• Paul_Washer_mean_spirit.mp3

• True Discipleship: The Gift Nobody Wants, part 1 (excerpt; 4:28)
• True Discipleship: The Gift Nobody Wants, part 1 (full message; 52:02)

Evangelism, according to the Bible, is going out to where the sinners are, preaching the cross of Christ (Law and grace; justice and forgiveness; wrath and love), and leading the lost to repentance toward God and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ. When that happens with two or three sinners, then those two or three new converts can gather together and… you got a church!

Todd Friel addressed this issue on his radio show yesterday (Monday, March 31, 2008). You can listen to the 2.5 minute clip here if you’d like. When I heard what he had to say, I remembered a couple of messages I preached at a church in the States a couple years ago. I was one of several invited speakers and the thrust of the conference was church planting in the region’s growing cities (amen! wonderful vision!). I spoke first on the Mission God gave us to seek and save the lost, and my second message was about calling men to repentance. The two-part series centered around these two foundational truths:

1. If we are not actively evangelizing (which is our Mission: “seek and save the lost”), then we will fill our churches by transfer growth. We’ll be the new church in the new suburb that attracts the “already churched” that are looking for a change of scenery.
2. If we are not actively calling men to repentance in our evangelism efforts, then we will fill our churches with false converts (lost people who think they are saved because they “prayed a prayer” or “accept Jesus”).

If you’d like to listen to those two messages, I’ll put the links below to the mp3s. I would like to say this, though, before you listen to them: Please do not mistake my passion for a “mean spirit.” I was sick the whole week of this conference and a bit out of sorts, so I wasn’t feeling well at all. Coupling that with a “passionate delivery,” and some have taken the passion with which I spoke as me being “mad and angry.” To the contrary, I am very excited about these concepts and am putting them into practice here at Eastside Church. Also, since the church that hosted the conference is where many friends of mine attend, you might hear “casual comments” or jokes that I’d not use in another context (one in particular comes to mind with a friend of mine from college who brought me some water and I said he’d make a good wife someday; it was a “jab in the arm” to a friend of mine, so please take it in context).

The important thing I think we need to understand is that we don’t see “church planting” in the Bible as a means of evangelism. Paul’s “missional model” of ministry was to evangelize first (open-air preaching, outreach in the Jewish synagogues, etc.) and then gather the new converts together for weekly preaching and teaching. Evangelism was first and that resulted in a new church. Paul didn’t hang out a shingle and say, “We’re here! Y’all come!” He did the “heavy lifting” of “cold-contact” evangelism first (and continually), and then started a church with the new converts God gave him.

This is the five-step Pauline pattern that we are trying to following here (and will develop more in the next year as we make plans to start a new church):

1. Evangelize (go out to where the lost are and speak to them about Jesus Christ, heaven, hell, repentance, etc.).
2. Start a church with the new converts God gives.
3. Disciple them (establish them in the faith and train them for the Mission).
4. Develop local leadership.
5. Missions: Go and do the same in another “key city” (leaving the previous work in the capable hands of the committed leaders that were developed during the process of biblical discipleship in the local church).

Church planting is not evangelism. It should be the natural result of evangelism so that the new believers can experience fellowship, encouragement, discipleship, the preaching and teaching of God’s Word, etc. Without a clear focus on evangelism, we’ll simply fill our churches by “transfer growth,” and the lost will never be reached.

1. First message: Radical Zeal for the Mission
2. Second message: Calling Men to Repentance

~Greg