Day 21 – March 15, 2010
Evangelize the Evangelist
“Our supreme task will be to ‘Evangelize the Evangelist.’ We must give ourselves to evangelizing
the membership of the local church. Our church members need an experience of Christ until they
have a concern for every un-churched person in the community. Evangelism must not be a special
effort in the local church, but it must become the main business of each church member.”
(Prophetic Evangelist: The Living Legacy of Harry Denman, 1993)
All it would take to evangelize the world in a generation would be to awaken the Church of the Twentyfirst
Century to the mindset of the First Century Church. In those beginning days, the followers of the
Lord understood the concept of telling the story. They recognized that the mission belonged to each of
them. They were not specialized or secularized. They had not mastered the fine art of hiring someone to
do their witnessing for them.
We need to regain our passion. We need to hear the call again. It is not the call to ordained ministry that
most effectively moves the Church forward, though we recognize that call as beautiful and essential. The
call we need to hear again is the individual believer’s call to be filled with the Spirit of God to the extent
that witnessing becomes natural.
Acts 1:8 does not say that when the Holy Spirit comes upon us we will be given power to witness. It says
that we will be given power and that we will be witnesses. There is a subtle difference there, but it is a
vital one. Witnessing is not what we do. A witness is who we become. It is not a job, a task or a hobby. It
is personal transformation.
Imagine how the world would change if every believer engaged all the resources at their disposal to the
communication of the Gospel. If we moved far beyond “giving so that others could go” to the use of
every computer, cell phone, page of print, and social venue legally available to us for the purpose of the
living out of the Gospel of Life. How long would it be before the last people group was reached?
Acts 1:8 (New Living Translation)
“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling
people about me everywhere – in Jerusalem, throughout Judea, in Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”
Submitted by: Rev. RuthAnne Henley
