In The Eye of the Storm

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                         Part II              Printer Friendly
The Second Phase of the Church
Corporate Relationship Concept

Chapter 7E

God Gives Leadership Gifts
to Equip the Saints

Evangelist

Earlier, we compared the evangelist to a salesperson or travel agent for a ship's voyage. An evangelist is a person who persuades people to come aboard the ship (enter the kingdom of God). The evangelist his a great commission to go into all the world and make disciples. In recent times, evangelists have done an excellent job of presenting the gospel. With today's technology and the mass media, the gospel of the kingdom can be preached easily by evangelists, even to far-flung parts of the world.

One-On-One Evangelists

     There are basically two kinds of evangelists. Those who go out and minister one-on-one and those who go out to conduct evangelistic crusades. A one-on-one evangelist has the unique gifting of going out into the streets or house to house to talk to individuals about their heart's condition. It is quite obvious when the Spirit of God flows through such an evangelist, because he immediately captures the attention of his listeners, and people's lives are changed forever.

      An example from scripture of this kind of evangelist is Philip. In Acts 8, we read that Philip was told by an angel of the Lord to travel on a desert road. While on this road, Philip saw an Ethiopian eunuch reading scripture from the prophet Isaiah. The Holy Spirit led Philip to run up to the eunuch's chariot and ask him if he understood what he was reading. The eunuch admitted he did not.

     Philip presented Jesus to the eunuch, and he immediately fell under the convicting power of the gospel. They happened to go by some water; the eunuch asked to be baptized, and then went on his way praising and glorifying God. In this instance, Philip, as a one-on-one evangelist, (he also preached the gospel city to city—Acts 8:40), had a very simple approach to evangelism^—God's Spirit nudged him to tell of the glorious good news of Jesus, and he saw the results as an individual responded to God's love.

An Evangelist Who Holds Evangelistic Crusades

     Another kind of evangelist is one who organizes large or small evangelistic crusades. This evangelist preaches the gospel to hundreds or thousands of people who respond in great waves to the message of salvation.

     The dynamics of holding these kind of city-wide crusades is that the message of the gospel reaches out in a broad and marvelous way to many, many people. Signs, wonders and miracles often follow such an evangelist (Acts 8:6-13). In addition, this evangelist often has great success and anointing when he works alongside musicians or worship leaders, because the two complement each other in their ministries.

      Because he has an itinerant type of ministry, the evangelist needs to move from house to house or congregation to congregation. God does not want an evangelist to be restricted, because he is called to the world. However, an evangelist cannot be a Lone Ranger, running loose and free. He especially needs to cooperate with church apostles so that they can transfer responsibility to teachers, pastors and bishops who can accomplish their jobs through utilizing home fellowships to do the work of ministry. In this way, everyone flows in their job descriptions and anointings.

The Nature of An Evangelist

      It is the nature of an evangelist to move rapidly and change plans quickly, and sometimes people working with him get hurt because they try to do everything to please the evangelist, but to no avail—the evangelist is again changing and looking for new ways to bring souls into the kingdom.

      Evangelists are usually quite aggressive, forward, and have very little patience for people not ready to move ahead at a moment's notice. Peter, as an evangelist-type, made strong statements but had problems living up to them. Jesus had to teach him a lesson with a rooster so that Peter would learn to walk with Him more faithfully.

He Should Not Be the Primary Leader of a Church

     The job of an evangelist is to bring in the lost. Evangelists need to be mobile as they move out into the world, bringing people to Jesus. It is a mistake for people called and anointed as evangelists to establish a church and remain as its primary leader. Sometimes an evangelist begins a new church with the people who have come to the Lord through his ministry, but after six months to a year, he should hand leadership over to those anointed as overseers for the church.

     Because the Holy Spirit moves through an evangelist's charismatic and strong personality, his work becomes the center of attention in church activities. If he is the primary leader, new Christians tend to idolize the evangelist's personality, bringing idolatry to the church.

     Also, because an evangelist is quite zealous for evangelism, as a primary leader of a church, he would make evangelism a priority and overlook other areas of need. An evangelist misplaced in an overseer's role is not operating in his God-given anointing and often loses patience with others who do not have his motivation to win souls for Jesus.

     People in a church led by an evangelist who do not themselves have an evangelist's motivation, become discouraged and leave because they feel guilty for not evangelizing on a full-scale basis. Of course, all believers need to be prepared to share their faith with unbelievers whenever they have the opportunity. However, not everyone has the gift of an evangelist.

     So under the direction of the Holy Spirit, the evangelist should move on after his initial evangelistic work is finished. To keep an evangelist as the primary leader of a church spells spiritual disaster. Whole churches have failed because their primary leader was an evangelist rather than an overseer—it has been a critical problem in the church.

     An overseer must work with a well-rounded group of elders (including apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists). This is God's plan for solving the problem of lopsided church government.

Ministry of Evangelist Must Be Followed Up

     If an evangelist pushes ahead and does not have the backing of others in the body of Christ (pastors, teachers, and others who can help disciple the new believers) he is like a salesman who sells too many products and cannot deliver all of the, resulting in unhappy customers. Likewise, an evangelist, who brings people into God's kingdom without appropriate follow-up to get the people grounded in the Word and spiritually nurtured in a spiritual family cell setting or large corporate church setting, will find that he has many unhappy customers.

      It is a serious thing to "offend one of the little ones" according to God's Word. If an evangelist shares the love of Jesus with someone and he accepts this love, it would be a grave offense to lose the young believer because there is no follow-up available. That is why it is so important that the evangelist works hand in hand with others in the body of Christ so the "little ones" do not get lost.

      But what if there are no churches to train new Christians in their local area? In Russia, there are so many young people coming to the Lord and so few churches in which to be nurtured and trained. In some cases, I have seen evangelists holding crusades and immediately training new Christians to start cell groups, with great success.

     I know of even teenagers who have started as high as 10 home fellowships in their home town. The need is great, and God is providing a way, through home fellowships, to take care of the incoming harvest. God is raising up leaders within these small groups who will be apostles, prophets, teachers, pastors, and evangelists; God's kingdom marches on!

     In conclusion, when an evangelist is given the freedom to evangelize (to plant the seed) and move from place to place as the Holy Spirit directs, he can flow with the apostles, prophets, teachers and pastors and trust them to water the seed that was planted.

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