For the body does not consist of one member but of many. (1 Corinthians 12)
From time to time I will find myself in the local Giant Eagle where I buy groceries. And when I'm there I notice the people. There are different things that I think about as I walk the aisles. Sometimes I look at a woman and wonder whether her husband loves her. I look at someone else and I see the signs of a life that is not going well, and I wonder how that life will turn out. And lots of times I look at the people and tell myself that every single one of them will end up either in heaven or in hell. It all depends on whether they are disciples of Jesus.
In the days of my youth the next statement from a pastor would have to do with the need to evangelize the lost and, more often than not, there would be some sort of guilt-based response on the part of those listening. I don't want to do that. Anything done merely to assuage a guilty conscience - and especially if it's a matter of false guilt - is hardly a good work that honors Jesus. It is a fact, though, that there are many who need to hear about Jesus. There are many who need to become his disciples. But the way to proceed is not to press all the saints to evangelize door to door - or whatever the contemporary alternative is. The way to proceed is to be the Church. What each of us needs to do is exactly what Jesus has called each of us to do. And that will be different for each one of us. There are, to be sure, some who are gifted in communicating the Gospel to today's lost souls. And they should do exactly that. But the rest are gifted in other ways. So, these others should do what Jesus has called - and gifted - them to do. It is as we each fulfill our respective callings, or to say that differently, as we together act like the Body of Christ, the Church, that the Gospel will spread.
If Jesus wanted us all to devote ourselves exclusively to personal evangelism he would have given all of us special gifts in that area. (How monolithic - and boring!) But he didn't. Some of us are eyes and others of us are ears. Some of us are up front and visible to all, and others of us do our work quietly in the background almost completely unnoticed. Let's be who we are so that, among other reasons, the lost would hear - and see - the Gospel. Let's be the Church so that many would come to Jesus.