Apostle Paul emphatically states in Ephesians 3 that he was made a minister of the gospel by God’s gracious gift. He had a special calling and anointing on his life to vocationally preach the gospel and plant churches. God set him apart for that task. And he fulfilled that task marvelously.

However, don’t miss the fact that you have been tasked with the sharing of the gospel as well. While Paul may have had a specific vocational calling for this task, every Christian has this general calling on their life. We have all been tasked with the Great Commission from Jesus Christ, which is to work at converting people to be disciples of Christ as we go about our everyday life and then baptizing them in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and teaching them to follow Jesus’ commandments. This is every Christian’s job. This is your job.

But where do we start? I like to think about it this way. If you throw a rock in the water, it creates ripples, concentric circles that radiate out from that. Think about your evangelism in that way. Perhaps you could call it your concentric circles of concern as theologian Oscar Thompson did.

In the circle closest to you is your household, your immediate family. Start with your family. They are our first mission field. Work to be a minister of the gospel to them, but don’t stop there. The next circle radiating out is your extended family. Share Jesus with those folks. God has given you the perfect platform this Christmas season! Then extending from that is the circle of your friends. One of the reasons God has put them in your life is so that you might tell them about Jesus. And then comes your neighbors and coworkers. And then comes acquaintances, and then finally, the stranger.

Beloved, that’s a really helpful way to think about fulfilling the calling on your life to be a minister of the gospel, just like Apostle Paul. You may not do it vocationally, but you should do it faithfully, intentionally, and frequently.

Change begins in you!