Being the Church: Evangelism

A couple of weeks back I wrote about the Church doing evangelism. I wrote that if we do this Church thing right then people are going to come to us asking about how we live as Christians. That's when we will have an opportunity to tell them about the Gospel of Jesus. What I didn't write about was what we would tell them when they come. That's what I'll be writing about for the next while. Let me touch on one aspect of that now.

We can no longer tell people that they have a problem with God. 'God? Which god are you talking about? Do we know, can we know, that there is a god out there, or maybe even in here?' As one person has said, it used to be that the god that atheists didn't believe in was the Christian God. That is no longer the case. We cannot assume that people will know who we are talking about when we refer to 'God'. Even if they have had some exposure to things Christian, people will most likely have, at best, some very muddled notions about who we are talking about. So, if we are going to be able to explain the Gospel clearly enough for people to understand and then to believe, we are going to have to be sure that we are clear about this God whom we are talking about. Understanding some things about Him is the foundation for the rest of what we have to tell them.

Being clear about who our God is starts with this. He is the Creator. The point here isn't about creation versus evolution. Rather, the point is that the God of the Bible, the God we Christians worship, has created that person to whom you are speaking. This explains something very important about whomever it is you are talking to, something that needs to be clear in our day. The person with whom you are speaking is not some independant entity accountable only to himself. He is a creature. He has been made by his Creator and that for a particular purpose. As a result, he will be held accountable for what he does with the life that has been granted to him. One day, the one who created him will evaluate his life according to His own standards. And this evaluation will result in either a passing grade or a failing one. There is no other alternative. 

This may not be the first thing that you discuss with someone, but it needs to be dealt with at some point. Understanding that the God we worship is Creator, and all that flows from that, is foundational. If this isn't clearly grasped by the person then he will not be able to understand the rest of the Gospel accurately.