Evangelize Now!!!

Go in to all the world and preach the Gospel to all creation Mark 16:15
Foreword:
Few months back I happened to listen to a sermon on the need of Evangelism by
Evangelist. Reinhard Bonnke, he spoke on the urgency in which we need to share the gospel. He
said when Jesus commanded the disciples to go in to the entire world and preach the Gospel; His
go must have been filled with intensity and urgency as in Goooooooooooooooo Fast. Yes,
its true many times we get the message but we dont get the emotions and intensity behind the
message. It should have been the kind of Go the doctor with oxygen pipe in his hand would
react to a patient gasping for breath. It does reflect the need of our times and Gods heart towards
the perishing. Its normal to wait and watch, but God expects a far better reaction from us to his
command to preach the Gospel. We are the doctors having the oxygen pipe called the Gospel,
which gives the ailing patient in the form of the lost multitude without the truth in the world a
life in abundance through Jesus Christ. I hope this small piece of article Evangelize Now will
help us grasp this urgent need as we engage with this world in sharing the Good News.
We are living in challenging times; people are confused and looking for truth in
wrong places. Its a time when people are not ready to listen; their hearts are becoming ever
restless. Its the time when people think they know it all and believe they have control over
everything in their lives. Its understandable that all these technological advancements with the
vast amount of data and information being circulated like never before in the history of humanity
makes them think like that, but still you can see the vacuum in their hearts and emptiness in their
thoughts, a sense of nothingness calmly prevails within. Its true what Pascal said There is a
God shaped vacuum in everyone that God alone can fill. I would like to rephrase it on these
same lines There is a need in everyone, which Jesus alone can fulfill. I truly believe that when
we see more hopelessness around, there is more opportunity to speak hope through Jesus, when
more hate is around; the more opportunity to show the love of Jesus, and when more lies are

around, then we got more opportunity to share truth of Jesus with them. Think about the
numerous opportunities that we have missed to preach the Gospel to those in need of it as
individuals and as a church. Yes its true that many times we have played this wait and watch
game , we sometimes bypassed the opportunities to reach out to someone with the message like
those people who bypassed the wounded man like well, thats not my Job in the parable of
Good Samaritan. I want to clarify that there is no greater work that God has placed in his
followers hand than the work of taking the Gospel to the world. Its our duty and ours alone!!!
(A)Fundamentals of Evangelism:
Evangelism cannot be effective without these fundamentals. These are like foundations
which make the building of Evangelism strong.

1. Witnessing:
There is no responsibility greater that God has placed in the hands of His
children than being a good witness for him. Our lives can make so much impact than our talk.
Evangelism can never be credible if our lives are totally opposite to the principles of our faith.
Jesus did put this as priority when emphasized on fruits. He also asked us to be witnesses to the
world (Acts 1:8). Christian faith lived out in its purest form is so powerful that transformation is
never an option but a condition. It can transform societies as it addresses the core evils that bring
chaos in our societies, it even places a powerful threat to the centres of power, no wonder why
throughout the centuries Christian faith is persecuted, because it always challenged the wrong
powers, but the truth is nothing would be possible if Gospel is not lived out, when we dont live
the lives Christ wants us to live. Apostle Paul commends his beloved disciple to live a life of
good witness in 1 Timothy 4:12, before he asks him to do the work of an Evangelist in 2
Timothy 4:5. The church of Christ should be able to show the relevance of Christ through its
witness. Yes, someone said that we are the fifth Gospel, absolutely!!
2. Prayer:
There is no greater agenda that God has placed in our hands than the agenda of
prayer. Alfred Tennyson quoted More things are wrought by prayer than this world dreams of,
how true it is!! There is nothing greater achieved for God unless through prayer. Someone said
this Its good to look at the world with wet eyes than dry eyes. Evangelism becomes effective
and fruitful when we stay in our knees with burden and cry out for those who are perishing. God
would surely heal when we pray ( 2 Chronicles 7:14). Apostle Paul sought prayer from his
brethren when he ventured out for Evangelism. Its very important that our efforts of evangelism
are wrapped in prayer.

(B) Approaches to Evangelism:

There is a no perfect methodology for effective Evangelism, its always good
to depend on the Holy spirit for our methods, but there are certain ways in which we can
approach the effort of Evangelism.
1. Jesus needs the world and the world needs Jesus:
Evangelism effectively begins with the belief that Jesus needs the world and the world
needs Jesus. Our God is a dependent God, not that he has to depend on us to accomplish things,
but he chose to, because from the beginning, since he made mankind he sincerely partnered with
us, even in our sin and death, So that we might partner with him in his holiness and resurrected
life. How cool is that to know that we are not alone on this. I would strongly say that, its a
fundamental right for every human being to have heard the Gospel of Jesus Christ at least once
in his or her lifetime. Bible has got numerous incidents where we can draw our inspiration for
our mission of Evangelism. The fascinating incident found in Mark chapter 2 is a classic
example for a good evangelistic effort.
2. Faith-Identify the Need:
Evangelism is bringing people to Jesus and taking Jesus to people. Mark narrates the
incident with these four guys carrying this paralyzed man to Jesus (Mark 2:3). I would like to
imagine that they were on the way to meet Jesus and found this man in need, they believed
something would change in his life if he had chance to meet Jesus. Many people on the way may
have noticed his need, but may be many passed by doubting that whether Jesus can do something
about his condition. Its good to see that these people were on the way to see Jesus and yes they
believed that Jesus could heal him or in other likely case they must be his friends who brought
him to Jesus knowing his need. Evangelism can never begin unless we first believe that Jesus can
give an answer to the problems in the world and the problems that people are facing, either
directly or indirectly. If there is no belief that Jesus can meet their need, evangelism can never
start. As I quoted earlier that every person has a need, which Jesus alone can fulfill. Evangelism
works on this foundation of identifying the needy people around us, thats what you call
Vision and bringing them to Jesus in faith that he can truly change. In those four, its the faith
in Jesus that made them work for it, yes they carried him and that became their mission!!
3. Face the challenges with alternatives:
Now they are at the place where Jesus was preaching, it was a house and there were lots
of people that they couldnt go inside. They were willing to take that paralyzed man inside but
they faced a challenge, the challenge is the enormous crowd in the house (Mark 2:4). Evangelism
is never done without a challenge. The challenges can be within or from the outside. Inside
challenges can be unavailability of resources; lack of faith, feeling unmotivated, not enough
support etc, and the outside challenges includes communication or language, opposition, cultural,

social and other practical problems which seriously damage the progress. These four found a
way to make the man to meet Jesus; they took the roof to drop him down with rope to Jesus.
Thats what I call alternatives. Evangelism works the best if we have a plan B to counter
these challenges, it shows that we have not given up on our mission seeing those challenges. I
remember reading that missionaries had sent gospel literatures packed in plastic bags dropped it
in the ocean so that it can reach the unreached people living on the other side, since there is no
other way to reach them, thats what you call working through a challenge. Challenges could be
different, but there are always alternatives, let us not stick to a single methodology, at one point
it makes us to give up. For example; the questions we would ask to ourselves as part of this
process would be. How can I reach these kids? How can we sound convincing to this youth?
What is the culture of this people group? What should I do if we face opposition? In what way I
can do my best to go beyond the challenge to reach them? The four certainly would have thought
and planned how to make the man meet with Jesus, but they had alternatives too!!
4. Work as a TEAM:
Not only the ways, its important also to find people with same passion, in other words a
TEAM. Gods work is always teamwork. Evangelism needs support. Jesus sent the disciples in
two when he sent them to Evangelize. Jesus himself picked his team before his work, and Paul
too had Barnabas, Silas and a team around him when he evangelized. Team is important. The
paralyzed man was carried by four people to Jesus (Mark 2:3). It explains to us a few lessons we
need to know before we evangelize. What if the man was blind, one person was enough to lead
him, maybe we will find opportunities where we evangelize one on one in person, but its
important to understand that God gives people according to the need, may be one man found this
guy and he asked the other three to help!! Evangelism is good anyway, but a network and team is
more effective. Pray, go and find your team. These four also signify the church, Evangelism can
be done through the local church which can be your team, this gives you support to function in
an effective way. A team also can represent the needed prayer support, financial support,
resource support etc. Evangelism is certainly a team work.
5. Leave it to God:
The effort of the four was astonishing, even to Jesus. Its important to notice that the
paralyzed man not only got a physical healing in the end (Mark 2:12), but even his sins were
forgiven by Jesus (Mark 2:5). We never know what God can do in others life, maybe we bring
them to Jesus for a certain need but God can touch that person in many different ways. I know an
old lady from one of the village churches I visit, she is from a different faith, she started coming
to church for healing in her eyes as doctors couldnt do anything about it. We started praying, but
we didnt see much of a change, we thought she might stop coming to church as she didnt
receive any miracle, but to our surprise she regularly comes to church and its been more than a
year now. We believed that she got much bigger miracle in her life, which is Jesus in her life.
Thats how God can work, our job is to introduce Jesus and pray for them and leave the rest to

God to act in his own way in their lives. Remember there are two needs an immediate need and
an ultimate need. Most of the times people come for their immediate need like physical healing,
financial problems, emotional issues, and we need to be very sensitive to their immediate needs
and care for them and pray for their need. God can work through them to find the ultimate need
that is salvation. Evangelism is not about changing everyone, its more about reaching
everyone with the Gospel. Faithfully we can leave that to God, Let him work in his own way in
their lives.
6. Do it with Love!!
The central message of the Gospel is the Love of God John 3:16, even if we
have all the right noises but if we dont do evangelism with love there is no effect. Even Paul
asks us to preach the truth in Love (Ephesians 4:15). In a world torn with hatred, if our message
doesnt come out with love for the suffering mankind, its never going to heal the hurt. Its also
important to present the Gospel in a manner which they can understand, it will give the hearer a
sense of value and they may feel loved. Remember Jesus spoke in parables, in a way ordinary
people can understand. Never ever compromise the love factor in our urgency to share!!
(C) Types of Evangelism:
Gospel can be shared in many different ways, there are different types of
Evangelism, we can do which works best for us. Personal evangelism, Group Evangelism, Mass
Evangelism, Media Evangelism, care evangelism, Sports Evangelism, Evangelism through arts,
and web evangelism to name a few. In this current century since web plays major roles in our
lives and people spend most of their time in the internet, there lies a great opportunity. We can
reach the people across the globe, even those places which are restricted and we cannot reach in
person. I was involved with a web evangelism team and we get replies from all across the globe
in response to our gospel articles. Let us not leave any opportunity available in any way to share
the Gospel.
End Note:
I just want to come back to where I left in the foreword, the need for urgency in sharing
the good news, because it is much easier for us to remain laid back. One of the greatest mission
quote of our generation is If not you, who? If not now, when? .We are now facing a great
resistance to the gospel across the world, lot of doors which were open for evangelism sometime
back is getting closed, may be if Im not exaggerating this could be the potential final surge
before everything gets closed at us, its not that God wont open new ways but its wise for us to
know the signs and times and act according to it (Matthew 16: 3), probably we are the Eleventh
hour workers found in (Matthew 20:10). If Apostle Paul 2000 years ago worked with such
urgency, how much more then we should now be motivated to share the gospel. Its time that we
make every opportunity available to us, in whatever way God calls each one of us, let us move
with that urgency in which Christ has put in us. Evangelism should be done like this is the last

day left to share the good news, like the last opportunity given to us to pull someone by the grace
of God to everlasting life. No wonder why the Bible insists in 2 Corinthians 6:2 Now is the day
of salvation. Yes this is the day the lord has made for us, to touch and transform those lives.
Truly, now is the time and day, to reach out, to evangelize. So, GO....fast, Evangelize
now!!!!

Moshe Dayan.K
22/11/2016