Evangelists

This week we are going to talk about the most unique of the Five-Fold People.
The Evangelist 
serves a very important job,
they expand and send out "tendrils"
of growth in the body.
They are the reproductive system,
they cause the body to increase.
They are the feet the go to new people and places.
And they are the ones who get the message out.

When we look at the hand,
and the middle finger.
You notice it is the finger that extends the furthest.
The Evangelist extends the reach of the body.
But the middle finger is also the one that is most apt to break,
or get sprained. 
This is the finger that needs the help and support of the others most.
It's the longest but also the weakest on its own.
And of course, the middle finger is offensive.

The word 
"Evangelist"
is a greek word
that has been "transliterated" into English.
“Angelos” in the greek
means messenger.
So an angel is a messenger first and foremost.
And angels are singular in purpose,
they just do the job they were directed to do
and nothing else.
Angels bring a message from God.
So we start with "messenger."
Then we add the prefix "Eu" to it.
That means "good."
So an evangelist is a good “newser,”
a person who brings a good message.
And of the five-fold ministries,
evangelists stand alone.
They bring good news.
They are called,
just like apostles and prophets,
but called to one job and one purpose.

And what is this good news?
Many people believe that most human beings are basically good,
and if you are bad you go to hell.
And the mean old God in the sky decides arbitrarily if some are good and some are bad,
so you better be good for goodness sake.
This is not the good news.

Every human being is born separated from God.
This the broken relationship.
And if you remain in that broken relationship
you will be die eternally separated from God,
regardless of your goodness or badness.
And that relationship can only be restored through faith in Jesus Christ.
It is about relationship with God,
not your behavior.
And so the evangelist is created and called
to get people into that relationship with God.
It is a vital part of the five-fold gifts.

The best model of the evangelist
is found in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian Eunuch.
Philip, in Acts 22 is described as "the evangelist."
Let's turn to Acts 8:26-end.

But an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Rise and go toward the south to the road that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” This is a desert road. And he rose and went. And behold, an Ethiopian, a eunuch, a minister of the Canda′ce the queen of the Ethiopians, in charge of all her treasure, had come to Jerusalem to worship and was returning; seated in his chariot, he was reading the prophet Isaiah. And the Spirit said to Philip, “Go up and join this chariot.” So Philip ran to him, and heard him reading Isaiah the prophet, and asked, “Do you understand what you are reading?” And he said, “How can I, unless someone guides me?” And he invited Philip to come up and sit with him. Now the passage of the scripture which he was reading was this:

“As a sheep led to the slaughter
or a lamb before its shearer is dumb,
so he opens not his mouth.
In his humiliation justice was denied him.
Who can describe his generation?
For his life is taken up from the earth.”
And the eunuch said to Philip, “About whom, pray, does the prophet say this, about himself or about someone else?” Then Philip opened his mouth, and beginning with this scripture he told him the good news of Jesus. And as they went along the road they came to some water, and the eunuch said, “See, here is water! What is to prevent my being baptized?” And he commanded the chariot to stop, and they both went down into the water, Philip and the eunuch, and he baptized him. And when they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord caught up Philip; and the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing. But Philip was found at Azo′tus, and passing on he preached the gospel to all the towns till he came to Caesare′a.
(RSVCE)

There are several distinct qualities 
displayed by Philip 
in this story,
that give us a window into how an evangelist is wired,
and how they operate.

1.  Philip is engaged with God in prayer and listening.
Several times in this account, God communicates with Philip
and then Philip does what God says.
He is directed by an angel.
He is told to join the chariot.
And he is led by the Holy Spirit to Caesarea.

A mature evangelist listens to God,
and then does what God tells them.  
So the mature Evangelist is just as deep as the Prophet or Apostle.
They go where the harvest is ripe,
and they go for it.

2. Philip engages with a stranger of a different class.
Evangelists tend to ignore protocols and customs,
and see an opportunity and seize it.
They will talk to anyone at any time,
if they see an opportunity.
To other people this will seem a bit rude,
but usually this will bear fruit.

When you hang out with an evangelist,
you often get sidetracked,
because they are constantly talking to strangers,
and they are often overstepping social norms.

3. Evangelists always carry the core of the gospel message:
Christ has died, Christ is Risen, Christ will come again.
It is always central and simple.
Often evangelists get accused of over-simplifying the gospel.
They don't see it that way,
Evangelists see the part they share as the essence.
You need to know that Jesus died for you,
you need to know that Jesus rose again,
and you need to know
that if you confess that Jesus is Lord,
and believe in your heart God raised him from the dead,
you will be saved.
They are committed to getting people into relationship with God.

4.  Evangelists go for the immediate response.
They “strike while the iron is hot.”
Evangelists believe it is their job to get someone to decide,
and so Philip baptizes the man immediately,
with no explanation or follow up.
This is why the evangelist needs to work in tandem with the other
five-fold ministries. 
They understand “go ye into all the world and preach the gospel,”
but they don't think about discipleship,
or the long term.
They think about getting the message out and getting it out fast and wide.
They are casting seeds.

5. Evangelists often function in the miraculous.
Signs, wonders, and miracles often follow the evangelist.
Evangelists are not afraid to pray with strangers on the street.
Evangelists see miracles in all sorts of forms,
and working wonders is part of how they operate.
They preach the gospel with demonstrations of power.
They also get words of knowledge,
and have a supernatural ability to be in the right place at the right time.

6. Evangelists often keep moving and preach to whomever they can.
Evangelists tend to be on the move, going to the next place where people have not heard the gospel.

Quite possibly one of the greatest evangelists in history 
was George Whitefield.
Right there in his name the fields were white unto harvest.
And he was one of the greatest preachers in history.
He and John Wesley started out together,
but one of the things about evangelists 
is their tendency to grate against
the apostle.
The Apostle wants to build something that lasts,
and establish a culture.
The Evangelist wants to get as many people into the kingdom as possible,
by any means possible,
and think all that culture building is unnecessary 
and slows the evangelism down.
And so Wesley and Whitefield clashed over many things.
Whitefield went to America
and was probably the most well known celebrity 
in the colonial period.
And Whitefield's influence on the culture of the church in America
is felt right up to the present day.

He could preach to 10,000 people and be heard clearly.
And he was often criticized for being too simple.
One time he preached a week of meetings at a church in New England.
The first night his title was,
"You must be born again!"
The second night his title was,
"You must be born again!"
the third night he preached,
"You must be born again!"
and the same on the fourth and fifth.
Before the last night,
the pastor and the elders pulled him aside
and said,
"Mr. Whitefield, we brought you here to preach a week of meetings,
and every night you preach the same sermon. Why are you doing this?"
And Whitefield replied:
"You must be born again!"
This is one of the core marks of an evangelist.
But it is also the weakness of the evangelist,
and why they must be brought into union with the 
apostle,
prophet,
pastor,
and teacher.
George Whitefield
left no legacy after his death,
other than anecdotes.
He didn't build any lasting community or structure.
And if you look at many of the lives of famous evangelists,
many people make decisions,
but the long term fruit is often slim.
At the end of his life Billy Graham had his
Evangelistic Association do a thorough review of the
success of his crusades.
They discovered that roughly 2% of those who made decisions
continued on into discipleship and long term Christian commitment.
At the end of his life Billy Graham regretfully stated that he 
wished he had prayed, studied, and listened to God more than he did.

And of course,
when you are in a church that overemphasizes 
the evangelist and evangelism,
the arts become nothing more than
"the ox that pulls the cart of evangelism."
Thanks to my friend Rick McKinniss for that.

And this leads us to another interesting thing about
evangelists
that I think makes them unique among the five-fold people.
Evangelists
believe that everyone else should be an evangelist too,
and that the role of the evangelist is the only one that matters.
These folks are programmed to tell people about Jesus
and see folks make a decision.
This their strength
and their weakness.
It is a strength
because this single focus gives them a tenacity and fearlessness
that nobody else has.
They are attack sheep.
And anytime they talk to anybody,
they find a way to make that conversation about the gospel.
They are wired to do evangelism.
This is their single focus.

Sometimes this is 
offensive and rude,
and annoying.
Another great evangelist was William Booth 
who founded the Salvation Army.
Right there,
Salvation
Army.
One focus, one purpose.
He was very offensive in his lifetime.
He took music hall songs and put Christian lyrics to them.
He went into really bad East London slums and preached outside brothels.
And he found that because he was among the poor and the needy,
he had to feed as well as preach.
But the feeding and caring for the poor
was part of the single focus: evangelism.
William Booth
was focused on making converts,
so the Salvation Army does not baptize or celebrate Holy Communion.

Sometimes evangelists
will become renegades,
and often will lead people to Christ,
but not lead them into discipleship.

I have many friends who are evangelists,
and I recently chatted with one,
and I told him he was an evangelist,
but I am not.
His immediate response was "well we all need to be evangelistic."
Well,
no we don't.
That’s like, as Paul said,
all the ears telling all the feet we all need to be ears.
We are a body.
But we do need evangelists, they are extremely important.
A body without evangelists is like a person who has been sterilized.
They cannot reproduce.
And reproduction is an essential part of life.
Anytime the church gets focused on
the apostolic,
or the prophetic
it becomes inward focused and moribund or weird.
When the church becomes too focused 
on the pastoral ministry
or teaching,
it becomes lazy and intellectual.
The point of the evangelist 
is to keep shaking things up.
The evangelist keeps birthing new babies,
and babies are messy
and life is disorganized.
New life is messy,
and good.
And although a family with a lot of kids 
is full of activity, dirty diapers, and noise,
it is also full of new life.

Our community tends to draw people who are apostolic or prophetic.
And that is wonderful.
As we get into the Five fold ministries,
you start to see that these various types of people
are meant to be working in relationship.
Just like a man is more of a man when 
a woman enters his life,
so the people in the five fold ministry
come into a clearer focus when they work together.
And there is tension.  
This is by design.
The Prophet needs to give direction,
insight and revelation.
The Apostle needs to keep establishing a solid
foundation
and has to make sure the essential elements of 
Kingdom Culture,
Baptism, Eucharist, and Discipleship are in place.
And the Evangelist has to keep pushing the boundaries,
and keep people from being too inward focused.

So today we ask that the Lord would send us some evangelists
who can share the message to the one million sanctified fearless
artists we need.