May 29, 2025 • 52 mins
Recorded live at Elim Leaders Summit 2025, these sessions focus on one of the fivefold ministry gifts described in Ephesians 4: apostolic, prophetic, evangelistic, shepherding, and teaching. Together, they form the APEST framework—helping leaders understand their unique calling and how it contributes to the life and mission of the Church.
You’ll hear leaders reflect on how their APEST gifting shapes their leadership, ministry relationships, and team dynamics. These sessions are practical, honest, and full of insight—ideal for anyone seeking to grow in their primary and secondary ministry strengths.
Whether you're exploring your own APEST profile or leading others through theirs, these recordings are a great next step for deeper clarity, collaboration, and whole-body ministry.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good morning. Come on.
Should we try again? Good morning.
Thank you very much. I'm really excited to see so
many evangelists in the room. Come on, come on.
Look at that. If you there's some seats
further down, please just come and make yourself really
(00:22):
welcome. It's an exciting time to be an
evangelist in Elam, isn't it? Yeah, we're really great.
It's really great to see you today.
Keith is going to come and join me.
We're going to lead the session today.
So my name is Sarah. I am part of New Springs.
(00:42):
I'm part of ECI. Don't hold that against me.
We're all one, right? We're all one.
And I'm part of New Springs. I am also part of Elam's
evangelism team alongside Greenie.
Pray for me. But I'm also planting a church
up in Hartlepool right now, up in the North East by the sea,
(01:02):
which is quite nice. So we're just going to today
just spend some time chatting about evangelism, the role of an
evangelist. What does that look like within
local church context? We want this space to just be
really relaxed, to be conversational, to have some
discussion, and just an opennessto really explore together what
it really means to be any evangelist because I really feel
(01:26):
the role of evangelist is, is sobroad, right?
There's such a broad brush stroke, but there are some
beautiful details in it. So we're going to spend some
time doing that. But before we do that, I wonder
if we could just pray. Jesus, we just want to invite
you into this room and into our conversation.
Father, I thank you for the grace that you pour upon us.
(01:49):
Jesus, help us to have our hearts open and our ears and our
eyes open. Go to the things that you want
to speak to us about today. During this time, I pray to God
that we would leave here feelingencouraged.
God, Lord, that we would see youin all of the detail.
Holy Spirit, come and have your way.
We pray in your precious name, Amen.
(02:14):
Good morning, guys. It is morning, right?
Yeah. OK, here you go.
Yeah. So for those of you that don't
know me, my name is Keith Bandara.
There you go. Keith Bandara and I, well, a
pastor, a church now called Cityof Lights in an area called
(02:36):
Bushy. Is anyone aware of the area?
Bushy. Yeah.
OK, yeah, I was going to be all right, to be honest, to do this
session until Gary Gibbs walked in.
Gary Gibbs used to be also my boss when I planted the church,
would check on me, make sure everything's done properly.
So I'm a bit nervous. He saw me doing it and he came
(03:00):
straight to me. Right.
But yeah, let's get on with thissession because the way that
it's done is that there's 15 minutes of this.
So it would just be a quick conversation.
And then Sarah will come on and just say something from a
practical point of view. And then there'll be some
questions that you can discuss among yourselves and then a time
(03:21):
for questions and answers. We are not pros, right?
So this is just a session where we're just kind of discussing,
discussing this grace and kind of looking at what being an
evangelist is. So I just want to write, start
off by reading Ephesians chapter4, because that's where it's
from. And if you got your Bibles or
(03:43):
your phones, you can get it out and I'll read it.
Read it out. It says, I therefore a prisoner
for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the
calling to which you have been called, with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in
love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond
(04:04):
of peace. There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belong to
your core. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
all, who is over all, through all and in all.
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure
of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when He
(04:27):
ascended on high, He led host ofcaptives, and he gave gifts to
men in saying He ascended. What does it mean but that He
had also descended into the lower regions of the earth?
He was descended is the one who also ascended far above all the
heavens, that He might fulfill all things.
(04:47):
And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the
shepherd and teachers to equip the Saints for the work of the
ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all
attain to the unity of faith andof the knowledge image of the
Son of God. To mature manhood to the measure
(05:09):
of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by
the ways and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human
cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Amen. Amen.
Father speak to us and give us wisdom in this time in Jesus
(05:31):
name. So this is where, you know, the
team has been working on lookingat different graces.
So one of the things that I wantus to be aware of and you guys
are evangelists. You know, evangelist was a term
that was used at the time of Greeks.
They use it and it kind of meansbringer of good news, right?
(05:53):
That's what we are. We're a bringer of good news.
So back in the day when they go out to war and they'll come back
into the city, usually the evangelists are the ones that
would come into the city, say, yeah, we got the victory.
Yes, we won, you know, yes, we've, we've caught the captives
and and we won the victory and we took on the territory.
And that's who we are in the spirit.
(06:14):
We, we, we take the good news and we take it to the people who
need to hear the good news. And the captives are set free,
right? And we see that it happening in
the life of Jesus. We see an example of it in the
life of Philip the evangelist inActs chapter 221, verse 8,
preached in Samaria, baptized the Ethiopian unit.
(06:37):
And also we see Paul's instruction to Timothy, it says
do the work of an evangelist. I believe that every single one,
whether you're an apostle, prophet, teacher or a or a
pastor, a shepherd or, or a pastor, you have to do the work
of an evangelist. You guys just have an extra
(06:59):
portion of that grace, right? That's what it is.
OK. And, and it might work out in
all different ways, like, like, I think and you know this,
there's different ways to evangelize, as you know, right?
Some of you are friendship evangelists, like you just want
to be friends with people and then bring them to Christ.
(07:20):
Some of you are the ones that will stand at the roadside
corner and said, come to the Lord, you need to repent.
And I think that's a great way of doing it.
Some of you are the ones that are 1 to one.
You'll see someone and the Lord speaks to you.
You, you operate with the prophetic and then the Lord
gives you an impression and thenyou go out and you, you say,
(07:41):
yeah, I saw you and you got thisgoing on and you use the gifts
that God has given you and that grace kind of flows through.
But but one of the things that Iwant us to be aware of that
these gifts, these graces that Jesus gave us, because there's
gifts of the Spirit, but these graces are given by Jesus.
The Bible says, he says that Jesus descended to the lower
(08:04):
parts. And then as he ascended, he
threw these gifts, these graces down to us for few purposes.
And we have to be mindful of that as evangelists, right?
Because as an evangelist we havea certain tendency.
Yeah. I think some of you are laughing
because I think you know, some of our tendencies and, and, and,
(08:26):
and what APES talks about is we call these the blind spots,
right? We call this the blind spots.
And I think every grace has someblind spots.
But evangelists can get quite annoying to a shepherd, right,
(08:48):
right. Because I know I've operated in
the grace of evangelists. But now that I'm a, I'm a, I'm
a, I'm a leader. Sometimes the evangelists can
get a little bit annoying. They're the blind spots, you
know, because they can become a bit rogue.
You know, they think is, is, is the, there's, there's a church
has to be outside the walls. But we clearly read in Ephesians
(09:12):
chapter 4 that all 5 graces mustwork together.
Why does it have to work together?
Because when they work together,let me go back.
When they work together, maturity matters.
Our role as evangelist is to understand, to bring the body of
(09:33):
Christ to maturity. That's what the that's what
Ephesians is talking about, is that the Lord gave us these
graces. The Lord gave you the grace of
an evangelist. Not to tell the pastoral for not
being going out or not to tell the apostle or fix up, not to
tell the prophet to be quiet, but to work together with all
the graces so that actually we can bring the body of Christ to
(09:59):
maturity. Because when we bring the body
of Christ to maturity, we bring them into unity.
Because division happens becauseof immaturity.
And sometimes when it happens with these graces, I think I'm
going a bit of script, but let me, let me, let me go back to my
(10:20):
notes. Yeah.
So when so when so when we understand this evangelist to
work with the shepherd, to work with the apostle, to work with
the the teacher and to work withwhat's the one I missed out the
(10:41):
prophet. We always want to miss them out,
don't we? But one of my highest ones
actually, the prophetic. So I understand right.
So, so we want to miss them out because our heart is to bring
the lost because that's the heart of Jesus.
In Luke Chapter 9, I came to seek that which was lost.
(11:05):
That's the heart of an evangelist.
And sometimes we, if we're not mindful as evangelists is be in
church and understand the loss that you're bringing in actually
is supposed to be in the church,to be discipled and shepherded
and to, to learn to hear the voice of God.
And so when that doesn't happen,maturity doesn't happen.
(11:27):
It doesn't like, like, you know,one of the things I said a few
weeks ago when we were doing some teaching is that that
church matters because that's where maturity happens.
But every church must have the fivefold ministry.
Every church, every church should have an an Apostolic
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grace, a teaching grace, a sharpening grace, an
evangelistic grace, and a prophetic grace so that this
maturity can happen, so that we have unity.
But in order for the maturity tohappen and for the unity to
happen, you must have this because in Ephesians chapter 1,
(12:09):
it says, it says you to walk in a manner worthy of his calling
to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness
and with patience, bearing with one another in love.
That's character. That's character.
(12:30):
And so, so if I'm going to talk about these graces is to
understand actually it's bigger than just your just just our
grace as an evangelist. But I think it's a fact.
Churches don't grow without evangelists.
You know, churches need the evangelists so that they can
bring them in, so that the Kingdom of God can be advanced.
(12:51):
So I want us to remember as evangelists that your character
matters. How you submit to the house
matters so that you can bring unity into the house.
Because all of this is working in verse 3, eager to maintain
the unity of the Spirit. Character matters.
(13:13):
Unity matters because the purpose of the body of Christ is
to be mature. We have to move away from
drinking milk to eating the meat.
And so all the five graces, including the evangelist, we're
feeding the church so that we can begin to move away from the
elementary teachings of Hebrews 6 that it mentioned into the
(13:33):
more, more teaching that God wants us to go into because
we're moving into maturity, right?
So I think I've got about 5 minutes left.
Yeah, there's no clock in there.So let's look at the the role of
evangelists. Evangelists invite people to
join God's mission. They call others to personally
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respond to God's redemption through Jesus.
They explain the gospel clearly to those who don't believe.
They remind Christians to keep sharing the gospel for others.
Now, this is very, you know, Christian jargon kind of
language, right? But evangelist is actually also
more than this because it might not directly be working out in
(14:22):
this way, because you might be able to.
You might be one of these, whichmeans you can move in the grace
of an evangelist. Like this list is from Alan
Hirsch's book on the APES. If you read it, it will give you
more than this. But if you're a recruiter and
apologist, most entrepreneurs are actually good evangelists.
(14:47):
You know a salesperson, if you're a sales, if you can sell
ATV, you can sell Jesus, right? So if you're in sales, you'll be
a good evangelist. If you're a good communicator,
media worker, storytellers, you know, influences on Instagram
and TikTok, that is another platform for evangelism.
(15:08):
So these are some marketplace giftings that you may have that
can actually complement your evangelistic grace.
So it's not just about you standing on a on a street corner
or on a platform or one to one in a house, which is all part of
it, but actually it can also be these things where you are
(15:31):
actually operating in that graceand you're moving into that
grace. That's from you can read.
I don't know if anyone's read that book you have.
You're right. So there's more more on that.
So, and I think is is a fantastic way to do that.
Let me finish with this. The blind spots.
(15:51):
These are evangelists blind spots.
And, you know, to be honest, I'drather know this more than the
ones that we are good at, you know, because this, this kind of
keeps it. We, we have to be mindful of how
we can be sometimes, you know, short term gain over long term
impact. I have an evangelist in my
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church and this is what I told him because it's all about short
term mistakes, decisions for discipleship, celebrity kind of
mentality and can get resentful or neglectful of those inside
the church. That's big.
And I think that's a place as evangelists we need to repent
(16:37):
because I think this is where the biggest battle has been
between the church and outside the church.
And I think as a movement is that maybe us as evangelists is
to re look at ourselves and see how we can work together in
unity to bring maturity to the church.
(16:57):
And so not everybody in your church is an evangelist, you
know, who might be, who might beable to do what you do.
They might do it in the way thatthey do it.
But we have to be mindful of that.
And so, yeah, just take a picture of it or or you know,
the question that I posed to is what are other shadows or blind
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spots of evangelists, you know, and think about those things.
We're going to have some if you come forward, Sarah.
And how does that practically kind of work out now?
Sarah? Just going to go through that
and yeah, for us. Thanks.
So I want to talk about like theliving room bit, really like how
(17:40):
do we do this? And what does that really look
like in the practical every day?But before we get into that, I
want us to think about the the tension and growth points of an
evangelist. So I don't know how many in this
room were surprised when evangelist came number one or
expected it or whatever. But so I, I spent a lot of time
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feeling like I didn't know whereI fitted right, because there's
nods in the room. Because especially when I
stepped into ministry, like I would go and do my ministry
foundation at Regents and I'd cry every time I was there
because I'd be like, I'm not a shepherd, like I'm not called to
be a pastor. How does this fit within local
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church? And what does that look like?
And how do I work that out? But then when the grace of the
evangelist was really highlighted to me by some
people, it really helped help meto understand it a bit more and
kind of navigate that. So I guess what I, my prayer is
that for those of you in the room who when this came up and
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evangelist was there and you might not be fully operating in
that grace, that actually this will help you to start creating
space to really think about whatdoes that mean for you and how
do you unpack that? I think for me, a real key with
this grace is to grow into it, right?
With all of our graces, whateverthey are, to grow into that.
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And we're not always called to fit either, right?
We're not going to fit in. And we've got this unique.
Mark spoke yesterday about this unique puzzle piece that we're
all really unique in what we bring and how we bring it.
And especially within those things, within evangelism, we've
got to learn to really allow Godto shape us and mold us and
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listen to him. So I might be an evangelist, but
actually the model that and the mold that I'm in might not look
the same as somebody else who's equally an evangelist, but
actually we complement each other.
And I might not be comfortable with doing something that like a
street evangelist is out there. That's my most uncomfortable
position. But I love to talk to people
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about Jesus. And when we think about this in
tune. Church context and local church
leadership actually is an evangelist, somebody who's
carrying that grace, learning towalk in it.
Our part of our job, part of ourrole is to help spot other
evangelists within our congregations and and help them
develop and move on and createspace for them and to help
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them come along and find their stance in where they are.
And actually they might be really great in their workplace
about talking to people about Jesus.
Brilliant. Let's encourage them in that.
Let's bring them along in that because the role of an
evangelist is so broad. Like the steps in it are from
like as long as you can imagine,I think, and everybody has a
(20:47):
role to play. And whilst it's everybody's
responsibility to share Jesus and to talk about him, as an
evangelist, you should be able to.
We can learn to see that in somebody else and bring them on
and train them and develop them and come alongside them.
So to grow in the grace of an evangelist.
(21:08):
When I kind of finally realized that's what God was calling me
into, I spent time with other evangelists.
I've got the great privilege of being a friend of Marilyn's and
also having her as my mentor, which has just been amazing.
And having other evangelists around me.
Reading loads of stuff about evangelists a past present, like
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reading some of the stuff about the great pioneers who have gone
before us, being encouraged by that, but also thinking about
what does that look like in local church.
A massive part of this is collaboration with the other
Graces and learning to be an evangelist within local church
context, helping to shape the vision and strategy for the
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church, as well as raising up and training others with an
evangelistic grace within the church.
So as part of church leadership,learning that actually the
graces work together and leaninginto that, pulling out of that,
being able to have an influence in that.
So I sit in our team meetings sometimes and my question is
(22:17):
like, how is sharing the gospel?And Keith, you're totally right.
The shepherds in the room hate me sometimes.
I'm just like, well, come on, how are we doing that?
How are we sharing the gospel? But being able to kind of bring
that influence in and challenge and have some of those
questions, but also being able to hear the perspective of the
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other people who carry the different graces within, within
that room, within that team meeting, within the strategy,
within. Thinking about what all of that
looks like, how the grace shows up in everyday aspects and life
of ministry, is that as an evangelist, somebody who carries
that grace, one of the gifts that you have within that is
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you're a great communicator. You're a great communicator.
Whether you believe that right now or not, you are turn to the
person next to you and say you're a great communicator.
You are, you're a great communicator.
All right, Just, it's just two words.
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Come on, it's a mistake asking the evangelist just to say a
couple of things, isn't it? So you're a great communicator,
but also you're a gatherer. You're a great gatherer of
people that actually you'll probably find that when there
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are visitors in your church or when something is happening,
you're somebody who just tends to naturally gravitate towards
those people and talk to them. Whether you're an extrovert or
an introvert or somewhere between the two, the grace of an
evangelist includes the ability to chat to people anywhere,
about anything. It doesn't matter.
(24:02):
I'm a real introvert. I'm a real introvert.
So being around lots of people, I just have to go away for a
little bit because they just exhaust me.
But actually, I know leader and evangelist and an introvert,
interesting combination. But actually what is what is
great about that is you can, youcan talk to anybody about
(24:22):
anything, right? And that's one of the great
things we've got. And as we bring people alongside
us, that's what they catch hold of.
We're there to help the church be outward looking, always
looking for opportunities to connect with community, whether
that's in schools, whether that's old people's home, local
neighborhood, local services, whatever that looks like.
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So a lot of what I do is planting, but I'm in a lot, I'm
in quite a lot of schools right now.
I'm just constantly looking for opportunities to get into places
to start bridging that that community arm between church and
into local community. What is happening instead of
waiting for everybody to come through our doors initially, you
(25:06):
know, whatever that might be. But actually, how do we bridge
that gap and take us out into community by still keeping it
linked with with church. Actually, I'm not a rogue
evangelist over here doing whatever I want to do, but I'm
pulling it into the vision of the local church because our
heart's desire is to grow Kingdom, see people come to know
him and go on with him, that people might be established,
(25:28):
right, Creating outlets within our local church for those with
an evangelistic edge. You know as well as I do there
are some rogue evangelists. Oh, yeah, within our church is
right. But actually somebody with an
evangelistic grace who's in somesort of position of leadership,
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which you all are in this space,coming alongside creating
opportunities for them, helping the church to create
opportunities to think about. That helps them develop and grow
that evangelistic gift and gracewithin the people within our
congregation, which then reducesthe the risk of them just going
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off and doing whatever they wantto do over here, right?
But actually, we then help them to grow and understand how that
role of an evangelist, that grace evangelist works really
well within leadership. There has to be lots of
learning. Like we have to get the balance
right. So Mark said yes about the guy
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who spoke about, he'd heard fromthe Holy Spirit about how 30% of
people could have been brought back to life with them and
prayed for whatever. I totally am, am one of the ones
down the morgue, right? So like, I'm like, right, let's
go, let's do that. That's part of who I am.
I am either all in or I'm all out.
That's my, that's just who I am.And as an evangelist, that's
kind of where I stand. But in my growing in this grace,
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I've had to really learn to workas part of a team, and I've had
to really learn how to work alongside the other graces and
how they complement one another and listen and stop for a while.
Because as an evangelist, we canbe a bit off the wall, can't we?
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And and and I have to sort of go, OK, yeah, well, I want to go
and do all of this. I want to do this now let's go.
Let's go and do it. Come on.
Why are we still talking about this?
Why haven't we done it already? Let's just crack on.
And then I've got the shepherd over here going, oh, but let's
talk about this. I'm like, well, no, let's go
over here. So learning to hold that tension
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together and to work together for the advancement of the
Kingdom of Gods is so important.And we have to recognize that
not everyone is a Raven evangelist, right?
But everyone is called to share the good news.
And as people who carry the grace of an evangelist, our role
is to help everybody to do this,everybody to do this and to
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understand that we look through a lens.
We talk about sharing Jesus So often we look through a lens of
well, it's, I just do it. I don't, I don't understand why,
why you can't. I don't understand why you don't
do it. Like that's the lens.
I'm like, well, what do you meanit's hard.
Come on. But we have to understand that's
the lens that we see things through, and it's not the same
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lens for everybody else. So we have to learn as
evangelists to look through their lens as well and help them
and to train them. And we've got to be infectious
in our churches. We've got to be infectious.
A characteristic of an evangelist is that you are
infectious. No one wants a miserable
evangelist. Nobody wants that.
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We've got to be we've got to be really infectious in what we do.
So how do we think about cultivating this read stuff that
talks about your Grace, but a wide range of stuff, not just
the stuff about, you know, Ryan Albonke and but but but go right
(29:08):
back to examples like Corrie 10 Boom and everybody else in
between. It was an incredible evangelist
with her sister Betsy and did some incredible stuff, but was
never on a big stage in a big platform.
Right. Read stuff around that.
Elam have got great. I'm going to do a plug right
(29:30):
now, but Elam have got great resources with our Elam
evangelism community, being withlike minded people, learning
from one another. Pop and see Mark and the team
today at the at the stands. Just we've got stuff going on.
Find someone who's moving in thegrace and evangelist, especially
within a local church context, and spend some time with them.
(29:54):
Spend some time with them. How do they do it?
What are they doing? Give yourself permission to grow
into your grace and journey it through.
It's all right. If you're sitting here today and
you're going, I don't know, likehow I fit within this or this is
a real surprise for me, like grow in it.
(30:17):
It's OK. It's all right to give yourself
permission to just grow within that grace.
Discuss your grace with your leadership team and discuss and
explore together what that meanswith regards to your strategy
and vision. I am really fortunate that I'm
part of a leadership team who recognized the grace that I
(30:38):
carry and that's intertwined with how we do things.
It may be that you go over and reflect on some of your
strategy, some of your vision, and really think about it.
Think about it from another grace perspective to actually in
your church. Is a lot of what you do, is it
(30:59):
outreach and evangelistic heavy?That needs to be a balance
brought in because we've also got to space for people to be
shepherded as well, right? Be all right with sitting in
your grace. And remember, never, ever get
caught in the comparison game. Never, ever.
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Because God has called you uniquely to do what He's called
you to do uniquely for a time. That the grace of an evangelist
doesn't look the same for all ofus.
I believe that there are unique aspects for each of us.
Whatever the Lord has placed in us, as well as our personalities
(31:39):
and Our Calling, they all mix together.
So don't compare what you're doing with oh, sorry, sorry.
Don't compare what you're doing to other people.
But learn, be willing, be open to learn and to do life together
and within local church context.Be willing to to spend time with
(32:03):
your leadership looking at what you're doing as a church.
How does that work? If you're a leader and you're
leading the church and you're anevangelist, then actually is the
church program really prone to evangelistic outreach stuff?
And there's definitely a place for that.
But actually, is it balanced with everything else that we
(32:23):
should be doing? Have we got teachers, those who
carry the grace of a teacher, those who are carrying the grace
of a shepherd and are we workingtogether and thinking about our
church program within that and finally have people around you
who carry other graces. So I am I like when the Lord
(32:45):
called me into ministry, I fought for a long time around.
I'm not called to be a local pastor.
I'm not I'm not called to be a shepherd.
That's not my gifting. That's not my grace.
And, and I'm planting church right now and I'm finding that I
am pastoring and shepherding people, which is, I know it's
(33:07):
uncomfortable. It's great, it's great.
But shepherd for me, what I loveabout Apest is that it
highlighted that shepherd for meis my lowest grace, which wasn't
a surprise for me. But what it does is say is I
need to call on my friends and colleagues who are shepherds in
(33:28):
a strong area or teachers and say to them, I need you to help
me with this. I need you to help me.
How do I develop this? How do I make sure that I'm
really taking care of these people?
How do I make sure that I'm bringing a good element of
teaching in And not everything that I'm talking about is we've
got to go and win people for Jesus.
How do we bring that in so that working together, gleaning from
(33:52):
those who have a strong shepherdgrace to bounce things off
around church leadership, planning programs, all of that
sort of stuff. Learning that the graces work
together for the body. Don't be threatened by other
graces or draw comparisons on what the evangelist grace is
(34:15):
doing in comparison to the prophetic or the teacher or the
shepherds, but learning and hearing where people are coming
from. Because like Keith said, that
maturity comes when we work together.
And within that unity, I've had to work on being really aware of
the bigger picture. So how does evangelism and the
(34:37):
strengths of that grace of an evangelist complement what we're
doing together? How do I really understand what
the vision of the church is and the leadership of the church and
thinking about evangelism withinthe bigger picture and bigger
sphere of all of that? Because it's so easy as an
evangelist for me just to focus on one pocket.
(35:01):
We just focus on what we're doing, how we're doing this
outreach, How are we doing that?Where are we going in that?
But actually, what does that look like within the bigger
picture of local church and going forward and growing in
that, Being part of local churchleadership as someone who
carries the grace of an evangelist, whatever your
(35:21):
leadership role is, is somethingI believe that's really vital
for the body. It really helped me working with
other people who carry differentgraces to see church leadership
through various lenses. And that's what's so important
about us working together and collaborating with people who
(35:44):
carry the other graces as well, Whether if you are leading on
your own and you don't have teamaround you, then we're part of a
whole beautiful movements with lots of people who carry lots of
different graces. And there are colleagues that we
can get alongside and ask for support with and just learn to
(36:04):
see things through various lenses.
So we're going to step into discussion.
We want to just, yeah, if you'vegot any questions as well.
But I think I want us to just think about, I want you to think
about what's resonated with you.Maybe kind of talk in a couple
(36:25):
of, maybe we'll give you a couple of minutes, just talk to
people next to you and then we'll pull some things out of
that. But is there anything that's
resonated with you? How does this grace show up in
your story or context? And where do you see that this
grace might be needed more within your church?
So we're going to give you just a few minutes to have a
conversation. Maybe just join some people who
(36:47):
are around you and just have a think about those things and
then we'll grab some feedback from that.
Sarah's going to just roam around with the mic, I think.
I think it's good to hear how this works out in your context
and, and just to find out how, you know, different guys or
(37:11):
different churches kind of implement evangelism within
their church context. And maybe some of us can grab
those ideas to take it back withus also.
And I think it's great sometimeshaving these kind of
conversations because you can come to like a a blank space
when you're trying to see how wecan bring more people in.
(37:32):
So Sarah is going to just walk around who is brave enough just
to wave your hands so you can. It's an evangelist.
He's he's like the evangelist. There you go.
It's a gift God's given me just to be bold.
My reflection on this is I was just talking to Lisa.
The biggest thing that I've reflected on is when we've
(37:53):
talked about how we respond to other graces.
I've said, like the church I took, I've LED our church for
two years. It, it was dying because it
because the old people were dying in the church, because it
wasn't led by an evangelist. So it was so literally when I
turned up, they had the blinds down at the front of the church,
(38:14):
so no one knew it was there. But it's grown four times the
size since I've taken over, which is great.
OK, yeah, sounds good. But the discipleship nature of
our church, it's not fantastic, I have to say, and hold my hands
for that. And that's probably because I'm
like, come on, guys, let's get on the avenge.
I got to look at my team and go,hey, you're gifted in this area.
(38:35):
You're gifted in this area. Rather than me saying we have to
do it this way, It's like, OK, this is where I'm really good.
Let me operate in this and let me help support you.
But can you help support me? And it's like, I wonder if
there's like an element of arrogance within this, a little
bit of like, I'm really good at this.
So therefore we should do you know what I mean?
And actually humble myself and say, look, there's some great
(38:56):
people within here. So I had a guy on my team, Simon
knows him. And I say this, I had people
come up to me in church going, Ilove what he teaches.
He's a phenomenal Bible teacher.I'd get offended at that.
So I'm like, I'm a really good communicator.
I think he's like, but he would eat theology books for fun,
(39:16):
literally read them in a day. And I'm like, what?
So actually course he's going tobe a better Bible teacher than
me, But, and that's not a problem.
I just got to stop getting offended about that.
I'm really good at telling people about Jesus.
I love doing that. But actually I'm not so great in
other areas. So the team thing for me was the
big reflection. That's good, that's good.
I mean Paul, Paul picks it up straight away in Ephesians
(39:39):
chapter 4. He says walk in a manner worthy
of your calling. And then he begins to list out
humility, gentleness, patience, because obviously he's
recognizing when he's about to drop the graces bit that
actually this is our first, thisis where we start from.
That's why I think character matters.
And that's very thank you for being open with that because I
(40:02):
think as evangelists, that's oneof the gripe areas of, of
working within churches and being in a church so fantastic.
Anyone else? Yeah.
Oh, OK. I thought she's coming to you,
Sarah. OK, we'll come back to you.
Thanks very much. Yeah.
And our group here, what came out, I know we were talking.
(40:24):
So what, you know, Lisa, Sarah. Yeah.
Was that, you know, sometimes our biggest say nightmare are
the other are shepherds. But I find myself thinking is
that nowadays I'll go out if I pray with some or play with
someone. I tend well not want to want to
pray with them because I'll think I want to see them going
(40:46):
on to become disciples. And I find somehow a shepherd's
heart appearing in me out of nowhere sort of thing.
I think in our group here, another gentleman here was was
sharing, was it Ben was sharing this as well that we relate to
the other people. And I just find that very much
(41:06):
in me that OK, it's all right having prayed with someone, but
you want to see them. Then going on, I've become very
much involved with asylum seekers where I'm over in
Lancashire and I've seen a couple of Muslims and the
Buddhists come to the Lord. And I find it in my heart now
that I want to see them grow in grace, in the knowledge of
(41:28):
Jesus, and to live and to walk with him.
And it's not enough for me to have prayed with someone.
In fact, I'll try to avoid saying a sinner's prayer if I
can. If I'm on a train or a bus, I
find a lot of it's divine. I pray for divine appointments
each day and get remarkable answers is then, and you've only
(41:49):
got those precious few minutes, then obviously you pray with
them. But I want to see people going
on. To me, the point is when they
are prepared publicly to be baptised, to declare them, we
see them going on. But I, I, I, I do find that that
there is not necessarily that dichotomy, the contrast between
the grace of the shepherd and the grace of the evangelist.
(42:09):
And possibly we need to considerthat in our own hearts to have
that shepherd's attitude. Yeah, fantastic.
I think that's great thought andI think in this conversation
that's come up a lot. So maybe something to Mull a
Mull over and, and put into, into things.
And and just one thing on that is that just because your, your
(42:31):
grace with an evangelistic gracedoesn't mean that you're mature
yet in that grace, right? So as you're saying, maybe as we
get a little bit older, we become a little bit more
pastoral. You know, I don't know you or
you move towards certain things because you recognize what needs
to happen. So just because you've been
gracefully, it doesn't mean you're mature yet.
(42:52):
Maybe you're at the at the immature stage, then you become
a bit more mature and then you become to a place where now you
can teach other people how to dowhat you do.
Thank you. Yeah, so evangelists, we're all
great at talking, right? We're all good communicators.
But one thing I'm learning recently is to be a better
listener. So I'm, I know that I can
(43:16):
communicate. I know that I can tell my story
and I can bring people to Jesus.I'm, I'm really good at that.
But I've had to slow down, step back a bit and listen because,
you know, it's about relationship.
We have a relationship with Christ, you know, and we're
supposed to have a relationship with each other and a
relationship with people who aremoving in those other graces.
(43:38):
So it's it's relationship all around.
But how do you build a relationship if you're only good
at communicating? We need to listen.
We need to lean in and listen and, you know, gain some input
from those with other graces as well.
So yeah, listen to input from them as well.
Yeah, I'm not really a public speaker, but when I found out my
(44:08):
grace, I was quite shocked. And when people asked me, I
didn't want to tell him because I didn't like it because I liked
my second one. Which will annoy all you because
Shepherd and this lady and I just said to my friends here.
(44:30):
I don't know if how many of you have seen the film Inside Out
with all the going on in the head, fear, anxiety, joy.
I think the graces are a bit like that.
And they all have to work together to create 1 normal
human being and we need to be 1 normal human church.
(44:51):
So I think all them graces make one and we might excel in one.
I don't know if I totally agree with mine, but I'm on the The
Friendship Evangelist. Like, yeah, there you go.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you for that. Just right at the back.
Right at the back. Yeah.
(45:13):
And to be honest, friendship evangelism, it is evangelism.
So maybe, maybe something you didn't know and you've spoke
really well in public right now.So.
So maybe maybe it needs to be unlocked that you didn't know.
So no, OK. Hi, I'm John, Mark, I'm a
(45:34):
minister and a healthcare chaplain.
I just wanted to jump in on the listening.
We've we've got to listen to people, we've got to build those
bridges. But the thing that I would just
wanted to, to add to that is that I could walk into a Bay of
6 patients and you've got to be praying you've, you've got to be
saying, God help me, just give me something to do.
(45:56):
I was going over to a fella about three months ago and as
I'm walking to the last, the last bed in the Bay, God said,
just shut up, John Mark, just shut up.
And I'm with him for 40 minutes.He's given me a life story from
the 1930s and the Holy Spirit said just be quiet.
I was a teacher for 20 years. Wind me up.
(46:17):
I go for an hour. It's just I'm programmed for it.
But God said be quiet. And I'm thinking, God, what you
doing here? I get to the end of 40 minutes,
He looks at me square in the face and he goes, can I have the
peace that you've got? I think the most important thing
that we should do as evangelistsis bring the Holy Spirit with us
everywhere that we go and, and just listen to him because he
(46:40):
takes us on the adventure. I didn't even have to open my
mouth for that fellow to ask to know Jesus.
I just had to do what the Holy Spirit told me to do.
Keep praying. Keep living with Jesus.
Amen, Amen. That's.
Great. Just maybe we take the last two.
Just one. Yeah, Yeah, just the last two.
(47:00):
Yeah. Thank you, I guess.
You're fixed, you're closer. I just want to encourage you,
you said about friendship evangelism.
And I think it's actually reallyimportant we're starting to do
more of that at our church and encouraging everybody because
evangelism can seem quite scary to some people.
But friendship evangelism is so important to sort of branch out
of our Christian bubble and findnon Christian people to make
(47:23):
bonds and make friends with. They start to trust you and then
they'll understand like you can start like you share your life,
you share your faith and then you share Jesus.
And that is evangelism. It's just a different form.
I don't know if this is typical,but you know how the idea isn't
(47:45):
fully formed in your head, But I'm like, oh, I think I need to
see this. So is that is that just me?
OK, good. So I was just thinking that I
know it seems as though evangelism is this very selfless
thing, you know, oh, we're goingout and speaking to people.
But I realize, I mean, for me personally, I think it's, I
think it's a walk. I think God is working in my
life to look beyond myself. I think we can be be incredibly
(48:06):
selfish or self absorbed with everything that's going on in
your life and oh, we need to do this and we need to do that or
this, this needs to be done in this way and this is what we
need to do. And you're so focused on self in
some way. I mean, it seems like the it's
something good that you're working towards, but it's still
very self motivated. So even hearing what I think
Mark said just now that allowingGod say, you know, let go, let
(48:29):
God, not to be cliche, but let go, let God and let God actually
say, what do you, what let's sayto God, what do you want me to
do? What would you have me do in
this environment? I just, let's say I just moved
here and I'm thinking about, oh,I want to do my house up pretty
and I want to do this and that. But God, why am I here?
Why did you allow me come here? And less about what I'm thinking
and all caught up in my big plans and ideas and more about
(48:52):
how would you have me minister? So I think it's an incredibly
humbling journey and one that I'm kind of getting used to, I
suppose. So thank you.
Good. Thank you.
Is it a quick one? Just a quick one.
Yeah, just sorry. I was at Spring Harvest the
other week and Bear Grylls mentioned what Francis Assisi
said. Preach the Gospel at all times
(49:14):
and use words if necessary. Yeah.
Words are necessary, I feel like. 100 percent, 100%.
But just like I think all of youguys would want to say
something, but we have to kind of finish soon because we're
going to have a break. But at 11:30, there's another
session in the auditorium that Ijust wanted to make sure that
(49:37):
you guys are aware of 1115, Sorry, apologies, 11/15 at the
auditorium. I weren't listening, but, but
just just to finish off, just like I think the greatest
example is Jesus. He not only spoke, but he
(49:57):
actually listened. I think he did more listening
because listening allows you to ask the right questions to lead
them to Jesus. And so I think, you know, we
need to be Jesus, we need to be Philip, and we need to do the
work of an evangelist like Timothy.
And I just pray. My prayer is, and we'll pray and
we release. That's what I'm supposed to do,
(50:18):
right. And then you.
Oh, no, you. Yeah, yeah.
We'll miss that bit, isn't it? My prayer is this is that we go
back to our church and we implement a, a strategy that's
connected to the local church sothat what you do brings maturity
to the body of Christ. And so it's talking with your
(50:41):
leaders, sitting down with your pastor, or if you are the
pastor, setting up an evangelistic team.
And, you know, one of the thingsthat Sarah said I think is
fantastic and which we're starting to implement is
sometimes you need that grace tobe coming into your house so
that it can unlock the, the evangelistic grace in your
house. So there are evangelists that
(51:01):
are actually in your church who just needs another mature
evangelist to come, maybe lay hands and just unlock that, you
know, so get the evangelistic team in, you know, Gary Gibson
does stuff as well. So get them in so it can unlock
the evangelist in your church sothat you're not the, you're not
the only evangelist in your church there.
(51:22):
There is actually a group of them, sometimes it's like
they're hiding in The Cave. So you need to go and get them
out, you know, and, and, and I pray that's what would happen
after these sessions is that youwill have a strong, flourishing
evangelistic team bringing people in into the Kingdom of
God. And and get those people
connecting with the evangelism community.
(51:42):
And one thing we're doing as well is leading, I'm leading
evangelistic teams across the UK.
So get them hooked into that stuff as well.
Come and see Mark on the stand. And because we need some
evangelists, right to go and come and out and do this stuff.
Keith, somebody asked if we could just put the slide on with
the different roles. Is that is that right?
Yeah, different roles like within the.
(52:05):
That's it. Yeah, yeah.
Just so they can take a picture the book.
Is by Alan Nurse as well, so there's more actually, I'll just
fit. These ones in Yeah, great.
Our time is done. Thank you so much for
participating and being with us.
Good morning. Come on.
Should we try again? Good morning.
Thank you very much. I'm really excited to see so
many evangelists in the room. Come on, come on.
Look at that. If you there's some seats
further down, please just come and make yourself really
(00:22):
welcome. It's an exciting time to be an
evangelist in Elam, isn't it? Yeah, we're really great.
It's really great to see you today.
Keith is going to come and join me.
We're going to lead the session today.
So my name is Sarah. I am part of New Springs.
(00:42):
I'm part of ECI. Don't hold that against me.
We're all one, right? We're all one.
And I'm part of New Springs. I am also part of Elam's
evangelism team alongside Greenie.
Pray for me. But I'm also planting a church
up in Hartlepool right now, up in the North East by the sea,
(01:02):
which is quite nice. So we're just going to today
just spend some time chatting about evangelism, the role of an
evangelist. What does that look like within
local church context? We want this space to just be
really relaxed, to be conversational, to have some
discussion, and just an opennessto really explore together what
it really means to be any evangelist because I really feel
(01:26):
the role of evangelist is, is sobroad, right?
There's such a broad brush stroke, but there are some
beautiful details in it. So we're going to spend some
time doing that. But before we do that, I wonder
if we could just pray. Jesus, we just want to invite
you into this room and into our conversation.
Father, I thank you for the grace that you pour upon us.
(01:49):
Jesus, help us to have our hearts open and our ears and our
eyes open. Go to the things that you want
to speak to us about today. During this time, I pray to God
that we would leave here feelingencouraged.
God, Lord, that we would see youin all of the detail.
Holy Spirit, come and have your way.
We pray in your precious name, Amen.
(02:14):
Good morning, guys. It is morning, right?
Yeah. OK, here you go.
Yeah. So for those of you that don't
know me, my name is Keith Bandara.
There you go. Keith Bandara and I, well, a
pastor, a church now called Cityof Lights in an area called
(02:36):
Bushy. Is anyone aware of the area?
Bushy. Yeah.
OK, yeah, I was going to be all right, to be honest, to do this
session until Gary Gibbs walked in.
Gary Gibbs used to be also my boss when I planted the church,
would check on me, make sure everything's done properly.
So I'm a bit nervous. He saw me doing it and he came
(03:00):
straight to me. Right.
But yeah, let's get on with thissession because the way that
it's done is that there's 15 minutes of this.
So it would just be a quick conversation.
And then Sarah will come on and just say something from a
practical point of view. And then there'll be some
questions that you can discuss among yourselves and then a time
(03:21):
for questions and answers. We are not pros, right?
So this is just a session where we're just kind of discussing,
discussing this grace and kind of looking at what being an
evangelist is. So I just want to write, start
off by reading Ephesians chapter4, because that's where it's
from. And if you got your Bibles or
(03:43):
your phones, you can get it out and I'll read it.
Read it out. It says, I therefore a prisoner
for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the
calling to which you have been called, with all humility and
gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in
love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond
(04:04):
of peace. There is one body and one
Spirit, just as you were called to the one hope that belong to
your core. 1 Lord, 1 faith, one baptism, one God and Father of
all, who is over all, through all and in all.
But grace was given to each one of us according to the measure
of Christ's gift. Therefore it says, when He
(04:27):
ascended on high, He led host ofcaptives, and he gave gifts to
men in saying He ascended. What does it mean but that He
had also descended into the lower regions of the earth?
He was descended is the one who also ascended far above all the
heavens, that He might fulfill all things.
(04:47):
And He gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the
shepherd and teachers to equip the Saints for the work of the
ministry, for building up the body of Christ until we all
attain to the unity of faith andof the knowledge image of the
Son of God. To mature manhood to the measure
(05:09):
of the stature of the fullness of Christ.
So that we may no longer be children tossed to and fro by
the ways and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human
cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
Amen. Amen.
Father speak to us and give us wisdom in this time in Jesus
(05:31):
name. So this is where, you know, the
team has been working on lookingat different graces.
So one of the things that I wantus to be aware of and you guys
are evangelists. You know, evangelist was a term
that was used at the time of Greeks.
They use it and it kind of meansbringer of good news, right?
(05:53):
That's what we are. We're a bringer of good news.
So back in the day when they go out to war and they'll come back
into the city, usually the evangelists are the ones that
would come into the city, say, yeah, we got the victory.
Yes, we won, you know, yes, we've, we've caught the captives
and and we won the victory and we took on the territory.
And that's who we are in the spirit.
(06:14):
We, we, we take the good news and we take it to the people who
need to hear the good news. And the captives are set free,
right? And we see that it happening in
the life of Jesus. We see an example of it in the
life of Philip the evangelist inActs chapter 221, verse 8,
preached in Samaria, baptized the Ethiopian unit.
(06:37):
And also we see Paul's instruction to Timothy, it says
do the work of an evangelist. I believe that every single one,
whether you're an apostle, prophet, teacher or a or a
pastor, a shepherd or, or a pastor, you have to do the work
of an evangelist. You guys just have an extra
(06:59):
portion of that grace, right? That's what it is.
OK. And, and it might work out in
all different ways, like, like, I think and you know this,
there's different ways to evangelize, as you know, right?
Some of you are friendship evangelists, like you just want
to be friends with people and then bring them to Christ.
(07:20):
Some of you are the ones that will stand at the roadside
corner and said, come to the Lord, you need to repent.
And I think that's a great way of doing it.
Some of you are the ones that are 1 to one.
You'll see someone and the Lord speaks to you.
You, you operate with the prophetic and then the Lord
gives you an impression and thenyou go out and you, you say,
(07:41):
yeah, I saw you and you got thisgoing on and you use the gifts
that God has given you and that grace kind of flows through.
But but one of the things that Iwant us to be aware of that
these gifts, these graces that Jesus gave us, because there's
gifts of the Spirit, but these graces are given by Jesus.
The Bible says, he says that Jesus descended to the lower
(08:04):
parts. And then as he ascended, he
threw these gifts, these graces down to us for few purposes.
And we have to be mindful of that as evangelists, right?
Because as an evangelist we havea certain tendency.
Yeah. I think some of you are laughing
because I think you know, some of our tendencies and, and, and,
(08:26):
and what APES talks about is we call these the blind spots,
right? We call this the blind spots.
And I think every grace has someblind spots.
But evangelists can get quite annoying to a shepherd, right,
(08:48):
right. Because I know I've operated in
the grace of evangelists. But now that I'm a, I'm a, I'm
a, I'm a leader. Sometimes the evangelists can
get a little bit annoying. They're the blind spots, you
know, because they can become a bit rogue.
You know, they think is, is, is the, there's, there's a church
has to be outside the walls. But we clearly read in Ephesians
(09:12):
chapter 4 that all 5 graces mustwork together.
Why does it have to work together?
Because when they work together,let me go back.
When they work together, maturity matters.
Our role as evangelist is to understand, to bring the body of
(09:33):
Christ to maturity. That's what the that's what
Ephesians is talking about, is that the Lord gave us these
graces. The Lord gave you the grace of
an evangelist. Not to tell the pastoral for not
being going out or not to tell the apostle or fix up, not to
tell the prophet to be quiet, but to work together with all
the graces so that actually we can bring the body of Christ to
(09:59):
maturity. Because when we bring the body
of Christ to maturity, we bring them into unity.
Because division happens becauseof immaturity.
And sometimes when it happens with these graces, I think I'm
going a bit of script, but let me, let me, let me go back to my
(10:20):
notes. Yeah.
So when so when so when we understand this evangelist to
work with the shepherd, to work with the apostle, to work with
the the teacher and to work withwhat's the one I missed out the
(10:41):
prophet. We always want to miss them out,
don't we? But one of my highest ones
actually, the prophetic. So I understand right.
So, so we want to miss them out because our heart is to bring
the lost because that's the heart of Jesus.
In Luke Chapter 9, I came to seek that which was lost.
(11:05):
That's the heart of an evangelist.
And sometimes we, if we're not mindful as evangelists is be in
church and understand the loss that you're bringing in actually
is supposed to be in the church,to be discipled and shepherded
and to, to learn to hear the voice of God.
And so when that doesn't happen,maturity doesn't happen.
(11:27):
It doesn't like, like, you know,one of the things I said a few
weeks ago when we were doing some teaching is that that
church matters because that's where maturity happens.
But every church must have the fivefold ministry.
Every church, every church should have an an Apostolic
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grace, a teaching grace, a sharpening grace, an
evangelistic grace, and a prophetic grace so that this
maturity can happen, so that we have unity.
But in order for the maturity tohappen and for the unity to
happen, you must have this because in Ephesians chapter 1,
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it says, it says you to walk in a manner worthy of his calling
to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness
and with patience, bearing with one another in love.
That's character. That's character.
(12:30):
And so, so if I'm going to talk about these graces is to
understand actually it's bigger than just your just just our
grace as an evangelist. But I think it's a fact.
Churches don't grow without evangelists.
You know, churches need the evangelists so that they can
bring them in, so that the Kingdom of God can be advanced.
(12:51):
So I want us to remember as evangelists that your character
matters. How you submit to the house
matters so that you can bring unity into the house.
Because all of this is working in verse 3, eager to maintain
the unity of the Spirit. Character matters.
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Unity matters because the purpose of the body of Christ is
to be mature. We have to move away from
drinking milk to eating the meat.
And so all the five graces, including the evangelist, we're
feeding the church so that we can begin to move away from the
elementary teachings of Hebrews 6 that it mentioned into the
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more, more teaching that God wants us to go into because
we're moving into maturity, right?
So I think I've got about 5 minutes left.
Yeah, there's no clock in there.So let's look at the the role of
evangelists. Evangelists invite people to
join God's mission. They call others to personally
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respond to God's redemption through Jesus.
They explain the gospel clearly to those who don't believe.
They remind Christians to keep sharing the gospel for others.
Now, this is very, you know, Christian jargon kind of
language, right? But evangelist is actually also
more than this because it might not directly be working out in
(14:22):
this way, because you might be able to.
You might be one of these, whichmeans you can move in the grace
of an evangelist. Like this list is from Alan
Hirsch's book on the APES. If you read it, it will give you
more than this. But if you're a recruiter and
apologist, most entrepreneurs are actually good evangelists.
(14:47):
You know a salesperson, if you're a sales, if you can sell
ATV, you can sell Jesus, right? So if you're in sales, you'll be
a good evangelist. If you're a good communicator,
media worker, storytellers, you know, influences on Instagram
and TikTok, that is another platform for evangelism.
(15:08):
So these are some marketplace giftings that you may have that
can actually complement your evangelistic grace.
So it's not just about you standing on a on a street corner
or on a platform or one to one in a house, which is all part of
it, but actually it can also be these things where you are
(15:31):
actually operating in that graceand you're moving into that
grace. That's from you can read.
I don't know if anyone's read that book you have.
You're right. So there's more more on that.
So, and I think is is a fantastic way to do that.
Let me finish with this. The blind spots.
(15:51):
These are evangelists blind spots.
And, you know, to be honest, I'drather know this more than the
ones that we are good at, you know, because this, this kind of
keeps it. We, we have to be mindful of how
we can be sometimes, you know, short term gain over long term
impact. I have an evangelist in my
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church and this is what I told him because it's all about short
term mistakes, decisions for discipleship, celebrity kind of
mentality and can get resentful or neglectful of those inside
the church. That's big.
And I think that's a place as evangelists we need to repent
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because I think this is where the biggest battle has been
between the church and outside the church.
And I think as a movement is that maybe us as evangelists is
to re look at ourselves and see how we can work together in
unity to bring maturity to the church.
(16:57):
And so not everybody in your church is an evangelist, you
know, who might be, who might beable to do what you do.
They might do it in the way thatthey do it.
But we have to be mindful of that.
And so, yeah, just take a picture of it or or you know,
the question that I posed to is what are other shadows or blind
(17:17):
spots of evangelists, you know, and think about those things.
We're going to have some if you come forward, Sarah.
And how does that practically kind of work out now?
Sarah? Just going to go through that
and yeah, for us. Thanks.
So I want to talk about like theliving room bit, really like how
(17:40):
do we do this? And what does that really look
like in the practical every day?But before we get into that, I
want us to think about the the tension and growth points of an
evangelist. So I don't know how many in this
room were surprised when evangelist came number one or
expected it or whatever. But so I, I spent a lot of time
(18:03):
feeling like I didn't know whereI fitted right, because there's
nods in the room. Because especially when I
stepped into ministry, like I would go and do my ministry
foundation at Regents and I'd cry every time I was there
because I'd be like, I'm not a shepherd, like I'm not called to
be a pastor. How does this fit within local
(18:24):
church? And what does that look like?
And how do I work that out? But then when the grace of the
evangelist was really highlighted to me by some
people, it really helped help meto understand it a bit more and
kind of navigate that. So I guess what I, my prayer is
that for those of you in the room who when this came up and
(18:47):
evangelist was there and you might not be fully operating in
that grace, that actually this will help you to start creating
space to really think about whatdoes that mean for you and how
do you unpack that? I think for me, a real key with
this grace is to grow into it, right?
With all of our graces, whateverthey are, to grow into that.
(19:13):
And we're not always called to fit either, right?
We're not going to fit in. And we've got this unique.
Mark spoke yesterday about this unique puzzle piece that we're
all really unique in what we bring and how we bring it.
And especially within those things, within evangelism, we've
got to learn to really allow Godto shape us and mold us and
(19:39):
listen to him. So I might be an evangelist, but
actually the model that and the mold that I'm in might not look
the same as somebody else who's equally an evangelist, but
actually we complement each other.
And I might not be comfortable with doing something that like a
street evangelist is out there. That's my most uncomfortable
position. But I love to talk to people
(20:02):
about Jesus. And when we think about this in
tune. Church context and local church
leadership actually is an evangelist, somebody who's
carrying that grace, learning towalk in it.
Our part of our job, part of ourrole is to help spot other
evangelists within our congregations and and help them
develop and move on and createspace for them and to help
(20:24):
them come along and find their stance in where they are.
And actually they might be really great in their workplace
about talking to people about Jesus.
Brilliant. Let's encourage them in that.
Let's bring them along in that because the role of an
evangelist is so broad. Like the steps in it are from
like as long as you can imagine,I think, and everybody has a
(20:47):
role to play. And whilst it's everybody's
responsibility to share Jesus and to talk about him, as an
evangelist, you should be able to.
We can learn to see that in somebody else and bring them on
and train them and develop them and come alongside them.
So to grow in the grace of an evangelist.
(21:08):
When I kind of finally realized that's what God was calling me
into, I spent time with other evangelists.
I've got the great privilege of being a friend of Marilyn's and
also having her as my mentor, which has just been amazing.
And having other evangelists around me.
Reading loads of stuff about evangelists a past present, like
(21:32):
reading some of the stuff about the great pioneers who have gone
before us, being encouraged by that, but also thinking about
what does that look like in local church.
A massive part of this is collaboration with the other
Graces and learning to be an evangelist within local church
context, helping to shape the vision and strategy for the
(21:54):
church, as well as raising up and training others with an
evangelistic grace within the church.
So as part of church leadership,learning that actually the
graces work together and leaninginto that, pulling out of that,
being able to have an influence in that.
So I sit in our team meetings sometimes and my question is
(22:17):
like, how is sharing the gospel?And Keith, you're totally right.
The shepherds in the room hate me sometimes.
I'm just like, well, come on, how are we doing that?
How are we sharing the gospel? But being able to kind of bring
that influence in and challenge and have some of those
questions, but also being able to hear the perspective of the
(22:37):
other people who carry the different graces within, within
that room, within that team meeting, within the strategy,
within. Thinking about what all of that
looks like, how the grace shows up in everyday aspects and life
of ministry, is that as an evangelist, somebody who carries
that grace, one of the gifts that you have within that is
(22:59):
you're a great communicator. You're a great communicator.
Whether you believe that right now or not, you are turn to the
person next to you and say you're a great communicator.
You are, you're a great communicator.
All right, Just, it's just two words.
(23:21):
Come on, it's a mistake asking the evangelist just to say a
couple of things, isn't it? So you're a great communicator,
but also you're a gatherer. You're a great gatherer of
people that actually you'll probably find that when there
(23:41):
are visitors in your church or when something is happening,
you're somebody who just tends to naturally gravitate towards
those people and talk to them. Whether you're an extrovert or
an introvert or somewhere between the two, the grace of an
evangelist includes the ability to chat to people anywhere,
about anything. It doesn't matter.
(24:02):
I'm a real introvert. I'm a real introvert.
So being around lots of people, I just have to go away for a
little bit because they just exhaust me.
But actually, I know leader and evangelist and an introvert,
interesting combination. But actually what is what is
great about that is you can, youcan talk to anybody about
(24:22):
anything, right? And that's one of the great
things we've got. And as we bring people alongside
us, that's what they catch hold of.
We're there to help the church be outward looking, always
looking for opportunities to connect with community, whether
that's in schools, whether that's old people's home, local
neighborhood, local services, whatever that looks like.
(24:45):
So a lot of what I do is planting, but I'm in a lot, I'm
in quite a lot of schools right now.
I'm just constantly looking for opportunities to get into places
to start bridging that that community arm between church and
into local community. What is happening instead of
waiting for everybody to come through our doors initially, you
(25:06):
know, whatever that might be. But actually, how do we bridge
that gap and take us out into community by still keeping it
linked with with church. Actually, I'm not a rogue
evangelist over here doing whatever I want to do, but I'm
pulling it into the vision of the local church because our
heart's desire is to grow Kingdom, see people come to know
him and go on with him, that people might be established,
(25:28):
right, Creating outlets within our local church for those with
an evangelistic edge. You know as well as I do there
are some rogue evangelists. Oh, yeah, within our church is
right. But actually somebody with an
evangelistic grace who's in somesort of position of leadership,
(25:51):
which you all are in this space,coming alongside creating
opportunities for them, helping the church to create
opportunities to think about. That helps them develop and grow
that evangelistic gift and gracewithin the people within our
congregation, which then reducesthe the risk of them just going
(26:11):
off and doing whatever they wantto do over here, right?
But actually, we then help them to grow and understand how that
role of an evangelist, that grace evangelist works really
well within leadership. There has to be lots of
learning. Like we have to get the balance
right. So Mark said yes about the guy
(26:33):
who spoke about, he'd heard fromthe Holy Spirit about how 30% of
people could have been brought back to life with them and
prayed for whatever. I totally am, am one of the ones
down the morgue, right? So like, I'm like, right, let's
go, let's do that. That's part of who I am.
I am either all in or I'm all out.
That's my, that's just who I am.And as an evangelist, that's
kind of where I stand. But in my growing in this grace,
(26:58):
I've had to really learn to workas part of a team, and I've had
to really learn how to work alongside the other graces and
how they complement one another and listen and stop for a while.
Because as an evangelist, we canbe a bit off the wall, can't we?
(27:18):
And and and I have to sort of go, OK, yeah, well, I want to go
and do all of this. I want to do this now let's go.
Let's go and do it. Come on.
Why are we still talking about this?
Why haven't we done it already? Let's just crack on.
And then I've got the shepherd over here going, oh, but let's
talk about this. I'm like, well, no, let's go
over here. So learning to hold that tension
(27:38):
together and to work together for the advancement of the
Kingdom of Gods is so important.And we have to recognize that
not everyone is a Raven evangelist, right?
But everyone is called to share the good news.
And as people who carry the grace of an evangelist, our role
is to help everybody to do this,everybody to do this and to
(28:03):
understand that we look through a lens.
We talk about sharing Jesus So often we look through a lens of
well, it's, I just do it. I don't, I don't understand why,
why you can't. I don't understand why you don't
do it. Like that's the lens.
I'm like, well, what do you meanit's hard.
Come on. But we have to understand that's
the lens that we see things through, and it's not the same
(28:25):
lens for everybody else. So we have to learn as
evangelists to look through their lens as well and help them
and to train them. And we've got to be infectious
in our churches. We've got to be infectious.
A characteristic of an evangelist is that you are
infectious. No one wants a miserable
evangelist. Nobody wants that.
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We've got to be we've got to be really infectious in what we do.
So how do we think about cultivating this read stuff that
talks about your Grace, but a wide range of stuff, not just
the stuff about, you know, Ryan Albonke and but but but go right
(29:08):
back to examples like Corrie 10 Boom and everybody else in
between. It was an incredible evangelist
with her sister Betsy and did some incredible stuff, but was
never on a big stage in a big platform.
Right. Read stuff around that.
Elam have got great. I'm going to do a plug right
(29:30):
now, but Elam have got great resources with our Elam
evangelism community, being withlike minded people, learning
from one another. Pop and see Mark and the team
today at the at the stands. Just we've got stuff going on.
Find someone who's moving in thegrace and evangelist, especially
within a local church context, and spend some time with them.
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Spend some time with them. How do they do it?
What are they doing? Give yourself permission to grow
into your grace and journey it through.
It's all right. If you're sitting here today and
you're going, I don't know, likehow I fit within this or this is
a real surprise for me, like grow in it.
(30:17):
It's OK. It's all right to give yourself
permission to just grow within that grace.
Discuss your grace with your leadership team and discuss and
explore together what that meanswith regards to your strategy
and vision. I am really fortunate that I'm
part of a leadership team who recognized the grace that I
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carry and that's intertwined with how we do things.
It may be that you go over and reflect on some of your
strategy, some of your vision, and really think about it.
Think about it from another grace perspective to actually in
your church. Is a lot of what you do, is it
(30:59):
outreach and evangelistic heavy?That needs to be a balance
brought in because we've also got to space for people to be
shepherded as well, right? Be all right with sitting in
your grace. And remember, never, ever get
caught in the comparison game. Never, ever.
(31:19):
Because God has called you uniquely to do what He's called
you to do uniquely for a time. That the grace of an evangelist
doesn't look the same for all ofus.
I believe that there are unique aspects for each of us.
Whatever the Lord has placed in us, as well as our personalities
(31:39):
and Our Calling, they all mix together.
So don't compare what you're doing with oh, sorry, sorry.
Don't compare what you're doing to other people.
But learn, be willing, be open to learn and to do life together
and within local church context.Be willing to to spend time with
(32:03):
your leadership looking at what you're doing as a church.
How does that work? If you're a leader and you're
leading the church and you're anevangelist, then actually is the
church program really prone to evangelistic outreach stuff?
And there's definitely a place for that.
But actually, is it balanced with everything else that we
(32:23):
should be doing? Have we got teachers, those who
carry the grace of a teacher, those who are carrying the grace
of a shepherd and are we workingtogether and thinking about our
church program within that and finally have people around you
who carry other graces. So I am I like when the Lord
(32:45):
called me into ministry, I fought for a long time around.
I'm not called to be a local pastor.
I'm not I'm not called to be a shepherd.
That's not my gifting. That's not my grace.
And, and I'm planting church right now and I'm finding that I
am pastoring and shepherding people, which is, I know it's
(33:07):
uncomfortable. It's great, it's great.
But shepherd for me, what I loveabout Apest is that it
highlighted that shepherd for meis my lowest grace, which wasn't
a surprise for me. But what it does is say is I
need to call on my friends and colleagues who are shepherds in
(33:28):
a strong area or teachers and say to them, I need you to help
me with this. I need you to help me.
How do I develop this? How do I make sure that I'm
really taking care of these people?
How do I make sure that I'm bringing a good element of
teaching in And not everything that I'm talking about is we've
got to go and win people for Jesus.
How do we bring that in so that working together, gleaning from
(33:52):
those who have a strong shepherdgrace to bounce things off
around church leadership, planning programs, all of that
sort of stuff. Learning that the graces work
together for the body. Don't be threatened by other
graces or draw comparisons on what the evangelist grace is
(34:15):
doing in comparison to the prophetic or the teacher or the
shepherds, but learning and hearing where people are coming
from. Because like Keith said, that
maturity comes when we work together.
And within that unity, I've had to work on being really aware of
the bigger picture. So how does evangelism and the
(34:37):
strengths of that grace of an evangelist complement what we're
doing together? How do I really understand what
the vision of the church is and the leadership of the church and
thinking about evangelism withinthe bigger picture and bigger
sphere of all of that? Because it's so easy as an
evangelist for me just to focus on one pocket.
(35:01):
We just focus on what we're doing, how we're doing this
outreach, How are we doing that?Where are we going in that?
But actually, what does that look like within the bigger
picture of local church and going forward and growing in
that, Being part of local churchleadership as someone who
carries the grace of an evangelist, whatever your
(35:21):
leadership role is, is somethingI believe that's really vital
for the body. It really helped me working with
other people who carry differentgraces to see church leadership
through various lenses. And that's what's so important
about us working together and collaborating with people who
(35:44):
carry the other graces as well, Whether if you are leading on
your own and you don't have teamaround you, then we're part of a
whole beautiful movements with lots of people who carry lots of
different graces. And there are colleagues that we
can get alongside and ask for support with and just learn to
(36:04):
see things through various lenses.
So we're going to step into discussion.
We want to just, yeah, if you'vegot any questions as well.
But I think I want us to just think about, I want you to think
about what's resonated with you.Maybe kind of talk in a couple
(36:25):
of, maybe we'll give you a couple of minutes, just talk to
people next to you and then we'll pull some things out of
that. But is there anything that's
resonated with you? How does this grace show up in
your story or context? And where do you see that this
grace might be needed more within your church?
So we're going to give you just a few minutes to have a
conversation. Maybe just join some people who
(36:47):
are around you and just have a think about those things and
then we'll grab some feedback from that.
Sarah's going to just roam around with the mic, I think.
I think it's good to hear how this works out in your context
and, and just to find out how, you know, different guys or
(37:11):
different churches kind of implement evangelism within
their church context. And maybe some of us can grab
those ideas to take it back withus also.
And I think it's great sometimeshaving these kind of
conversations because you can come to like a a blank space
when you're trying to see how wecan bring more people in.
(37:32):
So Sarah is going to just walk around who is brave enough just
to wave your hands so you can. It's an evangelist.
He's he's like the evangelist. There you go.
It's a gift God's given me just to be bold.
My reflection on this is I was just talking to Lisa.
The biggest thing that I've reflected on is when we've
(37:53):
talked about how we respond to other graces.
I've said, like the church I took, I've LED our church for
two years. It, it was dying because it
because the old people were dying in the church, because it
wasn't led by an evangelist. So it was so literally when I
turned up, they had the blinds down at the front of the church,
(38:14):
so no one knew it was there. But it's grown four times the
size since I've taken over, which is great.
OK, yeah, sounds good. But the discipleship nature of
our church, it's not fantastic, I have to say, and hold my hands
for that. And that's probably because I'm
like, come on, guys, let's get on the avenge.
I got to look at my team and go,hey, you're gifted in this area.
(38:35):
You're gifted in this area. Rather than me saying we have to
do it this way, It's like, OK, this is where I'm really good.
Let me operate in this and let me help support you.
But can you help support me? And it's like, I wonder if
there's like an element of arrogance within this, a little
bit of like, I'm really good at this.
So therefore we should do you know what I mean?
And actually humble myself and say, look, there's some great
(38:56):
people within here. So I had a guy on my team, Simon
knows him. And I say this, I had people
come up to me in church going, Ilove what he teaches.
He's a phenomenal Bible teacher.I'd get offended at that.
So I'm like, I'm a really good communicator.
I think he's like, but he would eat theology books for fun,
(39:16):
literally read them in a day. And I'm like, what?
So actually course he's going tobe a better Bible teacher than
me, But, and that's not a problem.
I just got to stop getting offended about that.
I'm really good at telling people about Jesus.
I love doing that. But actually I'm not so great in
other areas. So the team thing for me was the
big reflection. That's good, that's good.
I mean Paul, Paul picks it up straight away in Ephesians
(39:39):
chapter 4. He says walk in a manner worthy
of your calling. And then he begins to list out
humility, gentleness, patience, because obviously he's
recognizing when he's about to drop the graces bit that
actually this is our first, thisis where we start from.
That's why I think character matters.
And that's very thank you for being open with that because I
(40:02):
think as evangelists, that's oneof the gripe areas of, of
working within churches and being in a church so fantastic.
Anyone else? Yeah.
Oh, OK. I thought she's coming to you,
Sarah. OK, we'll come back to you.
Thanks very much. Yeah.
And our group here, what came out, I know we were talking.
(40:24):
So what, you know, Lisa, Sarah. Yeah.
Was that, you know, sometimes our biggest say nightmare are
the other are shepherds. But I find myself thinking is
that nowadays I'll go out if I pray with some or play with
someone. I tend well not want to want to
pray with them because I'll think I want to see them going
(40:46):
on to become disciples. And I find somehow a shepherd's
heart appearing in me out of nowhere sort of thing.
I think in our group here, another gentleman here was was
sharing, was it Ben was sharing this as well that we relate to
the other people. And I just find that very much
(41:06):
in me that OK, it's all right having prayed with someone, but
you want to see them. Then going on, I've become very
much involved with asylum seekers where I'm over in
Lancashire and I've seen a couple of Muslims and the
Buddhists come to the Lord. And I find it in my heart now
that I want to see them grow in grace, in the knowledge of
(41:28):
Jesus, and to live and to walk with him.
And it's not enough for me to have prayed with someone.
In fact, I'll try to avoid saying a sinner's prayer if I
can. If I'm on a train or a bus, I
find a lot of it's divine. I pray for divine appointments
each day and get remarkable answers is then, and you've only
(41:49):
got those precious few minutes, then obviously you pray with
them. But I want to see people going
on. To me, the point is when they
are prepared publicly to be baptised, to declare them, we
see them going on. But I, I, I, I do find that that
there is not necessarily that dichotomy, the contrast between
the grace of the shepherd and the grace of the evangelist.
(42:09):
And possibly we need to considerthat in our own hearts to have
that shepherd's attitude. Yeah, fantastic.
I think that's great thought andI think in this conversation
that's come up a lot. So maybe something to Mull a
Mull over and, and put into, into things.
And and just one thing on that is that just because your, your
(42:31):
grace with an evangelistic gracedoesn't mean that you're mature
yet in that grace, right? So as you're saying, maybe as we
get a little bit older, we become a little bit more
pastoral. You know, I don't know you or
you move towards certain things because you recognize what needs
to happen. So just because you've been
gracefully, it doesn't mean you're mature yet.
(42:52):
Maybe you're at the at the immature stage, then you become
a bit more mature and then you become to a place where now you
can teach other people how to dowhat you do.
Thank you. Yeah, so evangelists, we're all
great at talking, right? We're all good communicators.
But one thing I'm learning recently is to be a better
listener. So I'm, I know that I can
(43:16):
communicate. I know that I can tell my story
and I can bring people to Jesus.I'm, I'm really good at that.
But I've had to slow down, step back a bit and listen because,
you know, it's about relationship.
We have a relationship with Christ, you know, and we're
supposed to have a relationship with each other and a
relationship with people who aremoving in those other graces.
(43:38):
So it's it's relationship all around.
But how do you build a relationship if you're only good
at communicating? We need to listen.
We need to lean in and listen and, you know, gain some input
from those with other graces as well.
So yeah, listen to input from them as well.
Yeah, I'm not really a public speaker, but when I found out my
(44:08):
grace, I was quite shocked. And when people asked me, I
didn't want to tell him because I didn't like it because I liked
my second one. Which will annoy all you because
Shepherd and this lady and I just said to my friends here.
(44:30):
I don't know if how many of you have seen the film Inside Out
with all the going on in the head, fear, anxiety, joy.
I think the graces are a bit like that.
And they all have to work together to create 1 normal
human being and we need to be 1 normal human church.
(44:51):
So I think all them graces make one and we might excel in one.
I don't know if I totally agree with mine, but I'm on the The
Friendship Evangelist. Like, yeah, there you go.
Fantastic. Thank you.
Thank you for that. Just right at the back.
Right at the back. Yeah.
(45:13):
And to be honest, friendship evangelism, it is evangelism.
So maybe, maybe something you didn't know and you've spoke
really well in public right now.So.
So maybe maybe it needs to be unlocked that you didn't know.
So no, OK. Hi, I'm John, Mark, I'm a
(45:34):
minister and a healthcare chaplain.
I just wanted to jump in on the listening.
We've we've got to listen to people, we've got to build those
bridges. But the thing that I would just
wanted to, to add to that is that I could walk into a Bay of
6 patients and you've got to be praying you've, you've got to be
saying, God help me, just give me something to do.
(45:56):
I was going over to a fella about three months ago and as
I'm walking to the last, the last bed in the Bay, God said,
just shut up, John Mark, just shut up.
And I'm with him for 40 minutes.He's given me a life story from
the 1930s and the Holy Spirit said just be quiet.
I was a teacher for 20 years. Wind me up.
(46:17):
I go for an hour. It's just I'm programmed for it.
But God said be quiet. And I'm thinking, God, what you
doing here? I get to the end of 40 minutes,
He looks at me square in the face and he goes, can I have the
peace that you've got? I think the most important thing
that we should do as evangelistsis bring the Holy Spirit with us
everywhere that we go and, and just listen to him because he
(46:40):
takes us on the adventure. I didn't even have to open my
mouth for that fellow to ask to know Jesus.
I just had to do what the Holy Spirit told me to do.
Keep praying. Keep living with Jesus.
Amen, Amen. That's.
Great. Just maybe we take the last two.
Just one. Yeah, Yeah, just the last two.
(47:00):
Yeah. Thank you, I guess.
You're fixed, you're closer. I just want to encourage you,
you said about friendship evangelism.
And I think it's actually reallyimportant we're starting to do
more of that at our church and encouraging everybody because
evangelism can seem quite scary to some people.
But friendship evangelism is so important to sort of branch out
of our Christian bubble and findnon Christian people to make
(47:23):
bonds and make friends with. They start to trust you and then
they'll understand like you can start like you share your life,
you share your faith and then you share Jesus.
And that is evangelism. It's just a different form.
I don't know if this is typical,but you know how the idea isn't
(47:45):
fully formed in your head, But I'm like, oh, I think I need to
see this. So is that is that just me?
OK, good. So I was just thinking that I
know it seems as though evangelism is this very selfless
thing, you know, oh, we're goingout and speaking to people.
But I realize, I mean, for me personally, I think it's, I
think it's a walk. I think God is working in my
life to look beyond myself. I think we can be be incredibly
(48:06):
selfish or self absorbed with everything that's going on in
your life and oh, we need to do this and we need to do that or
this, this needs to be done in this way and this is what we
need to do. And you're so focused on self in
some way. I mean, it seems like the it's
something good that you're working towards, but it's still
very self motivated. So even hearing what I think
Mark said just now that allowingGod say, you know, let go, let
(48:29):
God, not to be cliche, but let go, let God and let God actually
say, what do you, what let's sayto God, what do you want me to
do? What would you have me do in
this environment? I just, let's say I just moved
here and I'm thinking about, oh,I want to do my house up pretty
and I want to do this and that. But God, why am I here?
Why did you allow me come here? And less about what I'm thinking
and all caught up in my big plans and ideas and more about
(48:52):
how would you have me minister? So I think it's an incredibly
humbling journey and one that I'm kind of getting used to, I
suppose. So thank you.
Good. Thank you.
Is it a quick one? Just a quick one.
Yeah, just sorry. I was at Spring Harvest the
other week and Bear Grylls mentioned what Francis Assisi
said. Preach the Gospel at all times
(49:14):
and use words if necessary. Yeah.
Words are necessary, I feel like. 100 percent, 100%.
But just like I think all of youguys would want to say
something, but we have to kind of finish soon because we're
going to have a break. But at 11:30, there's another
session in the auditorium that Ijust wanted to make sure that
(49:37):
you guys are aware of 1115, Sorry, apologies, 11/15 at the
auditorium. I weren't listening, but, but
just just to finish off, just like I think the greatest
example is Jesus. He not only spoke, but he
(49:57):
actually listened. I think he did more listening
because listening allows you to ask the right questions to lead
them to Jesus. And so I think, you know, we
need to be Jesus, we need to be Philip, and we need to do the
work of an evangelist like Timothy.
And I just pray. My prayer is, and we'll pray and
we release. That's what I'm supposed to do,
(50:18):
right. And then you.
Oh, no, you. Yeah, yeah.
We'll miss that bit, isn't it? My prayer is this is that we go
back to our church and we implement a, a strategy that's
connected to the local church sothat what you do brings maturity
to the body of Christ. And so it's talking with your
(50:41):
leaders, sitting down with your pastor, or if you are the
pastor, setting up an evangelistic team.
And, you know, one of the thingsthat Sarah said I think is
fantastic and which we're starting to implement is
sometimes you need that grace tobe coming into your house so
that it can unlock the, the evangelistic grace in your
house. So there are evangelists that
(51:01):
are actually in your church who just needs another mature
evangelist to come, maybe lay hands and just unlock that, you
know, so get the evangelistic team in, you know, Gary Gibson
does stuff as well. So get them in so it can unlock
the evangelist in your church sothat you're not the, you're not
the only evangelist in your church there.
(51:22):
There is actually a group of them, sometimes it's like
they're hiding in The Cave. So you need to go and get them
out, you know, and, and, and I pray that's what would happen
after these sessions is that youwill have a strong, flourishing
evangelistic team bringing people in into the Kingdom of
God. And and get those people
connecting with the evangelism community.
(51:42):
And one thing we're doing as well is leading, I'm leading
evangelistic teams across the UK.
So get them hooked into that stuff as well.
Come and see Mark on the stand. And because we need some
evangelists, right to go and come and out and do this stuff.
Keith, somebody asked if we could just put the slide on with
the different roles. Is that is that right?
Yeah, different roles like within the.
(52:05):
That's it. Yeah, yeah.
Just so they can take a picture the book.
Is by Alan Nurse as well, so there's more actually, I'll just
fit. These ones in Yeah, great.
Our time is done. Thank you so much for
participating and being with us.
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