Be Serious about Evangelism and Conversions.

“I need to tell you about Jesus, when do you want to do that?” I was late into my sixteenth year of life when Jeff asked me that question. He was fearless on the football field and in his faith and we were standing in the locker room after practice. It took me by surprise and yet there was something irresistible about the question to me. I had no idea what the effectual call of God was but I was caught up in it like a moth in a hurricane and couldn’t have escaped if I had wanted to. A little over a year later on June 17th the Holy Spirit poured warm water on my frozen soul and I came to life.

I still haven’t recovered from that moment. I live in an almost constant amazement that He saved me. To top off that mercy, I have seen Him do the same thing to hundreds of others. Watching the dead come to life and in several of these births being used by God as a tool to awaken a soul has created an insatiable desire to see more and more people come to know Jesus. My fourth hope for the Acts 29 network is that we would be serious about evangelism and praying for conversions.

“May the Spirit protect and guide us 
and may He draw many to Jesus 
in our churches and in all churches!”

I don’t just mean preaching sermons that are evangelistic, I hope for much, much more than that.

My hope is that:

  • Our pastors would model personal evangelism by sharing the gospel as boldly in their neighborhood as they do in their pulpit.
  • That we would long and yearn for salvations and would walk in a godly frustration when we don’t see them.
  • That we would believe in the sufficiency of the scriptures and in the power of the Spirit to open the eyes of the most hardened of people in our cities.
  • That we would train the men and women in our churches to see their neighbors, co-workers, and friends as an opportunity to love supremely by praying for and sharing the best news in the universe with them.
  • That we would love the work of God in salvation so much that it would lead us to the ends of the earth heralding the Gospel until all that will know, know.

In all of this I hope that we will keep our scriptural understanding of what salvation is, where it comes from and how it happens. In just a cursory reading of Christian history you’ll find that God-belittling, atonement-denying, concession-making, castrated Christianity has almost always come through the doorway of “evangelism.” May the Spirit protect and guide us and may He draw many to Jesus in our churches and in all churches!

Christ is All,

Matt Chandler

 


“Hope #1” : Plant Churches that Plant Churches
“Hope #2” : Be Known for Holiness and Humility
“Hope #3” : Become a Radically Diverse Crowd

Matt Chandler By Matt Chandler June 12, 2012
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