Personal Evangelism
The need of personal evangelism in the church has never been more in evidence than now. The entire program of many congregations fail because of the lack of help from all the members. It is not enough for a few to work and many to be idle. Some of us feel that our giving of our means relieves us of further obligations since the elders can use that money to send to some church and let them take care of our preaching for us. Nothing could be further from the Truth. The effectiveness of any congregation can be measured largely by its personal work program.
All can work in some capacity! Every member of the Lord's church can do some form of personal evangelism. It is up to the elders to know the talents of each and to assign duties accordingly. It is a grave error not to use the talents of every member of the congregation. An effective eldership will not overlook this part of the work.
Effective work will be done only when we realize the value of the soul! The value of the soul of man must be realized in our hearts before we will be as aggressive as the Lord wants us to be. "What is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul." (Matt. 16:26). We work the hardest to save the most valuable thing in a moment of emergency. The soul of man is the most valued possession of God. Men must not be unconcerned about the salvation of others. Our soul is of such value to God that he "gave his only begotten son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have eternal life."
Personal evangelism is the duty of every Christian! It is the duty of every child of God to "Go into all the world". Our world may be small but we all have our areas of influence and we are commanded to do everything that is in our power to teach them the Word of the Lord. We can be effective in our own families, friends and those that we come in contact with from day to day. We are wrong when we think the work must all be done by the preacher or the elders. God is going to hold all of us accountable some day and we need to realize that and not try to pass the responsibility to some other member of the church. No one can do our work for us.
Personal evangelism must be practiced in order to be like Christ! "It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord" . . . .(Matt. 10:25). Christ practiced teaching in a personal way in his ministry and we see the effects of his methods clearly by a study of the Word. He went about doing good everywhere. If we would be a follower of the Christ certainly we must realize our need to work in the program of the church.
Personal evangelism should be practiced to express our thanks to God. If we are the kind of Christians that we ought to be then we will want to help someone come to Christ. The blessings that we have received in Christ will thrill us to the point that we will want others to know him. True Christianity will lead us to a life of service. The more we give the more we will receive from the Lord.
Personal evangelism must be practiced in order to be like the primitive church! When the church was scattered abroad because of persecution, they went everywhere preaching the gospel. They did their duty. They knew what the Lord expected of them. If we claim to be the New Testament church then we need to act like one. The saints at Jerusalem wanted others to share in their blessings.
Personal evangelism is the best way to spread the gospel! If Christians would follow the examples in the Bible then we would see the church grow as in the days of inspiration. Some think we need modern methods of operating but the methods used by Christ and his followers are still the best. What we need to do is to get out and get busy in the work God assigned us to do and stop trying to tail along in the footsteps of the sects of the day. Most of the trouble in the brotherhood today comes from taking advise from the denominations and being copycats. We just can't stand to see them get a bigger building or cover more territory with radio and television so we must let them know that we have arrived. We need to get down to the business of working in the kingdom of God and stop trying to be show offs to impress the world. If every member of the Lord's church would study the Bible and get busy doing what it says we would see the church grow as in New Testament days.
Personal evangelism must be engaged in by all for self preservation! Christ said, "Every branch in me that beareth not fruit he taketh away" . . . (John 15:2) If we will not work then certainly we are not bearing fruit. To use our talents to the glory of God and to the spreading of the Word is bearing fruit. To fail to use our abilities will,' mean that we will be cut off and will perish. Let's work hard in the kingdom of God in order to save our souls and the souls of those that we love.