“For I am not ashamed of the gospel, for it is the power of God for salvation to everyone who believes.” – Romans 1:16

“The fruit of the righteous is a tree of life and whoever wins souls is wise.” – Proverbs 11:30

ONE OF THE many aspects the Church is in desperate need of today is not a new method or approach to evangelism, but a restoration of the ways of God that governs and steers her course. Men and women proved God generations ago; we only talk about what they encountered. The fact that many look to new waves of reaching the world gives evidence to the lack of one’s personal experience and of proving what has been the dynamic foundational, authoritative and successful principles of the early Church.

During the past half-century, a spiritual dry rot has gradually crept into the Church. Dry rot results in traditionalism – things done because they have been the routine. It is altogether different from tradition. Tradition is good if the results produce life. Traditionalism is when things are done mechanically; the will divorced from emotions. People locked in traditionalism answer as to why they do such things because it has been the done thing for years – whether it be a family tradition, a church tradition; it has carried on without question and the understanding of the implications behind them. I have heard many believers, for example, fiercely and ignorantly defend the King James Bible as being the only accurate translation while lacking an appropriate understanding of its history, not to mention a few of its discrepancies. Their ignorant insistence is as ludicrous as a jury giving the verdict prior to the facts and evidence presented in the courtroom.

We should all be settled and convinced, not because others believe it per se, but more so because we, individually, know a thing to be true ourselves. That is conviction and being fully persuaded in what we believe.

Many naively believe that the language of the King James Version is the nearest to how Jesus actually spoke, but the facts are plain that our Saviour did not speak in Shakespearian language; that is our Old English cultured society. How on earth are we to reach a society that never even studied Shakespeare in school? Martyn Lloyd-Jones advised a number of bible college students against imitating the Puritans, in the sense of how they spoke and conducted their mannerisms; the whole thing looked ridiculous and unreal amidst a 20^th Century. Nevertheless, he encouraged them to simulate their fervent spirit and zeal for the Lord – that is a whole different matter!

Following the mode rather than capturing the spirit is one of the largest contributions to dulling the church and if what I am saying is wrong, then why are many churches in Wales and England closing down and being converted to restaurants, apartments and mosques? Why is church attendance at low ebb? How is it that evangelicalism in America is no longer what it used be? Why has liberalism become the sweeping vogue, where the very tenets of our Biblical faith are continually being undermined and watered down and to where everyone’s faith is interpretable to their own preferences and likings? Why is the Church at large, in our westernised cultures, hardly distinguishable from the world? The world may flood the many mega-churches, returning week by week, but souls returning without repentance find no true rest (salvation) in God (Isaiah 30:15). And the reason why repentance is lacking is because none are made aware of their sin, but rather built up in their self-worth; none hear the gospel of Jesus Christ because ‘leaders’ are too afraid to lose numbers – and that would entail an insurmountable loss of money.

To some degree, it is understandable as to why there are many who desperately want to reform the Church by doing away with the old and bring in the new. A sour taste is left in the mouths of many believers that many dead churches have left behind and the reaction has been to strip the appalling status quo the world stigmatises Christianity with. Long and dry sermons have become an anathema to the new sweeping influences of modern evangelism; hymns have been axed as lifeless and irrelevant; pews have been replaced with loungers; prayer has been reformed as ‘hanging out’ with God; entertainment spares the people from a tentativeness to expository preaching. All this, supposedly, springs from a desire to ‘reform’ and ‘radicalise’ the Christian message.

Attempts at church reform without being truly reborn will result in nothing but deform. Being radical does not always imply a Biblically balanced spirituality. Atheists as well as religious-cult adherents can also be radical in their reforms – and we all know too well the havoc that is often wreaked by the latter group.

A Biblical reformation certainly means going back to the foundations of our faith – to the blue print of the New Testament Church, but being radical does not mean we tear up the foundations and ‘start anew’ – “For no one can lay a foundation other than that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ” (1 Corinthians 3:11). Christ said to the church at Ephesus – which is just as applicable to our era: “Remember therefore from where you have fallen; repent, and do the works you did at first…” (Revelation 2:5).

While the emerging church surfaces in reaction to the dry, rigid and lifeless denominations, is it not questionable in regards to their ‘radical’ approach to evangelise a lost world? Whose ideas and directions are really being launched? Is more attention given as to how one should reach rather than what one proclaims to unbelievers? In a revolt against religious traditionalism and the negative aftermaths, is it justifiable to speak as the world in order to ‘win’ it? Is it justifiable to dress and act like the world in order to make it more comfortable and susceptible to the gospel message? Any attempt to cause and create spiritual reformation without the initial move of God is a man-made manufactured agenda. It is not the message that needs to change; neither is it how we approach people with the message that needs to change; our hearts need to be changed. We are not to imitate the world in order to make the gospel more appealing; we have to move nearer to God and His ways. There is only one way to be radical as Christians and that’s absolute loyalty to Christ – not to our methods of evangelism. We do not need ‘lessons’ in evangelism if we are walking right with God. If our walk is right, our talk will follow in like manner. Man’s training has become a substitute for the power of God. If God is real in our lives, we will effectively communicate that Reality to those we endeavour to reach, as a pastor once said, “Our conscious communion with God inevitably results in an unconscious communication of Him.” And that communication is effused with the power of God; that is the heavenly persuasiveness that strikes the heart of man. It is the power of the message that gives boldness to our proclamation. No wonder Paul said, “I am not ashamed of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, for it is the power of God unto salvation.”

Endeavouring to be ‘cool’, relevant and ‘talking the talk’ to attract the world is a denial of the power of the gospel. That is not confidence in the power of God. It wasn’t Paul’s persuasive power of speech that opened up the heart of people to understand the way of salvation; his speech was not that impressive – to a philosophical orator’s standard; his bodily presence was weak and was looked upon with contempt, but the message He proclaimed was Christ and he was all the more glad to rest (boast) in his limitations so that the power of Christ would be manifested. Paul could have worked on improving himself to be a sound rhetorician, but in whose eyes would he have been a success?

Aiden Wilson Tozer had anything other than an appealing voice when he preached, but his message was dynamised with the presence of God. There are great learned leaders today who speak eloquently – and I’m not belittling eloquence – they have a natural charisma (and believe me, if that is not harnessed by God, will wield great self-destruction and on others too) but they don’t have what Tozer had. Most leaders today only have literacy; Tozer had spirituality. There are leaders that stir your intellect and there are others, after having been with them, deeply impress your soul with an insatiable thirst to seek and know God. That is a leader; that is a shepherd and in God’s name we need such alike today!

During our mission to Romania, in the early 1990’s, one main noticeable attribute among the people was a deep hunger for God. Notorious for financial impoverishment and obscure leaders (real servant leaders), they spiritually prospered in God. They preached Christ; they exalted Christ through proclaiming Him and Him alone. Our leaders came back with the report of God making Himself known powerfully in the meetings; souls were soundly saved and the churches increased numerically. The Romanians had no interest for the prosperity gospel or for fame; they saw through it for what it was. They wanted Christ or nothing! There was none of this modern paraphernalia of entertainment needed; they had God and that was everything to them!

Modern evangelism may win converts; it may sway crowds and gain a huge following, but to who and what cause are they really converted to? Many will say, “If God has used it, why dispute it?” God can use anything and there have been situations that are the exception to the rule, but that doesn’t justify the means. We are called to be good stewards of the gospel and to guard safely what has been delivered unto us. We quickly forget that God will call EVERY one of us to account for the spiritual gifts and talents given to us. What an embarrassment to the Church of Jesus Christ for having such an attitude when those such as David Brainerd, George Whitefield, John Wesley, Hudson Taylor, C.T. Studd and Jim Elliot pushed their health to extreme limits, literally risked and some having lost their lives, to take the true gospel out to the heathen in a God-glorifying way.

We must not change the message, detract or add to it; we must not tone it down to make it more relevant to society, but we are to declare the whole counsel of God and if we’re not liked and if people oppose us because our faith (led by the Holy Spirit) offends a multi-cultural, diverse and politically-correct society, then let it be. If we are living as New Testament Christians, the world is not going to get along too good with us. Indeed, the godly Christian is to expect persecution. Of course, there are ‘Christians’ who make unnecessary fools of themselves and bring unwarranted disrepute to authentic Christianity; we are not to antagonise the world like some ‘Christians’ who go out of their way to stir trouble. If as much enthusiasm and energy was channelled into fulfilling the Great Commission as there is in Christians campaigning and protesting against the government, the world would be a different place today. New Testament Christianity changed the world from the inside-out; contemporary Christianity vainly attempts to change it from the outside-in.

There’s only one way to reach the lost and that’s with a pure heart – set apart from the world – continually conforming to the image of Jesus Christ. The fruit of the righteous is likened to a tree of life and it’s our abiding in Christ that makes us effective witnesses for Him – “He who believes in Me, out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water” (John 7:37). That flow of life will have impact on others. Effective evangelism is the inevitable overflow of one’s dynamic relationship to God; if God has won your heart, you will win souls. If you’re rightly related to God, you will rightly relate to others. Trying to adopt the world’s culture in order to reach it is a spiritual vandalism of Biblical evangelism; it’s a desecration, not a consecration to doing it God’s way and the only results of such efforts will be a stillborn Christianity; souls inside the Church while remaining outside of Christ and dead in sin.