Archive: The Heart of Evangelism

By Edward L. Tullis

“I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people; to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior” (Luke 2:10-11, NRSV).

We hear much today of the need for “renewal” or “revitalization” of the church. This discussion usually centers around the numerical decline and decreasing financial support for the mission of the church. It is not a concern for United Methodists alone, but for nearly all of the so-called mainline churches.

Perhaps the most serious problem we face is that we deal largely with symptoms, and do not get to the profound spiritual crisis that confronts us as a church. As we seek to understand what the renewal of the church really means, we become increasingly polarized in our views.

Several years ago when the General Conference decided that evangelism should be one of the missional priorities of our church, I was serving as the president of the Division of Evangelism, Worship and Stewardship of the General Board of Discipleship. Harry Denman, life-long evangelism leader in United Methodism, sent me a telegram. It simply said: “Ed, don’t let the church spend a quadrennium defining evangelism.” I was not sure what he meant, but I soon found out. United Methodism has no consensus on what evangelism is, or what renewal really means.

Spiritual renewal will not come to United Methodism if we simply rearrange the furniture in the church. We will not be renewed by the friendly fellowship of a pale spiritual community which lacks the life-sustaining energy of the Holy Spirit. Our renewal will not even come from the advocates of “church growth.” Church membership growth is a legitimate function and must be a continuing concern; however, we cannot simply seek to find those who are as much like we are as possible, recruit them for membership, and expect the church to be changed.

At the expense of being misunderstood, I further contend that an agenda of benevolent activity will not in itself renew the church. It is critical that we feed the hungry, but while continuing to do that, a vital church must ask why these people are hungry. It can be dangerous to begin probing into the reasons we have so much hunger in an otherwise prosperous community, but such a quest is a part of evangelism. And evangelism is at the heart of a vital church.

Defining evangelism is not simple, but I would describe it as the faithful proclamation in word and deed of the saving power of God in Christ Jesus. It is God calling us to wholeness, then exhorting us to make known the good news of Jesus Christ to those inside, outside, and beyond the church. It is allowing this evangel (or truth) to shape the message and lifestyle of the church, its mission, and its very being.

I am aware of the inadequacy of such a definition, but it is one that arises out of 35 years as a local pastor, 12 years as a General Superintendent, followed by 8 years of again being an active part of a local church.

Evangelism is superbly illustrated in our text: “I am bringing you good news of great joy for all people; to you is born this day in the city of David, a Savior.”

Good News of Great Joy

In his Yale Lectures, Bishop Gerald Kennedy tells about an inquiry made of a Methodist bishop regarding a preacher in his area. “He is supernaturally dull,” said the bishop. ”No man could be as dull as he is without divine aid.”

How can this be, when the very nature of the gospel message calls for it to be proclaimed with a sense of excitement? The song of the angel at the first Christmas was not a dull, monotonous droning of a trivial word. It was headline stuff, blaring forth good news about one who offered a way that brought answers, and brought us in touch with the reality of God.

Much of the ineffectiveness of the church today lies in the fact that we dish out good advice, but do not proclaim good news.

The pastor during my high school days, George Traynor, was not a well educated man. Even a high school boy could point out numerous mistakes in his grammatical construction, but he impressed us as being one who had “good news” for us. At that young age I said to myself, “If Christ can do this for Brother George, he can do it for me.” And he did!

Newscope carried the word recently of the death of Walter Towner. That name probably meant little to most who read it, but for my generation, even the mention of that name had brought joy and excitement. In a dreary time of a continuing depression during the 1930s, Walter Towner influenced a dynamic youth movement in Methodism that produced two generations of strong leadership for our church. His sharp mind, his flashing smile, his vibrant personality called our youth to put “Christ above all.”

When dark days loomed around us, Christ spoke through Walter Towner with a commanding graciousness that changed the direction of life for many. That spirit never left him. During my days as resident bishop in Nashville he was on the Scarritt campus. Then well into his eighties, he was serving as curator of a museum. The great good news still so dominated his life that even students of that generation gravitated to him.

The gospel means good news. It is not a recitation of laws. It is not an announcement of a burden to be borne. It is the good news of a lifting of every encumbrance of life.

We are bearers of good tidings of great joy. This world hungers for good news. Let’s not go door-to-door peddling home remedies. Let’s stand on the street corners and in the pulpits of our daily relationships proclaiming God’s love illuminated in Jesus Christ—the real remedy for the grave illness of our time.

More Than Shouting Hallelujah

The gospel is a word of salvation centered in Jesus Christ, God’s Savior of—and for—the world. “To you is born a Savior.”

Recently I have been reading the sermons and speeches in the New Testament, giving special attention to the book of Acts and the Epistles. It is evident that one person dominates the life of the New Testament Church. The theme is one—”Jesus Christ is Lord.” It is clear that Jesus Christ is the unique Son of God, and that Jesus’ vicarious suffering and death on the cross is the means God used to redeem the world. The message is that faith in this crucified one, who is now our living Lord, is the means whereby we enter into God’s salvation.

The message is repeated over and over again:

“There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12).

“If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has gone, the new has come!” (II Corinthians 5:17).

“God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ. . . And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation” (II Corinthians 5:19).

We receive one over-all impression as we read these sermons and speeches: We cannot be tentative or ambivalent about Jesus.

I recognize that such statements as these are unacceptable to many, even in our UM Church. There is a growing universalism in our denomination which wants to leave an open door to the possibility of finding God apart from Jesus. Jesus is not seen as the unique Son of God, but is considered one of several persons who has revealed God to the human race.

One hindrance to developing a vital church is our mixed signals about what is essential in the Christian faith. The one absolutely essential doctrine which cannot be compromised is that Jesus Christ is the Son of the living God, and that we are justified before God through faith in him. This seems to me to be the main point of the Bible. To deny this role of Jesus, for me, takes the urgency out of our message and the edge off evangelism.

We have lost our power and effectiveness. But a return to certainty about Christ will give us a new sense of being a vital part of the family of God through Christ. We will say with Paul: “We are Christ’s ambassadors as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ’s behalf: Be reconciled to God” (II Corinthians 5:20).

We cannot afford to be indecisive about Jesus. It is through him that we gain our understanding of God. It may seem harsh and disconcerting making such statements in a pluralistic society. Is it not enough to declare “God is Love”? Without Jesus that word is a wishful thought, for it is through Jesus that we understand love as the redeeming purpose of God.

Jesus Christ is the indispensable disclosure of God. That seems to me to be the gospel, and we must declare this truth with certainity.

Christ is For All

Earliest Christianity was a genuinely Christo-centered faith. And the study of this faith makes it clear to me that God’s intention, wrought through Jesus Christ, was to extend salvation to humanity on a universal scale. The angelic message was that this good news of great joy was “for all people.”

It is at this point that outreach becomes mandatory to the community of faith. It is important that we communicate the authenticity of the gathered body. It is important that we teach God’s call to his church to be pure. But many of our pastors see themselves as chaplains to a membership of perhaps 350 people; they do not see themselves as a leader of 350 witnesses called to move out into the community in transforming ways. If I understand the New Testament, we are called as an authentic church to take seriously the making of disciples, in other words, outreach.

We often see the evangelistic outreach of the church as something someone else does—someone especially gifted for the task. Or we see it as the role of some other church down the street. It may be their ”thing,” not especially ours.

I am not so sure that many of us urgently feel that all people need to hear the message of Jesus Christ. We do not carry with us the same conviction expressed in I John 5:12: “He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.”

If God is to renew the church, and only God can, then we must allow the power of God in us to be expressed in faithful discipleship; and a sine quo non of discipleship is outreach. Only those churches which make disciples are alive; all others die.

We must not neglect any potential believers in our communities. There are so many and they are so varied. May I stress just one group that has been called by some “the no-longer Christians.” As we go through the seemingly unending process of what we call “cleaning the membership rolls,” we mark off hosts of people who were once an active, committed, and vital part of the Christian community. These “no-longer” Christians are often those who are uninspired, disillusioned, bored, and convinced that the local church is no longer pertinent and vital. I believe this is a large group—one that is “not far from the kingdom.”

If the church can give even the faintest sound of being alive, develop concerned outreach, and proclaim the truth, we may yet find our way back to the koinonia that once nourished and sustained us. This is a critical issue. Vital mission comes from a vital church that is being renewed in its inner life.  Our witness to the world, if it is to be effective, must spring from fervor within our own church.

A vibrant congregation of faithful disciples will be a seeking, finding, sharing, and growing fellowship. This is actually happening in some of our churches, and it can yet be a part of the life of your local fellowship.

The final word of the good news is resurrection. Resurrection for Jesus did not mean an escape from the earth and all its problems to another more pleasant realm. For him it was a victory that meant a return to power, in and through his church. Such resurrection power can yet give life to the work and witness of God’s church.

The testimony of the New Testament is that things went right when the disciples stayed in the presence of Jesus. The difficulties began when they wandered off and left his influence.

My prayer is that each of us will stay in the presence of our Lord until his resurrection power renews us, guiding us to once again become a Resurrection Society—an Easter People.

Edward L Tullis is a retired bishop of the United Methodist Church. As bishop, he served in the Columbia, South Carolina and the Nashville, Tennessee Areas. Reprinted by permission of Forward: An Evangelism Journal for the United Methodist Church, published by the Foundation for Evangelism, 366 Lakeshore Drive, P.O. Box 985, Lake Junaluska, NC 28745-0985.