W Is For Witness (2)

by | Mar 18, 2018 | What's Happening | 0 comments

So often, we feel evangelism (defined as ‘the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness’) is something difficult and best left to the ‘professionals’ like Billy Graham or Luis Palau. God has undoubtedly given some people the gift of evangelism (see Eph 4:11), but at the same time, Jesus gave the ‘Great Commission’ to all His followers (see Matt 28:18-20). Witnessing is not something to be feared, but is simply a sharing of our personal stories: what God has done for us and what He continues to do for us, how He helps us through life’s challenges and difficulties and blesses us in so many ways.

Rend Collective’s latest album is entitled ‘Good News’ (which is what the word ‘gospel’ or ‘evangel’ actually means.) Their video ‘The Good News Story’ summarises the gospel in 4 minutes; their song ‘Rescuer’ does the same job in about the same amount of time!

‘There is good news for the captivem
Good news for the shamed.
There is good news for the one who walked away.
There is good news for the doubterm
The one religion failedn
For the good Lord has come to seek and save.
He is beauty for the blind man,
Riches for the poor.
He is friendship for the one the world ignores.
He is pasture for the weary,
Rest for those who strivem
For the good Lord is the way, the truth, the life.
He’s our rescuer
He’s our rescuer
We are free from sin forever more
Oh how sweet the sound
Oh how grace abounds
We will praise the Lord, our rescuer.’ (‘Rescuer’, Rend Collective)
Glen Scrivener has managed to condense the gospel into 90 seconds (see here). All of these things – along with a host of other useful books – can be helpful to us in giving us the framework to talk about the gospel, but ultimately, the best resource we have are the gospels and book of Acts, as we see how Jesus interacted with people and how His disciples were transformed into effective witnesses who were not even daunted by persecution and dispersion! Finally, we have our own personal testimony, of what we have seen God do and how He has worked and continues to work in our lives. Evangelism is always personal; witness combines words and actions, living out our faith before those who will inevitably be curious, ask questions and wonder why we behave as we do. Peter tells us to ‘always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.’ (1 Pet 3:15) Good advice indeed!

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