What do you need in order to do evangelism? The ingredients aren’t many. You need the evangel, the good news of Jesus Christ. You need an evangelist, someone to herald that good news. And there’s one more thing: you need an audience—at least one person who hasn’t yet believed the gospel.
For many pastors, this last one is the hard part. In a week crammed with preaching preparation, meetings, counseling, administration, hospital visits, and late-night calls for help, not to mention caring for his own soul and family, how is a preacher to find time for sharing the good news with unbelievers?
In one sense, this is a good and necessary tension. When he answers a call to the pastorate, a minister kind of moves from the front line of evangelism back to the supply camp. No longer just a soldier in hand-to-hand combat, his priority now is to act like a general: his work involves strategizing, equipping, and delegating (see Eph. 4:12). The hope is that by training evangelists, teaching on evangelism, and proclaiming the gospel each week to the gathered church, the pastor’s evangelistic ministry multiplies rather than diminishes. This
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