While our mission is to make disciples, the method we use involves telling the Good News of Jesus Christ to those who don’t already know him. Evangelism is the activity of telling Good News by word, deed, and sign, so that unbelievers can become aquainted with Jesus and want to seek Christian discipleship.
But what exactly is the Good News? It is the story of God’ loving interaction with mankind. Eddie Fox and George Morris have developed an effective system for witnessing in a postmodern day with Faith Sharing. They offer practical guidance for both message and method for witness.
For one thing, we need to work our our thumbnail sketch of the Good News that can be related quickly and clearly in a brief encounter. Here is a brief synopsis:
God created us in his image to have a relationship with him. He designed us with the spiritual capacity to know him and love him and serve him.
We rebelled against God through disobedience and corrupted our ability to relate to him. That caused us to pursue beliefs and lifestyles that grieve God and bring harm and imbalance to God’s creation.
God initiated restoration of our severed relationship and damaged creation through a covenant with Abraham and his descendants, the Hebrews. Eventually God expressed himself in human form through Jesus Christ. Jesus prevailed where we failed and assumed the guilt of our rebellion by his death on the cross. Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection completely restored our ability to relate to God.
The Holy Spirit brings grace from God to draw us into restored relationship by showing us our need and facilitating our entry into the kingdom through faith. The result of the Spirit’s continuing work in our lives is a renewed relationship with God and the restoration of peace and balance in our lives.
The Good News is that simple. We needn’t make it complicated with the unbiblical methods of supposed “evangelism” we invented in the 19th and 20th centuries. We don’t make disciples in the same manner that we sell cars. The Good News is sufficiently capable of producing disciples on its own and without our enhancement. All we have to do is tell it.
Dr. Luke records in Acts chapter 2 that Peter told this simple story to thousands of religious Jews amazed by the power of the Holy Spirit. The result was phenominal. Two thousand people asked, “What must we do?”
Peter replied, “Change your manner of thinking and living (i.e., repent), and be initiated into the kingdom of God through baptism.” There were no booklets, no altar calls, and no canned “sinner’s prayers.” They didn’t even sing “Just As I Am.” The people just came to be baptized into a new life in the kingdom of God. They became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Telling the Good News is not as complicated as we have made it out to be. It doesn’t take a “trained professional” whom we “pay to do that” It merely takes our faithfulness to tell the story. Now that is good news!
But what exactly is the Good News? It is the story of God’ loving interaction with mankind. Eddie Fox and George Morris have developed an effective system for witnessing in a postmodern day with Faith Sharing. They offer practical guidance for both message and method for witness.
For one thing, we need to work our our thumbnail sketch of the Good News that can be related quickly and clearly in a brief encounter. Here is a brief synopsis:
God created us in his image to have a relationship with him. He designed us with the spiritual capacity to know him and love him and serve him.
We rebelled against God through disobedience and corrupted our ability to relate to him. That caused us to pursue beliefs and lifestyles that grieve God and bring harm and imbalance to God’s creation.
God initiated restoration of our severed relationship and damaged creation through a covenant with Abraham and his descendants, the Hebrews. Eventually God expressed himself in human form through Jesus Christ. Jesus prevailed where we failed and assumed the guilt of our rebellion by his death on the cross. Jesus’ death, burial, and resurrection completely restored our ability to relate to God.
The Holy Spirit brings grace from God to draw us into restored relationship by showing us our need and facilitating our entry into the kingdom through faith. The result of the Spirit’s continuing work in our lives is a renewed relationship with God and the restoration of peace and balance in our lives.
The Good News is that simple. We needn’t make it complicated with the unbiblical methods of supposed “evangelism” we invented in the 19th and 20th centuries. We don’t make disciples in the same manner that we sell cars. The Good News is sufficiently capable of producing disciples on its own and without our enhancement. All we have to do is tell it.
Dr. Luke records in Acts chapter 2 that Peter told this simple story to thousands of religious Jews amazed by the power of the Holy Spirit. The result was phenominal. Two thousand people asked, “What must we do?”
Peter replied, “Change your manner of thinking and living (i.e., repent), and be initiated into the kingdom of God through baptism.” There were no booklets, no altar calls, and no canned “sinner’s prayers.” They didn’t even sing “Just As I Am.” The people just came to be baptized into a new life in the kingdom of God. They became disciples of the Lord Jesus Christ.
Telling the Good News is not as complicated as we have made it out to be. It doesn’t take a “trained professional” whom we “pay to do that” It merely takes our faithfulness to tell the story. Now that is good news!
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