Evangelism is Loving Service
Eighteen months ago the Diocese of York bought a house for the newly appointed Diocesan Evangelist. On hearing this news a worried pensioner approached the local Vicar and said plaintively, “We don’t want an Evangelist living in our street.” She anticipated a sharp drop in the value of desirable residences resulting from my undesirable presence. This was the first signal that I had been saddled with a pretty weighty title.
Confirmation soon followed. Parties were easy in my previous existence as a College Chaplain/Lecturer. People are glad to talk about trends in education and student behaviour. But declare that you are an Evangelist and you have killed off another conversation — or emptied another room.
Perhaps that is why most Dioceses use blander titles for my kind of post. Missioner has a long track record; Bishop’s Advisor, or Secretary for Mission and Evangelism has a more modern ring. But despite living with this handicap I am glad that the Archbishop of York decided to go for the full-blooded Bible word.
For the most pressing task during the 1990s is to recapture for Christ those two vilified words: Evangelism and Evangelist. If we can do this we shall be well on the way to achieving the single most important aim of the Lambeth Fathers in calling for a Decade of Evangelism. In the excellent Lambeth report they make it clear that their major intention is not to produce a flurry of additional activity. No. They are more concerned with thinking than doing. THEY ARE LOOKING FOR A PROFOUND CHANGE OF ATTITUDE TOWARDS EVANGELISM WITHIN THE CHURCH.
For many regular worshippers evangelism is a “boo” word. It is a word of unwelcome aggravation. It signals insensitivity. It involves charging uninvited into the deep privacy of other people’s lives. It conjures up images of pushy, flashy men with broad forced smiles, straight white teeth and big black Bibles and I mean BIG. It triggers pictures of mouths without ears, emotions without reasons, confidence without questions, and religion with a price tag.
Positive
But it need not conjure up any of these things. For the word evangelism can keep other finer company. It could equally well remind us of the four most influential documents in the history of the world. For Matthew, Mark, Luke and John are rightly called Evangelists and their writings are rightly called Gospels.
Or the word evangelism could recall for us the great saints who brought Christianity to Britain. In doing so, they enriched the life of every subsequent generation, not only spiritually but culturally too. Without their efforts we should be infinitely poorer. So poor that we can only guess at what life would be like. No York Minster, far less stained glass, fewer beautifully illustrated manuscripts, not many great choral works, and possibly little science as we know it.
Coming up to date, the word evangelist could take us in imagination to the Nobel Prize ceremony. At least three recent winners of that noble prize have been evangelists. The great Soviet novelist Alexander Solzhenitsyn (the literature prize), South Africa’s Archbishop Desmond Tutu and Mother Teresa of Calcutta (the peace prize).
It is right to call them evangelists because the word evangel means gospel. And the word gospel means good news. And those three great souls are deeply concerned to spread the Gospel.
What is the good news that they want to share? It is nothing less than the message of Christmas and Holy Week and Easter all rolled into one glorious package. It adds up to this: God loves us with a deep and costly love.
Rightly understood, the gospel is about key concepts. Confidence and hope; clear sighted choices; joyful obedience; truth.
Confidence and Hope
Just before writing this article I listened to the news. A young child had fallen from a train and been killed, “Foul play not suspected”. One more tragic, fatal accident.
We live in a beautiful and exciting world. But it is an unpredictable, dangerous and sometimes terrifying world too. Tragic things happen to innocent people and we are forced to ask deep questions. Do we really find God and truth and meaning at the centre of our universe? Or does empty nothingness reign supreme?
The good news is that God, meaning and truth really are there at the centre of our world. The even better news is that they can be at the centre of our individual lives, too. The best news of all is that this is not wishful thinking.
It is based on evidence, on events, on widespread experience, and supremely, on a Person. On Jesus of Nazareth, whom Christians believe to be the Son of God; the Light and Saviour of the World.
The good news which we are called to share is summed up in these words from St. Luke’s Gospel:
“Do not be afraid. I bring you good news of great joy that will be for all the people. Today in the town a Saviour has been born to you: He is Christ the Lord. This shall be a sign to you …”
St. Luke 2:10–12
That sign, the Babe lying in a manger, is a sign to us as well. A sign of God’s love and determination. A sign that God has not left us to rot in our own pride and self-centredness. He has acted.
“For unto us a Child is born
Unto us a Son is given
And the government will be upon his shoulders
And He will be called Wonderful Counsellor,
Mighty God, Everlasting Father,
Prince of Peace.”Isaiah 9:6
Take these glorious truths deep into your imagination and you will never feel quite the same again, whatever life throws at you. For you will have that confidence and reassurance which comes from being loved, with a love that is sacrificial, practical and eternal.
Share these glorious truths with someone else in a sensitive and appropriate way and you will have performed a great act of love. For the great commission to preach the Gospel is one aspect of the great command to love other people as Jesus loves us.