The Power of Five: Part Three

The third part of this is the office of the Evangelist. Now for how this relates to our daily lives and churches. Evangelism should be intentional on our part. We should be looking for opportunities to reach the lost every chance we get and not through leaving tracks at the table of the restaurant. The world is tired of our lame, ineffective ways of witnessing. They are wanting to see love in action. The appropriate times to witness are usually preceded by giving food to the hungry, listening to the problems of the emotionally hurting, or even clothing the needy. The fact is that most of the growth in the American church is transfer growth. People get upset at their last church and so they decide to come to yours. Is that even the kind of growth that we want? It's growth, but it's not healthy. I can eat all kinds of junk food and get real big, but it's not healthy growth. We should strive to build our churches on the growth that comes from seeing people give their hearts to Jesus. This will happen when evangelism becomes a vital part of our lifestyle. When we stop to see why our waitress is having a bad day. When we help the elderly person with their stuff in the grocery store parking lot. When we move in an attitude of love, then we have set up a perfect platform for us to speak into other's lives. The truth is that people are refusing to hear about Jesus most often times because we haven't even taken the time to figure out what they are going through. We are in such a hurry to get them saved that we do anything to get them to repeat a prayer with us. The problem with this is that people who use this tactic to reach the lost most often neglect the discipling part and that is tragic. When you take the time to build a relationship first, you are more likely to disciple. The world just needs to be loved by us then we can work on getting them to serve God.