Further Study: Defining Evangelism and Witnessing
Think about your personal testimony and make sure that you are able to give it when the opportunity arises.
Take some time to sit quietly and consider what areas of church life you enjoy being involved in or that you would consider being involved in if you were asked. Write them down. You may be interested in evangelistic areas in which your church is not currently involved. List these areas too.
Begin to consider in what way you can become involved in an evangelistic ministry in your church. If you are already involved in a ministry and desire to stay there, pray that God will continue to bless that ministry. If you are not presently involved, pray that God will reveal to you where He wants you to work for Him.
Discussion Questions:
In the gospel commission of Matthew 28:19-20, there are four action verbs, go, make disciples, baptize, and teach. The commands to go, baptize, and teach are all subordinate to the imperative that says, “make disciples.” Considering this clear emphasis, discuss what it means to be a disciple and how disciples are made.
Consider the following quote and then discuss the question: How do we as individuals and as a church group become a part of God’s channel of communication to a lost world? “As His representatives among men, Christ does not choose angels who have never fallen, but human beings, men of like passions with those they seek to save. Christ took upon Himself humanity, that He might reach humanity. Divinity needed humanity, for it required both the divine and the human to bring salvation to the world. Divinity needed humanity that humanity might afford a channel of communication between God and man.”—Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages, p. 296.
Take a look at your own life. What kind of example do you present to the world? How do your words, actions, dress, demeanor, and attitude impact those around you? In short, what kind of witness do you present to the world, even when you are not actively “witnessing”? In which areas can you definitely improve?
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As I look at evangelism and witnessing over this week of study I ask myself am I doing enough. I know I love the Lord, but the excitement of telling everyone and anyone about the Lord does not come readily. I witness, I tell people of my story.. but it is not always a constant thing. I wonder how other Christians view and deal with the whole issue of "making disciples" for Christ. I am struggling!!!!!
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Today, Friday in the US, I read Friday's summary of the week and with that also considered the questions. Question #1 asked us to read Matthew 28:19-20, then I thought I should read Acts 1 especially where it says, "And being assembled together with them, He commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem, but to wait for the Promise of the Father, 'which,' He said, 'you have heard from Me'" (Acts 1:4 NKJV) and again, "But you shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you shall be witnesses to Me in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth" (Acts 1:8 NKJV).
What I see in Acts is not just a command as it is in Matthew but also a promise of the means to do that which is commanded. We can look at the commands and tell ourselves to do, do, do all day long and we can have some success in doing them by ourselves only because God is still trying to save. But to have real success the presence of the Holy Spirit is absolutely indispensable.
We can read about the measure of success in witnessing and evangelism all through the book of Acts where thousands were saved because God was doing the works through them. Unfortunately, in the Laodecean church where we say, "I am rich, have become wealthy, and have need of nothing" (Rev 3:17 NKJV) we have a tendency to think we can do it alone and therefore see little success in our sporadic meager efforts.
Furthermore, when the Holy Spirit overpowers us we become bold to do his will in spite of obstacles as it was said of Peter and John, "Now when they saw the boldness of Peter and John, and perceived that they were uneducated and untrained men, they marveled. And they realized that they had been with Jesus" (Acts 4:13 NKJV). We need to consider this text in the context of the fear and disappointment that was rampant among the disciples who before the outpouring of the Holy Spirit, "when the doors were shut where the disciples were assembled, for fear of the Jews" (Jn 20:19 NKJV). As it was with them so it could be with us but only if the Holy Spirit is the one in our midst as it was with them empowering us to do that which we cannot do on our own.
Does this then mean that we sit back and wait for the Holy Spirit to do everything for us while we don't lift one finger to do His will, absolutely not! We don't do that in other aspects of life and it isn't any different with witnessing and evangelism. We must be willing to do what we are commanded to to which means that God is not going to do for us something we refuse to be engaged in.