Enabling Evangelists to Serve the Local Church
Coming Soon... a list of recommended books.
“The church that is not evangelizing is a church that does not truly believe the gospel. It is a faithless church.” – Wilbert R. Shenk
“In the context of the secularized, post-Christian West our witness will be credible only if it flows from a local, worshiping community. Newbigin suggests that the only hermeneutic of the gospel is a congregation of men and women who believe it and live by it.” – David J. Bosch
“The church’s mission is not secondary to its being; the church exists in being sent and in building up itself for its mission.” – Karl Barth
“The church exists by mission, just as fire exists by burning.” – Emil Brunner
“Evangelism in America… will be harder than most of us ever imagined.” – Gordon Scoville, Into the Vacuum: Being the Church in an age of Barbarism
Allan Walker, who has preached and observed in 74 countries concludes that “The Western world is now the toughest mission field on earth.”
J. Andrew Kirk, Dean of Selly Oaks colleges in Birmingham England states that “The Western World poses the greatest contemporary challenge to the church.”
“The mission strategy for each congregation must, increasingly, be shaped by the values, needs and style of its context. In Pluralistic cultures there are a wide variety of values which can change from neighbourhood to neighbourhood.” – Allen Roxburgh
“The locus for evangelism will have to be the Christian community – its life of worship and discipleship in the world. The church will have to be reconceived missiologically, for example, in terms of the Matthean ‘Great Commission’” – Wilbert Shenk, Write the Vision: the church renewed
“Our research shows that churches usually die from the inside out. Death is largely due to an inward focus, rather than an outward concern.” – George Barna
“In this critical time when churches are rapidly decreasing in numbers and influence, how should Christian communities respond? For many, the answer has been to change their worship style, but this is not enough, unless a congregation’s entire ethos is changed in the process. In fact, the opposite is often the case, for the new worship styles of many parishes focus inward on the individual instead of outward for the world’s sake. Then members and visitors only ask what worship means for them and what they get out of it.” – Marva Dawn
”…the way for the church to justify the claims of the gospel is by living the way of life to which the gospel calls us… In this understanding, the church commends the gospel by living according to the gospel, not by appealing to some ground outside the gospel.” – Jonathan R. Wilson
“In the Church’s mission of sacrificial service evangelism is primary. World evangelism requires the whole church to take the whole gospel to the whole world. The Church is at the very center of God’s cosmic purpose and is His appointed means of spreading the Gospel.” – Lausanne Covenant
The Equipping Evangelist (E²) Network
An E² Network is a gathering of people who have a passion for the lost and a longing for their church to become more effective in reaching them and desire to become better equipped to help their church maximize their evangelistic potential.
The purpose of the Network is to encourage one another, network around resources and ideas, synergize around evangelistic opportunities and to receive training from DVD’s that E² would provide.
Ideally, each person would have spoken to their church leadership and received their blessing so that they will have their support in introducing changes into the life of the church.
Click here to join the network
Read our latest articles:
Training Evangelists for a Post-Modern Canada
Evangelism Customized for the Canadian Experience
“Understanding Your Community: A Handbook” (a guide to researching a community)
PDF Version
MS Word Version
Links
The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada
EFC is a national association of evangelical Christians. It exists to bring Christians together for greater impact in mission, ministry and public witness.
Christianity.ca
Christianity.ca provides Christians with practical information, tools and scriptural perspectives needed to successfully tackle the challenges of being salt and light in the midst of legal, social, and cultural change.
Taylor College of Mission and Evangelism
Taylor College of Mission & Evangelism, located in Saint John, New Brunswick, is the national training centre for the Church Army in Canada.
Fellowship of Canadian Evangelists
FOCE’s mission is to promote and support the role of the itinerant and resident evangelist in the proclamation of the Gospel.
Our Goals:
- Evangelists excelling in their equipping mandate
- Local Churches embracing evangelists as equippers for witness
- Educational Institutions training evangelists to equip the local church
- Para-church evangelists working through local congregations
Our Core Values:
- Lost people matter to God
- God reconciles lost people only through Jesus Christ.
- The local church is the primary means for the ministry of reconciliation through every follower of Jesus.
- God appoints evangelists to equip the local church for witness.
- The evangelist needs to be affirmed and trained for excellence in their biblical role.
- The unity of the church is critical to the credibility of the Gospel witness.
- Excellence in witness, will be characterized by faith, creativity, and contextualization as the Holy Spirit leads.