week 8 vision paper

Evangelism Vision Paper

Presented to Dr. David Wheeler

in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the completion of

Evan 525-B02

Contemporary Evangelism

by

Felcie Lewis

October 16, 2018

What I Learned

One of the main things I learned about evangelism that has changed the way I perceive it, and challenged my thinking is the fact that evangelism is not just telling people about Jesus Christ with your mouth, it must be lived out in the believer’s every day life. “Acts 1:8 gives the famous last words of Jesus when He told His followers, “You shall be my witnesses” (NASB). Note that His last command was to be witnesses, not merely do witnessing. Doing witnessing without being a witness tends to treat lost people as projects instead of friends.”[footnoteRef:1] This was a great challenge to my thinking because I had always been taught to just go out into the world and spread the gospel with my mouth. Once I told anybody about the gospel of Jesus Christ, I thought I had fulfilled the “Great Commission,” and all I had to do was to continue telling people the rest of my life. I never thought that my lifestyle was the biggest part of spreading the gospel. Since I got saved, June 1, 1992, my lifestyle has always been conformity with the Word of God, but I never linked the two together before taking this course. This course has been the greatest blessing to me. All the mentors that I had before, had stressed the importance of living a Holy lifestyle, so that part was there, but I was never told before that my lifestyle was preaching the gospel to the world, more than what I was saying. “Servant Evangelism involves intentionally sharing Christ by modeling biblical servanthood. It offers the simplest, most transferable, and yes, most fun approach for moving believers closer to a biblical lifestyle marked by a consistent witnessing.”[footnoteRef:2] Now that I know that the way I live or my lifestyle is proclaiming the gospel, I have been more inspired to live beyond reproach. [1: Dave Earley and David Wheeler, Evangelism is: How to Share Jesus with Passion and. Confidence, Nashville, Tennessee, B & H Publishing Group, 2010,184. ] [2: Alvin L. Reid and David A. Wheeler, Servant Evangelism: Showing and Sharing the Good News, Gospel Advance Books, 2013, 7. ]

My thinking was really challenged when I realized, through this course, that evangelism is a spiritual warfare, and I am truly a soldier in the mighty army of God. My thinking of just proclaiming the gospel and not living it out through servanthood was a great challenge. Going the extra mile to share the gospel with the lost while under spiritual or demonic attack, was never considered, by me, to be a possible success until I learned it through this class. Now, I know it is a life and death situation, and a battle that Jesus has already won when he died on the cross for the sins of the world. “Never underestimate the intensity of spiritual warfare. Remember, Paul was already jailed because of this warfare (Eph. 6:20) and would eventually be executed because of it. People will live and die as a result of how we wage warfare. Eternal destinies are impacted by how we fight.”[footnoteRef:3] [3: Dave Earley, Class Article, This is War! ]

Another thing that I learned was that fear was preventing me from sharing Jesus Christ. I was so afraid of failing or not doing it right or being laughed at or being the butt of someone’s joke, that I simply did not share the gospel at all unless I was approached first. I did not have any confidence or a good method to boldly and intentionally share the gospel. I used to never share Jesus unless I was asked about something concerning him, even then I was uncertain and afraid of what to say or do next. Now, after taking this course, I have truly learned how to share Jesus without fear, for real, as a matter of fact, I am looking forward to it, and enjoying the process. Through all the resources that our professor (David Wheeler) has given us, especially the textbook by William Fay and Linda Shepherd, “Share Jesus Without Fear,” has turned my life completely around, because I am going out looking for opportunities to tell somebody about Jesus. From the book and class videos, I have learned to make a “Share Bible,” and label it at the top of the page with the directions of where to go next. This was so awesome when I shared the gospel with a lady at the local community store who was waiting for her daughter. I was so confident doing it because the “Share Bible” that I was using was marked and told me where to go next, and my notes to remind me to ask her to read this out loud. When I finished, and she accepted Jesus Christ into her heart, the joy I felt was unbelievable. A person has to make a “Share Bible,” then share Jesus with someone and they accept Jesus into their heart, to be able to understand the joy and the power of the Holy Spirit’s presence for themselves, because it is impossible to express in words the joy that I felt. “Over the years I have found that evangelism brings me joy simply because God commanded it and obedience is always a joy producer. It also brings me joy because when I evangelize, I am making the name of Jesus famous. It especially brings joy when the person I share with says, “Yes.”[footnoteRef:4] The authors, Fay and Shepherd, have written this book so magnificently that it is hard to use it, being led by the Holy Spirit, and fail. A lot of great tools have been provided for us through our Professor Wheeler, and they are all needed, and they are all necessary, but I really favor this book, because it is like a road map. The class videos that was provided works well with this book to help the readers really understand. The videos explained the steps in the book, so the class could have a visual learning experience. [4: Dave Earley and David Wheeler, Evangelism is: How to Share Jesus with Passion and. Confidence, Nashville, Tennessee, B & H Publishing Group, 2010, 8. ]

When it comes to worshipping God, my thinking was challenged to learn that as I was worshipping God, He was cultivating and nurturing my relationship with Him. I never thought such benefits were in worship, no one had ever explained it to me from this perspective. “We give our worship to God. In response, God nurtures, develops, and cultivates the relationship we have with Him. In this sense, we experience both the transcendence and immanence of our Holy God.”[footnoteRef:5] I have learned that the more time I spend with God in worship, the more I become like Him. This really challenged my thinking because I was told to worship God because of who He is, the Great I Am, Sovereign and Holy God. No one had ever told me the benefits that I received as I worship him in spirit and in truth, with my praise and my lifestyle together. “As we spend time with Him in worship, He increases our desire to worship. As He increases that desire, we worship more deeply and sincerely. God uses our worship to shape us and form us into His likeness.”[footnoteRef:6] My thinking was also challenged when I learned that worship and evangelism must be intentional because they go hand in hand to bring glory to his name. All believers must be obedient to the “Great Commission,” which involves both worship and evangelism. The believer is worshiping God with “obedience” and “proclamation” of the gospel. “If we are going to experience the kind of favor from the Lord these early Christians enjoyed, our worship of God and labor of evangelism must be done with one intentional purpose—to glorify God. We must be preoccupied with God. Our worship habits, work ethic, evangelistic endeavors, and kingdom building must begin with deliberate, planned, premeditated intention.”[footnoteRef:7] [5: David Wheeler, and Vernon M. Whaley, The Great Commission to Worship: Biblical Principles For Worship-Based Evangelism, Nashville, Tennessee, B & H Publishing Group, 2011, 62-3. ] [6: Ibid. 63.] [7: Ibid. 192.]

My Vision

The vision I have for integrating evangelism into my lifestyle is to first be led by the Holy Spirit, live it out, then go out and intentionally share the gospel at every opportunity that God gives me. This has never been my vision for my ministry before taking this class. I was content to study my Sunday school lesson and teach it to the best of my ability on Sunday mornings. Now I know that God has called me to do so much more than that. When I am shopping, I will be listening, looking and praying for the Holy Spirit to direct me to someone who need to hear the gospel and be saved. I will have the same attitude and intentions when I am doing anything publicly, like putting gas in my car, jogging, working outside, at hospitals or nursing homes. Wherever I am, from now on, I will enjoy sharing the gospel with the lost. My personal vision is to start deliberately going to the hospitals and nursing homes to intentionally share the gospel, as well as doing physical work to help the elderly people and the people with disabilities. I am going to be a servant evangelist and get my hands dirty. Not just talking, that is the way I use to think and do. Now I am going to put the actions with the words and spread the love of God to a lost and dying world, even when it gets messy.

To fulfil this vision, I will have to change all my daily routines. Normally, I wake up, pray, read the Bible, have a devotion with God, then take a shower and change my clothes, have coffee, then study my school work. To see my vision come to past, I will change my schedule to include at least two hours per week to start, to go to the hospitals and nursing homes. This way I can get my hands dirty if necessary and spread the gospel at the same time, because there is a good chance I will run into people with bad attitudes, being sick and in homes. I will rotate where I go, sometimes I will use my couple of hours to stay in my community and minister there. I will mix it up so that it will continue to be joyfully intoxicating and successful at the same time. This new ministry will not affect my family at all, because I live alone, and the only person it will affect is me. Therefore, I will intentionally come out of my comfort zone, use my “Share Bible,” and my hands and feet, be obedient to the Great Commission, and spread the gospel of Jesus Christ. “You see, success is sharing your faith and living your life for Jesus Christ. It has nothing whatsoever to do with bringing anyone to the Lord. It has everything to do with obedience.”[footnoteRef:8] Knowing that it is my obedience that God wants, really motivate me to joyfully fulfill the “Great Commission.” Never have I intentionally left home to go any place to share the gospel. Through and by the power of the Holy Spirit, I will be able to intentionally accomplish this by changing my daily schedule. My schedule, I am ashamed to say, use to be all about me. What I wanted to do, instead of asking God each day, what did He want me to do. This is how I will make evangelism a part of my ministry and daily life. I cannot explain to you why I have never thought about evangelism this way before taking this class, but now that I have learned, and received all these resources, I will change my way of thinking and my daily living schedule. Now I know that I must depend solely and completely on the Holy Spirit to be successful. “In many ways we try to fix ourselves, but to no avail. Only the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives can thrust us toward real transformation and Great Commission worship.”[footnoteRef:9] [8: William Fay and Linda Evans Shepherd, Share Jesus Without Fear, Nashville, Tennessee, B & H Publishing Group, 1999, 3. ] [9: David Wheeler and Vernon M. Whaley, Worship and Witness: Becoming A Great Commission Worshiper, Nashville, Tennessee, Lifeway Press, 2012, 39. ]

In my future ministry, I envision evangelism as the core of everything I will ever do for Christ Jesus. I have known for years that God had called me to teach His Holy Word, but I could only see me teaching it in my adult Sunday school class. Now I can see me teaching it to the whole wide world through a television ministry. I know that God will complete the great work that He has began in me (Phil. 1:6). Through and by the help of the Holy Spirit, I will become a “Great Commission Worshiper. Progressively, I am going to pray for a television ministry for teaching God’s Word. This way, I can be used by God to reach people in places that I may never be able to go. I have a vision of going all over the world in a yacht, docking wherever the Holy Spirit lead me to be His hands, feet and mouthpiece. I know that these visions are going to come to past in my life because they are my deepest desires that God has put in me many, many years ago. Taking this course was no coincidence, the Holy Spirit deliberately set this up because of where He is taking me. Getting these degrees were no coincidence either, because God will be able to use me at any place and at any time. I have visions of being used by God at the White House. My visions of my future are big and impossible visions. The kind that only the True and the Living God can bring to past, like my name, Felcie Young Lewis, being a household word, worldwide (Eph. 3:20).

Bibliography

Earley, Dave. Class Article. This is War!

Earley, Dave and David Wheeler. Evangelism is: How to Share Jesus with Passion and.

Confidence. Nashville, Tennessee. B & H Publishing Group. 2010.

Fay, William and Linda Evans Shepherd. Share Jesus Without Fear. Nashville, Tennessee.

B & H Publishing Group. 1999.

Reid, Alvin L. and David A. Wheeler. Servant Evangelism: Showing and Sharing the Good

News. Gospel Advance Books. 2013.

Wheeler, David, and Vernon M. Whaley. The Great Commission to Worship: Biblical Principles

For Worship-Based Evangelism. Nashville, Tennessee. B & H Publishing Group. 2011.

Wheeler, David and Vernon M. Whaley. Worship and Witness: Becoming A Great Commission

Worshiper. Nashville, Tennessee. Lifeway Press. 2012.

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