangelism. The greatest textbook on evangelism is the Bible. One cannot possibly read it without discovering that every Christian is under a divine commission to “go...and make disciples.”
However, God is not giving us a mandate as his disciples that he is not interested in fulfilling himself. He is not a disinterested director of evangelism barking orders for others to carry out. The greatest evangelist of all is the Father himself. Search the Scriptures throughout and you will find that this is the story of God’s everlasting search for the souls of human beings. The very reason for the sending of his Son was “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:16).
The Scriptures tell us how Jesus constantly and compassionately suffered and sorrowed for the lost. He was the greatest evangelist who ever walked the face of the earth. He gave himself always for people. He was never too tired to talk to a person about his [or her] soul’s needs. Remember his conversation with the Samaritan woman at the well of Sychar in the fourth chapter of the gospel of John. Weary from the long journey on the hot, dusty roads of Palestine, he sat down to rest while the disciples went into the village to buy food. But Jesus forget his weariness when a needy, sinful woman came to draw water. He was never too busy to answer the needs of others. When two of John’s disciples asked him, “Rabbi, where are you staying?” Jesus invited them home with him and they stayed the rest of the day! He was never too engaged to forget those who were outside of his immediate concern. Once he left the Temple during the feast to go to the pool of Bethesda to visit the sick that were there (see John 5:1-9). He was never too occupied with a major concern to forget the individual. While he hung on the cross dying for the whole world, he saved a dying thief! This is our Master, whose divine example as a soul-winner we are always urged to follow. “As the Father has sent me, even so I send you” (John 20:21).
Prepare to present the gospel...by using each of three biblical passages. The three passages are: John 3:16; Luke 15:3-7; Matthew 11:28,29. (You may substitute other passages if you prefer.)
In most attempts to explain the gospel, we become too complex. This is especially true if we refer to a number of biblical passages. The presentation must be very simple, and each of the passages listed above has enough reference to the gospel to be used as our authority. To simplify the matter as much as possible, we shall concentrate on one passage in each presentation. Our presentation need include only a few simple facts such as:
1. God loves and cares for us and sent Jesus to convey that love (in all three passages).
2. We need to be reconciled to God and to one another (John 3:16 says we are perishing. Luke 15:3-7 says we are straying. Matthew 11:28,29 speaks to people who are weary and heavy laden).
3. Because God cares, he has sent Jesus who gave his life in order to reconcile us to himself (John 3:16 says he sent his Son to give us eternal life. Luke 15:3-7 says the shepherd was seeking the sheep, even though the sheep may not have known it was straying. Matthew 11:28,29 promises us rest).
4. We may accept God's free gift by turning ourselves over to Jesus, trusting him to receive us and by accepting his authority over our lives. (This is the meaning of "believe" in John 3:16. It is the significance of bringing back the sheep to the fold in Luke 15:3-7. it is the meaning of taking his "yoke" on us in Matthew 11:28,29).
It is not suggested that you use these four points, necessarily, or that you limit yourself to them. It is merely an illustration of how you might present the gospel on the basis of any one of these passages. You need not use other passages to support each detail. If you use this passage for your authority and if you explain the gospel simply, the Holy Spirit will honor it. KEEP IT SIMPLE.
Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), Learning to Love People (1973), p. 33.
Every Disciple Commissioned
Those who responded to his call to follow him were also invited to share in his task. Together with him they were to fish for others. In doing this they might preach and teach and study the Scriptures, but these activities were never made ends in themselves. They were called to fish for men. Evangelism (for the glory and love of God) was their primary task.
That evangelism was their primary task ought not to be surprising to us. If it is, it suggests that we have not been enough in the company of Christ. For that which Christ gives to us in saving us is God himself. Since God is love, this means that salvation involves a change from being selfish into being loving. And being loving means sharing the best that we have, which is the good news of Christ's saving presence in our lives. If we are loving, we will share this. If we do not share it, we are not loving. Hence, if the life of the church knows the company of Christ, it will share his ministry. For to follow Jesus and to fish for others are like two sides of a coin; they belong together.
Henry A. Gustafson, Jr. (1924- ), Studies in Mark (1958), p. 20.
The word “evangelism”...in its simplest definition is the act of proclaiming the “good news” of the gospel of God. We who claim to be Jesus’ disciples are the possessors of the greatest news that ever hit the newsstands of the world.. When God stepped down one day into a tiny little village in a “back alley” of our world and was born in human flesh, there were no headlines to scream the event to the world! But the Christian world knows that nothing has ever surpassed its significance and nothing ever will....
Henry A. Gustafson, Jr. (1924- ), Studies in Mark (1958), p. 20.
The word “evangelism”...in its simplest definition is the act of proclaiming the “good news” of the gospel of God. We who claim to be Jesus’ disciples are the possessors of the greatest news that ever hit the newsstands of the world.. When God stepped down one day into a tiny little village in a “back alley” of our world and was born in human flesh, there were no headlines to scream the event to the world! But the Christian world knows that nothing has ever surpassed its significance and nothing ever will....
Here...is the basis for all Christian evangelism. Our mandate is clearly given in the New Testament not only in specific words but also through the example of Christ himself and his immediate followers. His program for the church is inclusive of everyone. Every disciple is commissioned to be a witness and every nonbeliever is a prospective candidate for his kingdom. None is excepted. Evangelism...is imperative and never optional. The evangelistic task of reaching outside the church to bring people to faith in Christ and fellowship in his church belongs to everyone.
Glenn L. Lindell (1920- ), The Church and Its Mission (1959), pp. 7,11,12.
The struggle to maintain the Church of Christ in any generation is a struggle of sacrifice by those who have accepted the responsibility to plant. And the endless labors of those struggles can never be repaid in this world. We trust they will be repaid in another. Those who plant must call unmindful people to the necessity of providing for children, that is, for the future; of committing where they would rather be free; of labor in behalf of something, the end of which they cannot hope to see. Those who sow are the servants of a vision beyond their imagination. And the resulting plant is organically one, where all sustain each other by the grace of God. In a spiritual, if not physical, sense, the planters–be they clergy or lay–are those who know poverty and who live by faith.
Zenos E. Hawkinson (1925-1997), “Planting” (1978)
From Anatomy of the Pilgrim Experience: Reflections on Being a Covenanter, Edited by Philip J. Anderson and David E. Hawkinson (2000), pp. 28,29.
It might offer a greater sense of security if someone would outline a road map for the future. This is something that no one can do. There are no road maps for pilgrims. There is only the biblical compass that keeps our eyes on the goal and reminds us that this life must always be a pilgrim life.
We stand before an unknown future that has never been more uncertain than it is today. The pilgrim is the only one who is not frustrated by an uncertain future, for it is his very way of life. The effectiveness of our witness awaits the call of our risen Lord to take the next step as pilgrims. What that step will be we cannot know until the moment he speaks the word. There are times when he calls us aside to meditate on the entire situation. We may step aside in confidence, and we need not become impatient to move until he leads the way. We must not, however, become rooted to the place where we stopped to meditate. We may be sure that he will continue to go before us and that he will eventually call us to new experiences. We may be sure that he will call us to full commitment and that he will send us out into the world, even as the Father sent him into the world.
The Christian witness, therefore, is a pilgrim through whom the living Christ becomes incarnate along the ever-changing path of the secular life. Through this pilgrim witness the living Christ makes himself known to secular people.
Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), Salvation and Secularity (1968), pp. 148,149.
The Fisherman's Song
(A ditty often repeated by Erik August Skogsbergh (1850-1939), tr. E. Gustav Johnson.)
I must go, I must go!
While the day is aglow
I must be at my fishing again.
Should I idly stand by
While the multitudes cry
For a word from the Savior of men?
Erik Dahlhielm (1880-1955), A Burning Heart: a Biography of Erik August Skogsbergh (1951), p. xiii.
Spontaneity and Organization
Evangelism is the spontaneous expression of abundant life in Christ. It is a quality of life that flows out to the world around and which, in the power of the Holy Spirit, convinces other people to believe also. Can such an expression be organized? Appropriate organization is not inconsistent with spontaneity. Appropriate organization is the kind of organization that is designed, not to produce spiritual vitality, but to channel such vitality into useful activity. Spontaneity tends to change with changing moods. Sooner or later we come to the place where we begin to say, “I know I should, but I don't.” Then we have to depend on exhortations to witness, which eventually leads to frustrating feelings of guilt. Appropriate organization makes it possible to divide responsibilities and to bring together the people who can nurture each other's spiritual vitality in the common task of evangelism. Jesus used appropriate organization by setting apart certain men to whom he gave particular attention (Mark 3:14), by organizing ministries with adequate material support (Luke 8:1-3), by sending workers out in pairs (Luke 10:1), and by making his disciples responsible for a continuing ministry before leaving them (Matthew 28-18-20). The apostles continued the same policy by organizing the new believers (Acts 14:23). Appropriate organization is not contrary to the spontaneity of the Spirit.
Wesley W. Nelson (1910- ), Training for Evangelistic Witnessing (1971), p. 35.
Outreach implies that we do not expect people who inhabit the city to come to us. We may reassure ourselves by saying that our doors are open to everyone, that everyone is welcome, but we know very well that few people are going to walk through those doors to hear what we have to say. Effective outreach requires us to meet people where they are, in ordinary sorts of places. That means, obviously, that outreach must take place through us as individual Christians where we meet people ordinarily, in places comparable to the well: in the office, a ski lodge, the company cafeteria, a college dorm, the grocery store, a community meeting, the gasoline station, at our kitchen table, over the backyard fence.
But there is another possibility we need to see, too. The Church can create settings in which persons from outside can come into contact with it. Such activities may seem basically secular, but will serve real needs and thus will draw people to the Church. A day-care center for children of working mothers, English language classes, senior adult activities, food pantries--and there are dozens of other possibilities--are the kind of outreach situations which can provide everyday contacts that would never be possible through typical churchy religious activities. Oh yes, I am well aware that such things can be criticized because they don't seem to belong in a church program; not spiritual, they are only social. But let us be aware that Jesus used a similar setting for his outreach. Our story [John 4:5-26] reminds us that we need to break out of our preoccupation with standard, in-house church programs and our vain hope of attracting outsiders to those programs and that we must make contact in other ways across the high wells that divide us from those outside.
...What an exciting prospect that is! Can it happen...? Should it happen...? Do you want it to happen...?
If your answer is "Yes"–I certainly hope that it is "Yes”--then we must make this kind of outreach a goal that has priority in all we do. We must work together to cultivate among us the right attitude and to provide the kinds of settings that are required. We must pray that God will open up opportunities for outreach and give us the will and ability to make the most of those opportunities. When that happens, we can anticipate the blessings that come when those whose lives we touch through our outreach learn to know Jesus and are transformed by him and made alive by the living water he provides.
James A. Anderson (1930- ), “Jesus’ Outreach”
From Grace and Glory: a Festschrift on Preaching in Honor of Eric G. Hawkinson, The Covenant Quarterly, 1981-82, pp. 124,125,126.
The global oneness that has accompanied information technology presents a new opportunity for handling the knowledge of good and evil. Technology is a threat to the kind of security that is guaranteed by rules and laws. At the same time it can also be seen as the greatest opportunity ever for the gospel. How can this be? Individuals have access to the Internet and can witness to a living faith in Christ. Many churches have the capacity to use the new medium. IFFEC [International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches] could use it for communication. The enormous capacity of the media industry, both in software and hardware, might lead to a much greater distribution of the technology than we imagine.
As we observe this opportunity we must, however, see another side: the Church of Christ is becoming poorer and poorer, and the percentage of literate church members, looking at the total church, is declining. The fact is that the Church is growing mainly in the Third World, and it is mostly attracting the poor. This large proportion of marginalized humankind will have to rely on the Spirit and their own faith and spirituality. The question is whether they will become a resource or a burden. I think that both technological possibilities and the power of individual personal believers have to be taken into account.
With such an outlook I see actual strength and hope in the Church of believers. It can learn to live in all human conditions. It can encourage people with large tangible assets as well as the impoverished for whom the prayer for daily bread is a question without a sure answer. Hope for the Church's future does not focus on strong, established, rich churches or organizations, but on one common need for the “spring of water gushing up to eternal life” (cf. John 4:13,14) in every individual!
Walter Persson (1928- ), Free and United: The Story of The International Federation of Free Evangelical Churches (1998), pp. 5,6.
Methods and Approaches
Paul A. Day (1952- ), Unity and Freedom: One Hundred Years of the East Coast Conference, (Published by the East Coast Conference, 1990), pp. 70,71.
You should be a witness! Your church would benefit from having a few evangelists around. But why focus on gifts you don't have? The missing dimension in your Christian life--and that gaping hole in your church's spiritual gift mix--would not be nearly as noticeable if you did the obvious. Be an inviter!
Becoming an inviter is actually simple, and very biblical. Andrew invited his brother, Peter. After the Samaritan woman met Jesus, her life was changed. Even though she lacked credibility and knew very little about Jesus, she did the one thing necessary. She said to the people of her town, "Come, see... " (John 4:29). Accepting her invitation, they came. They met Jesus. Their lives were changed!
I was encouraging Marty to be an inviter. She responded, “Yes, I have friends who do not go to church. They are lost. They need Jesus. But I can't invite them to my church. They would be turned off. Our pastor's sermons are dry! The music is sometimes O.K., but at other times it's awful. I am embarrassed to invite my friends.” It could be your church needs to improve, most churches do; but that is still not the issue.
Remember what the Bible teaches about being unchurched. People are really lost, and God wants lost people found. Furthermore, your friends desire what your church offers--love, friendship, encouragement, hope, and salvation. The needs are so great that the imperfections of your church may not even show. If you are shipwrecked and unable to tread water for more than thirty minutes, it doesn't matter whether you are picked up by a luxury liner or a weather-beaten rowboat. Being rescued is what is essential.
Your church may be more like the rowboat than the luxury liner, but it has what your friends do not have. Their attitude toward your congregation is not something you can control, but a simple invitation is: “Why not come to church with me on Sunday?”
James E. Persson (1934- ), “Be an Inviter!” (Covenant Tract, 1987).
There are probably several different ways by which we may clean up the art of the cinema. And surely there will be a battle! For no one with a zeal for righteousness can tolerate the art as it now, for the most part, reveals itself in theaters and lecture halls. The protest against the corruption must be strong and definite. Unyielding censorship!
But in order to work constructively God's people must truly make use of the art of film making themselves, and not rely on its commercial promoters. Why cannot a film exhort sinners to conversion and provide edification to believers just as really and simply as a sermon or a tract, a song, a lecture, or a book? A new method to be sure! But not at all an unworthy one!
Olga E. Lindborg (1889-1945), “Kvinnen i Hemmet och Församlingen”
From Förbundets Veckotidning, January 29, 1929, Tr. Sigurd F. Westberg.
We now have in the evangelical wing of the church what we call “affinity evangelism.” We are using it in some places in the Covenant with very positive response. It encourages people to share their faith with their peers-their affinity group. “Affinity” refers to people with whom we have something in common--a natural connection or a kinship, like a profession or an interest. So we might plan an affinity evangelism event for educators or for medical people. And all the people in the Covenant churches in that area who are involved in that profession are urged to bring their colleagues to this event, and there we share with them the gospel.
Certainly it is an appropriate thing to do. We should share our faith with people with whom we have much in common. If we do not share our faith with people with whom we work and we live, when would we ever share our faith?
But “affinity” is kind of a passive word. It's people with whom we come in contact by virtue of our job or some other connection, something important that we have in common. There is a related word that is far more active. It's the word “affiliate.” It's not based on something we have in common; it involves moving toward others. To affiliate with someone means to adopt them, to receive them into a family, to actively move into a relationship or an attachment. Maybe we ought to also have affiliate evangelism, where we move toward people with whom we have no affinity.
We must do affinity evangelism, but that must not be all we do. To imitate Jesus is to move in compassion toward others--even those who are different. Even enemies, even sinners, even tax collectors.
Glenn R. Palmberg (1945- ), from “The Dirty Waters of Baptism,” a sermon preached at the Midwinter Conference of the Evangelical Covenant Church, January 29, 2001, p. 4.
During our third year as missionaries in Mexico City, Coral, a young mother whom my wife, Nancy, had been discipling, came to her and declared excitedly, “God is actually using me!” Coral had just returned from a discipleship encounter with another woman. That woman had told her how much she had been helped by their weekly meeting and how real the Lord was becoming in her life. She wanted to thank her for her help. Though Coral had been raised in an evangelical home, this was the first time she had sensed God actually working through her for eternal purposes. She was happy.
What had made the difference in her experience? She knew basic doctrine. She certainly could do all the normal activities that people do when they go to church. But she had never known how to sit down with other Christians and help them grow and experience more of God in their lives. Nancy had begun to help her grow so that she could help other people grow as Christians--the process of discipling.
This discipleship model, where one person spends time with one to four others over a period of time, becomes the starting point in training Christians for leadership roles, outreach, and ministry of many kinds. Not everyone who is discipled will become a leader, but most will become productive in ministry. Their ministries will vary, depending on each disciple's gifts and the needs in and outside the church. One thing is certain: the missionary or pastor will increasingly have help in the wide-ranging ministries of the church--ministries by the lay people to the elderly, drug addicts, the poor, those in need of better nutrition, and so on.
Jerold F. Reed (1937- ), “The Liberation of Laity for Leadership”
From Servant Leadership, Volume Two: Contemporary Models and the Emerging Challenge, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), p. 116.
Jerold F. Reed (1937- ), “The Liberation of Laity for Leadership”
From Servant Leadership, Volume Two: Contemporary Models and the Emerging Challenge, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), p. 116.
Sensitivity to People
A person who is skeptical is really looking for God. He is not doing bad. If you see one who strongly resists and twists the things of God in his resistance, that one will be a strong believer. You must pray hard to God for that person and concentrate on winning him. Ask God to break the heart of that person so that he might become your man. Then God will turn him around and change him. Once he is converted, he will not turn back to the old ways. Stay with him and he will come out for God. Then you will have fruit for God.
But beware of those who attract attention to themselves with many words. Those who seem to be agreeing with everything you say are really deceivers. They remain in their sins and blur the eyes of the people to think that they are really God's people, while all the time they are only bringing shame upon the name of God.
Pelendo, (Legendary African Pastor from the Free Church Mission, early 20th Century)
Quoted in Alpha E. Anderson, Pelendo: God’s Prophet in the Congo (1964), p. 149.
Salvation was presented as coming with the moment of the Holy Spirit-inspired decision on the part of a [person] under the influence of the Word. But it was equally seen as a process of continued repentance and the living exercise of faith from day to day. The only resting place for faith was a daily relationship to Jesus, the Savior. Their evangelistic outreach was one with their pastoral preaching. They trusted the Word to do its work in saint and sinner alike.
The dogmatic tone of their preaching was muted by the knowledge that the Holy Spirit alone can convict the heart and mind of man. And they had been taught by Rosenius, “Do not be so absolutely sure that what you think you see in the Word is therefore so conclusively right. Every person believes his or her own eyes, but another believer also has some sight. If it is wrong to slavishly depend upon what the saints see in the Word, it is still uglier and unchristian to believe only one’s own sight and one’s own spirit.
The mood of their witness created a wistful appeal in their listeners. They did not harangue the sinner or ask for the raising of hands in the early years. They often said, however, either after or in a sermon, “No doubt you, yourself, know whether you are with us.”
Eric G. Hawkinson (1896-1984), Images in Covenant Beginnings (1968), pp. 130,131.
How can we reach the lost? I think an attitude of acceptance is paramount. We don't need to condone anyone's sin, but a self-righteous, judgmental spirit is an obvious piece of psychological equipment that can turn others off immediately. I found long ago that one way I could avoid judgment is to mentally assume that all people I meet are Christians until they state or prove by another means that they aren't. A number of people have been greatly influenced by this approach, and several have said that they had thought they were Christian until they ran across the “real thing.”
I would have been totally ineffective if those people had sensed a spirit of condemnation in me. There's a big difference between loving people and watching them carefully out of the comer of an eye to see if they “act like Christians” before we accept them into friendship. This crucial difference may mean that we will have an opportunity to share Jesus rather than being written off as stiff, judgmental, and unloving.
Mary Lou Sather (19 - ), “What Have You Learned Lately?”
From InSpirit Magazine, Summer, 1991, p. 19.
[Roman Catholic theologian Alexander Ganoczy] says that this process [of receiving people who come through the doors of any local church] is dialogical. On the one hand, people are “given” to a congregation. They may come in off the street, respond to a newspaper ad, come by invitation. The social make-up of these people is never determined by the congregation. Random selection is prevalent. On the other hand, the congregation needs to receive them, to “choose” them, to welcome them. The element of control is elusive. The congregation cannot control, short of blocking the church entrance, those who hear and respond to the gospel. Those who come cannot control the response of congregational members to themselves. Theologically this can be named election and evangelism. The choosing of Israel was a free act of God (Deuteronomy 7:6), and the calling of people to Christ is the free work of the same God (John 6:44). People do not just come; they are called. Congregations, for their part, are called to be hospitable, not just friendly. For this reason I am reluctant to speak of the voluntary principle of church membership. I am not sure there are any volunteers for Jesus in the New Testament. The trouble with this way of phrasing it is, as I see it, that if people “volunteer” to become Christians and then congregations are made up of these “volunteers,” the structure of the relation between/among persons is based only on one's will. Translated into life, that gets too easily controlled by prejudice, preferences, and likability. Persons who come to church are, in my view, better described as being “sent” by the God of Israel and Jesus so that not a whole lot is left up to human preference. The relationship is dialectical and therefore, as Kierkegaard said, filled with passion, and not all of it holy. After all, it is never simple to work out one’s salvation, especially when it cannot be done except in community.
C. John Weborg (1937- ), “It Seemed Good to the Holy Spirit and to Us: Clergy and Laity in Interaction,” from Servant Leadership, Volume One: Authority and Governance in the Church, James R. Hawkinson & Robert K. Johnston, editors (1993), pp. 122, 123.
Inviting Hymns
Jesus of Nazareth passes by–now, as in ancient time,
frees the oppressed who for pardon cry, giving his peace sublime.
Lo, the kingdom is near us!
Wealth in abundance he gives the poor, brings to the sick relief;
souls that are empty, in bondage sore, freedom and joy receive.
Lo, the kingdom is near us!
Open your heart in repentant prayer, unlock each secret place;
ask him to answer, do not despair, take of his boundless grace.
Lo, the kingdom is near us!
Anders Frostenson (1906- ), “Jesus of Nazareth Passes By,” tr. Glen V. Wiberg (1925- )
From The Covenant Hymnal: a Worshipbook (1996), No. 351.
Time is as swift as a vanishing dream, year after year rolls away.
Life rushes on like a fast flowing stream; short are the hours of the day.
Never returning are days that are gone, surely that fact is decreed,
but how we use them will ever be known; God is recording each deed.
Into this world we are born but to die, small is our measure of years.
Flickering flames are the days passing by, quickly the light disappears.
Parents and children are parted by death, youth is not spared by the foe.
We in our prime come to naught in a breath; when we are called we must go.
Flee from the world, all its evil disdain, kneel at the feet of the Lord.
Seek his forgiveness, salvation obtain, God will his blessing afford.
C. A. Stenholm (1843-1884) “Time Is as Swift as a Vanishing Dream,” tr. E,. Gustav Johnson (1893-1974), from The Hymnal (1950), No. 551.
Do you live the life that’s given through your faith in Christ, the Lord?
Is your name inscribed in heaven, in the kingdom of our Lord?
Do you live the life that’s new? Tell me true....
Pray that Jesus may awaken Spirit-life forever new!
Pray that sin may be forsaken which breeds only death in you.
Ask yourself each day he gives, do I live...?
Do I seek the Savior’s glory? In his fear am I content?
Is his Holy Spirit near me and his Word my nourishment?
O Lord Jesus, come and be life in me....
Be my life, as well, in dying–death will come some day to me;
grant that in my last privation I may still enlivened be,
and unendingly abide by your side....
Lina Sandell (1832-1903), “Do You Live?,” tr. Karl A. Olsson (1913-1996)
From The Song Goes On (1990), No. 149.
