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'Evangelism' Tagged Posts (Page 2)

It’s a Team Harvest

As laborers for Jesus, we are all working to reap a harvest through the gospel.  We plant, we water, and we harvest.  However, we don’t always get to do all three things with the same person.  Sometimes we’re the one who plants the gospel in a person’s life.  At other times we’re the one who waters that gospel so that it might take root, grow, bloom, and bear fruit.  Still other times we are the one who gets to harvest that soul by leading them to faith in Jesus Christ.  Of course, it’s God who brings the growth and the harvest, but He uses human agents to bring it about (Matthew 9:37-38).  It’s a blessing to be part of all three phases with the same person, but I would guess that that’s actually fairly rare.

But SBC Calvinists Believe That Too

The Southern Baptist Convention has certainly seen a mellowing out of what came to be quite a heated debate once again over Calvinism after the publishing of “A Statement of the Traditional Southern Baptist Understanding of God’s Plan of Salvation” in May 2012.  Of course, Dr. Frank Page’s appointment of the Calvinism Advisory Committee the next month in June 2012 and the unifying document they crafted and published in June 2013 called “Truth, Trust, and Testimony in a Time of Tension” (aka, T5) has had a great deal to do with the mellowing out we are now enjoying, or at least I am.

Nevertheless, there are those still in the convention that are really concerned about the “problem of Calvinism.”  In fact, I recently overheard a group of men eating breakfast before attending the Tennessee Baptist Convention discussing the issue of Calvinism in the SBC.  One of them declared about Calvinism, “Why if I believed that, I’d never go out and share the gospel because it would already be decided who’s going to be saved!”  Apparently this man understood SBC Calvinists to believe that people are saved apart from hearing and believing the gospel of Jesus Christ, which tells me that there’s still work to be done in communicating what SBC Calvinists actually believe.  I thought to myself and almost chimed in across the aisle, “No, SBC Calvinists believe too that we’ve got to share the gospel if anybody’s going to be saved.”  Unfortunately, that fellow had a misunderstanding of what SBC Calvinists believe.

5 Evangelism Principles on the Way to the Seller of Purple

We Southern Baptists are a Great Commission people.  It’s in our denominational blood!  As we come into the state convention season of SBC life, we will undoubtedly be challenged again and again to share the gospel, sHaRe tHe gOsPeL, SHARE THE GOSPEL!  Indeed, I welcome that clarion call from Scripture because it captures the heart of God and needs to be sounded again and again, but the Bible doesn’t simply tell us to share the gospel.  It also gives us principles for how to share the gospel.

One of the richest places to gain some vital principles for sharing the gospel comes from Acts 16.  There were find the history of Paul preaching the gospel in Asia Minor and Europe on his second missionary journey, which led him to a seller of purple named Lydia.  Five principles of evangelism jump out to me there in vv. 1-15 as Paul is heading for a divine appointment with this lady.

Train Your Children in the Nurture and Admonition of the Lord: An Encouragement to Catechize

The greatest responsibility of Christian parents is to train their children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord (Ephesians 6.4). This responsibility is also to be one of Christian parents’ greatest joys. Certainly, we have found this to be true. Recently our hearts were blessed as our 5-year-old son led us in the Lord’s Prayer before bedtime; and then we were blessed even more because our 3-year-old daughter insisted we do it again but with her in the lead. They both did a great job. What a joy that was!

Child with Bible

Training our children in the nurture and admonition of the Lord doesn’t just happen through an hour of Sunday School a week, which never equates to an hour of teaching anyway. It’s truly a 24-7 thing. We are to be instructing all the time, which is beautifully captured in the Lord’s command to us in Deuteronomy 6.4-9:

Why Are Evangelists Not Being Used?

On Tuesday I posted on reevaluating the role of the evangelist.  In that post I basically argued through my personal testimony that to ignore the role of the evangelist is to ignore the Scripture.  Today I’ll explore why churches aren’t using evangelists as much these days and will try to put forth a way of going forward so that we can be…

Revisiting the Role of the Evangelist

One of the great pleasures of being a human is the ability to change your mind.  That’s a tremendous blessing, especially when a wrong needs to be righted. I have striven to be a man of the Word.  I want to live my life and do church as closely to the revelation that God has given us in the Bible.  However, the…

10 Ways to Keep Your Gospel-Urgency Stoked

During the first decade of my childhood, my family had a big old wood-burning stove in our house to keep us warm in the winter.  There was one thing that we always had to keep in mind:  keep the fire stoked so that the fire would stay hot.  I remember distinctly watching my dad, or doing it myself as I got older,…

Expansion Without Exception

Does it ever seem to you like the Kingdom of God is losing ground here on the earth?  Does it appear that lostness is growing and sin is increasing?  Does it feel like nation after nation is openly turning against God? Indeed, the situation does look bleak from our perspective, but I pray that you and I would be people of revelation…

Successful but Not Satisfied

In my last post, I declared according to scriptural principle that even though nobody was saved through our evangelistic efforts last week, we were still successful in God’s eyes because we were faithful to do everything that He has called us to do.  In this article, I want to answer the question:  am I satisfied with no conversions last week? Let me…

Was Our Evangelistic Rally a Success?

Last week, West Main Baptist and the other churches in the Alexandria/Dowelltown/Liberty cluster of the Salem Baptist Association came together for an evangelistic rally.  We had it in the open air grandstands of our fairground, giving it that old tent revival feel.  Our expressed goal was to preach the gospel so that people would turn to Christ for salvation from the wrath…