Outreach and evangelism are difficult to accomplish with actions alone. Read on to learn why using words and speaking the gospel message are vital for missions.
“Use your words.” All parents (with children older than 2 or 3) know that phrase well. Small children just learning to talk sometimes get frustrated or excited. So they use grunts, groans, screams, whimpers, or hand motions to try to tell us something.
That’s when we use the classic parenting phrase, “Use your words.” As parents who love our children, we want to help move them from immaturity to maturity. And part of that process is getting them to articulate what they’re feeling or thinking. To truly grow, kids must learn how to use their words in the communication process.
What’s true in parenting is also true in evangelism. If we really want to mature in our outreach effectiveness, we must use our words.
I once had an awkward conversation in a church fellowship hall. A woman told me she never really articulated the gospel with her neighbors. Instead, she simply let them see Christ in her. She had no intention and felt no obligation to try to share the gospel message verbally. So I explained to her that evangelism requires words.
Outreach and Evangelism: A Closer Look
Evangelize comes from the Greek euaggelízo. It simply means to verbally declare good news. Even the dictionary defines evangelism as “the spreading of the Christian gospel by public preaching or personal witness.”
Of course we want to live out the message. Yes, we want to build loving, relational bridges with people around us. We must let our little lights shine with the way that we live.
But without words, we aren’t sharing the message that can save people from a hopeless life and Christ-less eternity. Outreach and evangelism must involve talking about the gospel. As Romans 10:14 reminds us:
“How, then, can they call on the one they have not believed in? And how can they believe in the one of whom they have not heard? And how can they hear without someone preaching to them?“
Over the years, I’ve heard plenty of excuses for not verbally declaring the gospel to someone:
- “Post-moderns don’t respond to propositional assertions.”
- “That’s not my style.”
- “If I really live the gospel, then at some point people will ask me what I believe.”
Beyond the excuses lurks the real reason for their gospel silence: fear and shame.
