Layman And Evangelism Series

Sirhan Sirhan, the convicted slayer of senator Robert Kennedy, had

considerable opportunity to be saved. From the time when he was 12 years old he went to

Protestant, fundamental, evangelical Baptist Sunday Schools and churches in Pasadena. He was not

impressed with the Gospel, however, but was impressed rather with the indifference of Christians.

They were thoughtless, careless, irreverent, and clearly did not take their Christianity seriously. So

this Jordanian boy said to himself, "It can't be very important," and so he dropped out. History is

filled with notorious criminals, dictators, and kings of evil who once were youth in the church where

they could have been redeemed and molded for the glory of God. Some examples of this are Marx,

Hitler, and Mussolini.

In a very literal sense the church can be a curse to mankind by failing to do its task. When the

church is careless and indifferent to the task of evangelism, which includes bringing people, not just

to a decision for Christ, but to discipleship and loyalty to His church, it can do more harm than good.

Arthur C. Archibald in his book New Testament Evangelism writes, "In America, when 5 thousand

Southern Baptist churches, 4 thousand Southern Methodist churches, 3 thousand Northern

Methodist churches, 2 thousand Northern Baptist churches, 3 thousand Presbyterian churches, report

that in a whole year they did not have a single convert, is it not time for all leaders of Christiandom

to arouse and search for the cause of sterility?"

There is a problem, not just in the world, but in the church. All of the changes in the world

would not hinder the church if it was responding in obedience to Christ. Jesus is not so inadequate

that He cannot cope with the world's developments. The problem is that His people are not open to

receiving His wisdom and power. Some years back the Archbishop of Canterbury sent a letter to his

clergy suggesting that they meet him for a quiet day in London. One of them replied, "Your grace,

in my church we do not need a quiet day, but an earthquake."

Sometimes it takes an earthquake to get Christians broken loose from their rigid rut of

non-involvement. This is what happened to the early church. Chapter 8 of Acts begins with an

earthquake of persecution. It proved to be an example of, "Blessed are the persecuted," however.

For as verse 4 says, "They who were scattered went preaching the Word." The detail that is of great

interest here is that verse 1 says they were all scattered except the Apostles. Why they could stay

and not have to flee I am not sure, but the value of this was that the lay Christians had to be

witnesses. It was a matter of sink or swim, and they began to swim and spread the good news

wherever they went.

It is one of the most agreed upon factors in the world today among Christian leaders that layman

must get into the act of evangelism for the show to go on. The church dies whenever it fails to

stimulate an adequate birth rate through evangelism. Whenever the church gets leadership centered

it tends to become a mechanical institution rather than a vital living organism. The church is the

body of Christ, and not the machine of Christ. To put it plainly, a clergy centered church tends to

lose its evangelistic nature. In the early church every Christian was a witness, and they considered it

a duty to win others to Christ. The sheep gave birth to sheep, and no one expected the shepherds to

give birth to all the sheep. Men who have been successful in evangelism have had one common

factor, and that is a group of layman who were soul-winners.

Protestants are plagued with the idea which has carried over from the Catholic church where all

authority centers in one man, and all worship centers around the man at the altar. Salvation,

forgiveness, etc., all come from the ministry of the one man. The Reformation helped men to

recover the Priesthood of all believers, but most Protestants do not take it seriously. They still feel

that the professional pastor or evangelist is the key to evangelism. To be effective we must

decentralize our concept of the church and go back to the democratic view in which every member is

of equal standing before God, and has equal responsibility to be a soul-winner.

Leighton Ford, vice president and associate evangelist of the Billy Graham Evangelistic

Association, has written one of the best books on evangelism called The Christian Persuader. In it

he confirms what we have been saying, and he backs it up with facts. Here is one of his paragraphs:

"The Latin American Mission made a study of the fastest-growing movements in their field and